Fracking Creates Real Environmental Concerns - 1621 Words

Fourthly, fracking creates real environmental concerns (Lieberman, 2016). Fracking is a process that unearths large amounts of oil and natural gas. â€Å"During fracking, a mixture of water, sand, and chemicals are injected into a well at high pressures, fracturing rock far beneath the surface and releasing the gas trapped inside. The gas then flows up toward the surface and out of the head of a well.† One of the causes of concern are due to the huge amounts of water used in the process, which must usually be transported to remote locations. The chemicals used in the process create another area of concern as they could potentially contaminate underground water supplies. To make matters worse, â€Å"the fossil fuel industry has been reluctant to†¦show more content†¦Therefore, this issue affects more than just the power plants. However, it is something to consider when deciding when deciding to build a natural gas power plant or not. Summary The Fukushima disaster was caused by an earthquake and its following tsunami which caused a failure in the backup systems (World Nuclear Association, 2016). The tsunami knocked out the generators that powered the cooldown processes for three of the Fukushima power plants which caused the radiation leaks and other complications. Consequentially, the disaster was initially classified as a level 5 on the INES scale. Further investigation after the disaster was under control changed it to a level 7 disaster, the highest level on the INES scale. The estimated radioactive releases were about one tenth of Chernobyl, the worst nuclear disaster in history. Following the Fukushima disaster, the US and Japanese nuclear experts developed and began implementing countermeasures to future extreme disasters in order to prevent another disaster similar to Fukushima. These countermeasures included additional equipment, training, and the creation of two emergency response centers. The majority of these will be completed by 2016 and the remainder will be completely in place by 2019. Nuclear power plants have many advantages and disadvantages that must be weighed when comparing it to