Environmental Concerns Cause Grief for Shale Gas Production

Although ultimately supportive, my friends in the oil and gas industry couldn’t help but to throw in a snide remark about how I was joining the enemy or “the other side” when I told them I was quitting my reservoir engineering job to pursue a master’s degree in environmental engineering. This is because the oil and gas industry feels threatened by the goals of the environmentally friendly. Yes, environmental teams are in place within the companies to comply with the various environmental regulations that come with the work of the industry, but it must be difficult for oil companies to get excited about protecting the environment when it too often gets in the way of meeting their end goal…making money.

I say all of this as a preface to the main topic of this post: environmental regulation of shale gas production. According to a recent Scientific American article I read, the EPA is tackling rising concerns that hydraulic fracturing otherwise known as “fracing” of shale gas reservoirs can lead to drinking water contamination causing negative environmental and health impacts. Currently the specific chemicals and their amounts used for fracing is unreported, as it is more of a trial and error process much like cooking without a recipe, where the fracing fluid is concocted with a pinch of “this” and a pinch of “that” to fit the unique needs of the job at hand. Although not knowing precisely what makes up the mixture means nothing to the reservoir, it means a lot to those concerned with the potential environmental impacts.

Most shale gas reservoirs are referred to as tight gas reservoirs, which means the permeability of the rock is too low for the hydrocarbons to flow freely, thus, fracing is needed. A mixture of water, sand, and various chemicals at very high pressure are injected into the rock formation to create fractures or channels in the rock to allow for easier transport of the gas into the wellbore. See a video on fracing here.

Shale gas production has been referred to as “a game changer” for the oil and gas industry, believed to yield a substantial natural gas supply for upwards of 100 years. However, with the EPA’s investigation, the industry will face some challenges, making this perfect picture a little less rosy. If the EPA’s study were to find proof that fracing techniques have indeed contaminated drinking water supplies at dangerous levels, new policy could be put in place that requires fracing service companies to reduce the amounts of certain chemicals they inject into the reservoir as well as report the specific amount of chemicals used,  causing what might be a drastic change in the way shale gas drilling is implemented. This of course could hurt the profits of the oil and gas industry, making Big Oil very upset.

So, being a former employee of the oil and gas industry with a great appreciation for this type of work, I understand the frustration of those involved, but as a proponent of clean energy technologies, I feel what the EPA is doing is necessary as well as a good thing.

Carbon Sequestration : A U.S – China Collaboration for a Promising World Fate?

China, the world’s largest greenhouse gas producer, may have found the answer to dramatically decreasing their CO2 emissions: geologic carbon sequestration. This form of carbon storage captures CO2 from coal-burning power plants and other CO2 point sources that would have otherwise been emitted into the atmosphere and stores it deep within various geologic formations. Successful carbon sequestration within China would allow the country to continue cheap production and use of coal while addressing the overwhelming concerns of CO2 emissions. However, for a long while it was believed that China didn’t have the geologic means to store the carbon, and thus was not seriously considered as a viable option for reducing emissions. Fortunately, a recent study by the US Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory has countered those beliefs, revealing that China has the capacity to store roughly 3,000 gigatons of CO2 in various onshore and offshore formations across the country, proving storage capabilities for at least a century [1]. Furthermore, the study showed that the potential reservoirs for carbon storage are all within a 100 mile range of 90% of the power plants and industrial facilities of China that are prominent CO2 emission sources. This fact will keep extensive CO2 transport infrastructure from being built, saving the total cost of the project substantially [1].

This research has put in place a first-ever clean energy collaboration between the U.S. and China, which has now expanded to an extensive effort “to create various institutions and programs addressing a wide array of cooperation on clean-energy technologies and capacity building” [2]. This expansive collaboration includes the establishment of the U.S.-China Clean Energy Research Center, in which $150 million US dollars, provided by various public and private sectors, will be available to facilitate further research as mentioned above [2]. With the U.S. being the world’s second largest greenhouse emitter, this collaboration could mean great advances in the global reduction of CO2 emissions and a more promising clean energy future. Both President Jintao of China and President Obama are in agreement of the severity of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions and are committed to taking the essential steps to mitigating the problem.

From this, I feel a sense of encouragement that this dire issue will be addressed in the diligent manner in which it deserves and I look forward to the next several years, as I fully agree with the statement of Steven Chu, U.S. Secretary of Energy, “What the U.S. and China do over the next decade will determine the fate of the world.” Let’s just hope that what is done is something good…

[1] http://energyenvironment.pnl.gov/news/pdf/us_china_pnnl_flier.pdf

[2] http://www.grist.org/article/2009-11-17-u.s.-and-china-announce-positive-cooperative-and-comprehensive-p/