Shale Gas in PA is a topic that was discussed by our group.
What we wanted to focus on shale gas wells drilling in PA is its external cost on environment. Being a less important point, the future of shale gas and its effect on other natural resources was discussed after discussing its external cost.
We had particularly looked into a related academic journal that talked about how Shale gas and its costly waste-water recycling look like now in Pennsylvania . “Thousands of shale gas wells have been drilled and hydraulically fractured across the state of Pennsylvania over the past decade, and more wells are being drilled each year. The drilled lengths of these wells and the amount of water being used to hydraulically fracture (frac) them continue to increase. These increases have led to an increase in the volume of wastewater being produced each year.” In the article wastewater that are used in the shale wells will have “adversely impact soil and/or water quality if released directly to the environment”.
As a major reason of the booming oil supply in recent years, the amount of shale gas wells has largely increased, and so does the amount of water has been used. Fortunately, due to technology change and regulations, water is being recycled and treated in several different ways so its damage to environment can be largely eliminated.
The reason we wanted to do research on the external cost of shale gas well drilling is because this industry may not as clean as people think, as we dig deeper into related data and cases.
Related journal and article:
1)http://eg.geoscienceworld.org/content/22/4/115.full.pdf – “Wastewater Recycling and Reuse Trends in Pennsylvania Shale Gas Wells”
2) http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-02-18/there-s-a-new-world-order-to-talk-about-at-the-davos-of-energy – “The Stressed-Out Oil Industry Faces an Existential Crisis”