Bulletin of the American Physical Society
APS March Meeting 2013
Volume 58, Number 1
Monday–Friday, March 18–22, 2013; Baltimore, Maryland
Session F9: Invited Session: The Impact of Hydraulic Fracturing |
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Sponsoring Units: FPS GERA Chair: Richard Wiener, Research Corporation for Scientific Advancement Room: 308 |
Tuesday, March 19, 2013 8:00AM - 8:36AM |
F9.00001: The EPA's Study on the Potential Impacts of Hydraulic Fracturing on Drinking Water Resources Invited Speaker: Susan Sharkey Natural gas plays a key role in our nation's clean energy future. The United States has vast reserves of natural gas that are commercially viable as a result of advances in horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing technologies, which enable greater access to gas in rock formations deep underground. These advances have spurred a significant increase in the production of both natural gas and oil across the country. However, as the use of hydraulic fracturing has increased, so have concerns about its potential human health and environmental impacts, especially for drinking water. In response to public concern, the US Congress requested that the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) conduct scientific research to examine the relationship between hydraulic fracturing and drinking water resources. In 2011, the EPA began research to assess the potential impacts of hydraulic fracturing on drinking water resources, if any, and to identify the driving factors that may affect the severity and frequency of such impacts. The study is organized around the five stages of the hydraulic fracturing water cycle, from water acquisition through the mixing of chemicals and the injection of fracturing fluid to post-fracturing treatment and/or disposal of wastewater. EPA scientists are using a transdisciplinary research approach involving laboratory studies, computer modeling, toxicity assessments, and case studies to answer research questions associated with each stage of the water cycle. This talk will provide an overview of the EPA's study, including a description of the hydraulic fracturing water cycle and a summary of the ongoing research projects. [Preview Abstract] |
Tuesday, March 19, 2013 8:36AM - 9:12AM |
F9.00002: Induced Seismicity Potential of Energy Technologies Invited Speaker: Murray Hitzman Earthquakes attributable to human activities--``induced seismic events''--have received heightened public attention in the United States over the past several years. Upon request from the U.S. Congress and the Department of Energy, the National Research Council was asked to assemble a committee of experts to examine the scale, scope, and consequences of seismicity induced during fluid injection and withdrawal associated with geothermal energy development, oil and gas development, and carbon capture and storage (CCS). The committee's report, publicly released in June 2012, indicates that induced seismicity associated with fluid injection or withdrawal is caused in most cases by change in pore fluid pressure and/or change in stress in the subsurface in the presence of faults with specific properties and orientations and a critical state of stress in the rocks. The factor that appears to have the most direct consequence in regard to induced seismicity is the net fluid balance (total balance of fluid introduced into or removed from the subsurface). Energy technology projects that are designed to maintain a balance between the amount of fluid being injected and withdrawn, such as most oil and gas development projects, appear to produce fewer seismic events than projects that do not maintain fluid balance. Major findings from the study include: (1) as presently implemented, the process of hydraulic fracturing for shale gas recovery does not pose a high risk for inducing felt seismic events; (2) injection for disposal of waste water derived from energy technologies does pose some risk for induced seismicity, but very few events have been documented over the past several decades relative to the large number of disposal wells in operation; and (3) CCS, due to the large net volumes of injected fluids suggested for future large-scale carbon storage projects, may have potential for inducing larger seismic events. [Preview Abstract] |
Tuesday, March 19, 2013 9:12AM - 9:48AM |
F9.00003: Environmental Dimensions of Shale Gas Extraction and Stray Gas Migration Invited Speaker: Robert Jackson Shale gas extraction is growing rapidly in the United States and elsewhere, developed in part through advances in technologies such as horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing. Concerns over potential environmental impacts have accompanied the boom in natural gas extraction. For several years we have studied drinking water quality, asking the question, ``Is water quality different for homeowners living near natural gas wells?'' We have sampled shallow groundwater systems of \textgreater\ 300 homeowners, the majority of them in the Marcellus formation of Pennsylvania and New York, for brines, dissolved gases, and other attributes. We have also examined how much methane reaches the atmosphere during the extraction and distribution of natural gas. In a study published in May of 2011 (Osborn et al. 2011, PNAS 108:8172-8176), we found no evidence of increase salt concentrations or fracturing fluids with distance to gas wells for 68 sampled homes. However, dissolved methane concentrations were 17 times higher on average for water wells found within 1km distance of them. A subset of homeowners also had groundwater that indicated the presence of natural hydraulic connections to deeper formations, suggesting specific structural and hydrodynamic regimes where shallow drinking water resources might be at greater risk of contamination with fugitive gases during drilling and hydraulic fracturing of shale gas (Warner et al. 2012, PNAS 109:11961-11966). This presentation will discuss new results from shale gas sampling in 2011 and 2012. [Preview Abstract] |
Tuesday, March 19, 2013 9:48AM - 10:24AM |
F9.00004: The natural gas revolution -- Scale, cost and uncertainty Invited Speaker: Francis O'Sullivan Over the past decade, the natural gas industry landscape in North America has undergone tremendous change. The focus of exploration and production has shifted from ``conventional'' to ``unconventional'' resources, and in particular to shale formations. The fact that some shale formations contain significant volumes of gas-in-place has been known for as long as gas production has taken place -- these rocks have always been viewed as the source rock for conventional gas resources. What changed over the past decade is that it became possible to recover this gas directly from the source rock at economically attractive production rates. Horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing technologies were key to these developments. This presentation will describe how the unlocking of shale gas through horizontal drilling and fracturing has changed perspectives regarding the scale of the overall recoverable natural gas resource in the United States. The potential impact of shale gas on the global gas resource will also be described. The results of volumetric assessments of recoverable shale gas will be presented and the critical issue of uncertainty surrounding these estimates will be highlighted. The economics of shale gas relative to conventional resources in the United States will be described, and this will be compared with the economics of gas elsewhere in the world. In discussing the economics of shale gas, the very important issue of intra and inter-play well-to-well performance variability will be highlighted. The presentation will also describe some of the major environmental concerns that surround that shale gas production. The issue of water intensity in hydraulic fracturing operations will be examined, as will the concerns regarding surface and subsurface water contamination. The debate regarding the GHG footprint of hydraulic fracturing operations will be described and an assessment of ``potential'' and ``actual'' fugitive methane emissions from hydraulic fracturing operations in the major U.S. shale plays will be presented. [Preview Abstract] |
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