Saturday, May 25, 2013

Water For Fracking In The Bakken

So, how much water is being released from the Garrison Dam today? Dynamic link here.

The answer: 20,000 cubic feet/second.

A cubic foot of water: 7 gallons.

So, in one second: 140,000 gallons of water released from the Garrison Dam today
In one minute: 8 million gallons of water released from the Garrison Dam today
In one hour: 500 million gallons of water released from the Garrison Dam today

Less then 4 million gallons of water are used to frack a well, but let's keep it simple:
500 million gallons / 5 million gallons = 100 wells

If I did the arithmetic correctly, enough water is released from the Garrison Dam each hour to frack 100 wells.

2,000 wells will be fracked this year. Less than a day's worth of discharge from the Garrison Dam should be enough water to frack all the wells that will be fracked in the North Dakota Bakken this year.

I apologize ahead of time if my calculations are incorrect; I will correct them if necessary.

2 comments:

  1. You conclusion is solid. I recalculated the numbers for you: http://outrunchange.com/2013/05/25/how-much-water-does-it-take-to-frack-all-the-wells-in-bakken-for-a-year-less-than-one-days-discharge-from-garrision-dam-2/

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    Replies
    1. I appreciate that. I often make mistakes when dealing with, what often seems, simple arithmetic. Thank you.

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