![]() These formations have been known about for decades, but did not yield enough gas justify the expense of drilling until the 21 st century, when horizontal drilling allowed for a much greater surface area of exposure to the shale formations. In Pennsylvania, unconventional wells are primarily drilled into two deep shale layers, the Devonian-aged Marcellus Shale, which is about 390 million years old, and the Utica Shale from the Late Ordovician period, which was deposited about 60 million years before the Marcellus. However, this increase in consumption has continued to grow on a per-well basis, so that wells drilled in recent years aren’t really in the same category as wells drilled a decade ago at the beginning of Pennsylvania’s unconventional boom. View map fullscreen | How FracTracker maps work This creates a slew of problems ranging from health impacts, to increased transportation, to disposal. ![]() While conventional wells are typically fracked with tens of thousands of gallons of fluid, their unconventional counterparts are far thirstier, consuming millions of gallons per well.Īnd of course, more inputs translate into more outputs - not necessarily in the form of gas, but in the form of toxic, radioactive waste. What really separates modern unconventional shale gas wells from the supposedly traditional, conventional wells is more a matter of scale than anything else. This is a glimpse into the unsustainable resource demands of this industry and the decreasing energy returned on investment.Īs fracking proponents will eagerly remind you, hydraulic fracturing was invented decades ago – back in 1947 – so the practice has been in use for quite a while. By 2019, that figure had increased 145%, consuming more than 14.3 million gallons per well. In 2013, these wells used an average of 5.8 million gallons per well. This article first appeared on 100 Days in Appalachia and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.Unconventional wells in Pennsylvania were always resource-intensive, but the maps below show how the amount of water used per well has grown significantly in recent years. Hydraulic fracturing is a process that pumps a liquid slurry of water, sand and chemicals into a well to break up underground rock formations rich in hydrocarbons. “This is important to many wells, not just a few,” especially given that the study actually underestimated these numbers for each state, said study co-author Scott Jasechko. Ībout half of hydraulically fractured oil and gas wells in the United States are located within less than two miles of drinking wells recently drilled by homeowners, according to a study published last week in the Early Edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Hydraulic fracturing is a process that pumps a liquid slurry of water, sand and chemicals into a well to break up underground rock formations rich in hydrocarbons.Įnvironmental and public health groups have shared widespread concerįracking Could Affect up to Half of All Private Drinking Water Wellsīy Heather Duncan, 100 Days in AppalachiaĭecemFracking Could Affect up to Half of All Private Drinking Water Wellsīy Heather Duncan, 100 Days in Appalachia December 9, 2017Īn unknown percentage of the 45 million Americans who rely on private drinking water wells could face contamination risks from fracking, as the Trump administration attempts to roll back some of the nation’s few federal fracking rules. The Safe Drinking Water Act, a federal law that protects public drinking water supplies, does not require routine testing of private groundwater wells. In the Appalachian states of Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia, a large number of homeowners rely on their own private drinking wells - many of which are located near hydraulically fracked gas operations in the Marcellus Shale formation. Rural residents often lack access to regularly tested public water supplies. An unknown percentage of the 45 million Americans who rely on private drinking water wells could face contamination risks from fracking, as the Trump administration attempts to roll back some of the nation’s few federal fracking rules.Ībout half of hydraulically fractured oil and gas wells in the United States are located within less than two miles of drinking wells recently drilled by homeowners, according to a study published last week in the Early Edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
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