Fracking, or hydraulic fracturing, consists of the current water pumping processes in the soil in order to promote yield and create the pressure required for horizontal drilling techniques.
This practice requires millions of liters of water: for example shale wells require 3/7 million gallons per well (11 to 27 million liters).
In the vast majority of cases, this water must be brought to the wells by truck: 300 trucks can carry up to 4 million liters of water (about 1 million gallons). But already after the first use in the wells, the water recovered is highly corrosive because it has a high concentration of salt (from 7 to 10 times greater than sea water), other shale’s impurities plus the additives used for a variety of production reasons by oil companies. Beyond a certain threshold, water can no longer be re-used by further raising the costs of oil extraction due to the new supplies needed and the disposal of what has already been used.
Furthermore, environmental laws, which are increasingly restrictive, tend to pose more and more problems to the disposal of already saturated waters.
Cavitation can help avoiding the disposal of these waters as it can be treated directly on site, making them immediately suitable for re-use in the Fracking process. This can mean elimination of landfills and a 30 to 50% less use of new water for each well.
