Scientists Close to Testing Tracers for Drilling Fluid

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Controversy over whether hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, poses a threat to groundwater has spurred a group of scientists to try to make fracking fluid traceable — by injecting it with DNA. Read the full story at StateImpact Texas.

http://www.texastribune.org/2013/01/22/scientists-close-to-testing-tracers-for-drilling/?utm_source=texastribune.org&utm_medium=alerts&utm_campaign=News%20Alert:%20Subscriptions

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1. Well.... okay.

Not sure how the DNA is going to hold up to 5000 psi and temperatures exceeding 200 degrees. Not to mention the various solvents and harsh chemicals that tend to chew up DNA. Or that a plant-derivative is used in the fracking fluid.

If it works and regulatory agencies demand the use of this tracer, look for Lance Armstrong to be hired as a consultant to help the gas well drillers to learn how to mask the DNA in near-surface groundwater.

[DhhD]

2. My prediction is that transfer-RNA can stand up to a great deal of heat due to it disulfide bond.

RNA can be transcribed, thus constructed from opened up down the middle, DNA. (I could not get the story as the links would not open up for me.)

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3. Here is some more information

http://stateimpact.npr.org/texas/2013/01/22/scientists-close-to-testing-tracers-for-drilling-fluid/

Potential Evidence in Pollution Cases

There have been dozens of lawsuits filed nationwide alleging that the drilling technique called hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” has harmed the environment. But many have been tossed out of court.

Proving a definitive link between groundwater contamination and fracking — which injects millions of gallons of a solution of water, sand and chemicals deep into the ground — has been elusive in Texas. Just last week, a controversy heated up again over natural gas found in well water in North Texas. Some residents in Parker County had contended it was caused by drilling operations nearby.

At first, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency agreed. But state drilling regulators at the Texas Railroad Commission disagreed, saying that data indicated the natural gas was not from deeply drilled wells but from shallow deposits of gas that had supposedly been seeping into local well water for years.