From the American Chemical Society
How to avoid water wars between ‘fracking’ industry and residents
The shale gas boom has transformed the energy landscape in the U.S., but in some drier locations, it could cause conflict among the energy industry, residents and agricultural interests over already-scarce water resources, say researchers. They add that degraded water quality is a potential risk unless there are adequate safeguards. The feature article appears in the ACS journal Environmental Science & Technology.
Meagan S. Mauter and colleagues point out that a major criticism of extracting shale gas through hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” is that it requires tremendous amounts of water — 2.5 to 5 million gallons — to develop a single well. Water, along with chemicals and sand, is injected under high pressure into wells to create cracks, or fractures, in shale and release stored gas. In some water-rich places, such as Pennsylvania, this is not a significant problem. But in other locations, including some rural counties in arid south Texas, this level of water use competes with residential and agricultural needs and depletes groundwater resources. These and other types of region-specific scenarios are similar to what other states and countries could encounter when or if they also develop shale gas reserves. Mauter’s team looked at what practices could help maintain a balance between fracking and environmental and residential needs.
The researchers say that there are ways to minimize the industry’s water footprint. One method is to use brackish water that is not fit for drinking or agricultural use but can be suitable for fracking. The other method is to recycle the waste water. “Leadership from both industry and the U.S. government may be needed to assure that economic benefits of shale gas development are realized without significant regional impairment of water resource quantity and quality,” the authors conclude.
The American Chemical Society is a nonprofit organization chartered by the U.S. Congress. With more than 161,000 members, ACS is the world’s largest scientific society and a global leader in providing access to chemistry-related research through its multiple databases, peer-reviewed journals and scientific conferences. Its main offices are in Washington, D.C., and Columbus, Ohio.
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Warrick says:
April 24, 2014 at 3:12 pm
“I understand the supercritical fluid to frac better, but the CO2 will revert to a gas and come out again with the natural gas. How is this going to sequester CO2?”
Yes, good point, I suppose it depends what percentage of the CO2 is retained in the ground or if some of the CO2 is displacing the natural gas and retained.
I understand they are undertaking trials in October. Either way if you are not producing any more CO2 in the process and you are using less water, it may be a more efficient process.
Since agriculture uses so much water, let’s just ban farming altogether in North America … no wait. ☺
(Just kidding, but I swear this is on the minds of some eco weenies. After all, they can get their food from Whole Foods, so who needs farmin’?)
For those of you having some fun putting 5,000,000 gallons of water into perspective, some constants that might save you some time.
1 gallon of water = 8.34 pounds
1 cubic foot of water = 7.48 gallons
1 gallon of water = 4.785 liters
1 tank truck holds about 40,000 to 46,000 pounds.
I used 40,000 in my original flub but then multiplied instead of divided by 8.34.
(I know I’m not perfect but I do get tired of proving it so often.8-)