A Study Of Natural Gas Extraction In Marcellus Shale

With the dramatic increases in crude oil prices there has been a need to find reliable energy substitutions. One substitution that has been used in the United States is natural gas. However, with the increased use of natural gas, conventional sources are being depleted rapidly. Due to the strong use of conventional gas sources people have turned to unconventional gas sources. Unconventional gas sources are deemed economically infeasible to produce at the current price of natural gas. The reason some sources are unconventional is because the formation that holds the natural gas is highly impermeable, eg shale. Sources of unconventional natural gas in the United States are found in shales across the country; the Marcellus shale is one of these sources. The Marcellus shale is the largest natural gas source in the United States and is quickly becoming a major gas play. Estimates show that there are trillions of cubic feet of natural gas stored within the Marcellus shale, and energy companies are flocking to the area to extract it. This paper will discuss the techniques used by operators to extract natural gas in the Marcellus Shale. The focus will be on the drilling and hydraulic fracturing processes. A discussion regarding the environmental concerns when extracting natural gas follows. It was found that the methods used to extract natural gas, while effective, can harm the areas water supply. New technologies are being developed that use less water, are safer for the environment, and just as effective as the older methods in most situations.

"An excellent objective explanation of the history, science, technology, politics, environmental concerns, and economics of the shale gas boom. The author clearly has great practical experience of the science and technology of shale gas development and shows a deep understanding of the environmental and economic issues." --Andrew Stone, Executive Director, American Ground Water Trust New technology has opened vast reserves of "unconventional" natural gas and oil from shales like the Marcellus in the Appalachian Basin, making the United States essentially energy independent for the first time in decades. Shale gas had its origins in the oil embargos and energy crises of the 1970s, which led to government research to increase domestic energy supplies. The first large-scale shale gas production was successful on the Barnett Shale in Texas in the late 1990s, followed a few years later by the Marcellus Shale in Pennsylvania. Shale gas has changed thinking about fossil energy supplies worldwide, but the development of these resources has been controversial. Activists have made claims that hydraulic fracturing may contribute to climate change, threaten groundwater resources, and pose risks to terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems, and human health. This volume explores the geology, history, technology, and potential environmental impacts of Marcellus Shale gas resources.

This book examines the economics and related impacts of unconventional shale gas development. While focusing on the Marcellus and Utica Shales in the Mid-Atlantic region, additional insights from other regions are included to provide a broader view of these issues. Shale gas development in recent years has changed the energy discussion in the US, as existing reserves of natural gas coupled with horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing make exploitation of these reserves economically feasible. The importance of natural gas is seen as likely to continue to expand over the coming years, and is expected to increase even further with environmental considerations, such as greenhouse gas emissions. Horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing producing natural gas from deposits such as the Marcellus Shale is making the US a net producer of natural gas. Previous studies have examined the economic impact of exploration and production in the region. Other studies have addressed legal, environmental, biodiversity, and public health impacts of unconventional shale development. This is the first volume to focus solely on the economics and related financial impacts of this development. This book not only fills the research gap, but also provides information that policy makers and the public need to better understand this pressing issue.

For the updated paperback edition of Under the Surface, Tom Wilber has written a new chapter and epilogue covering developments since the book's initial publication. Chief among these are the home rule movement and accompanying social and legal events leading up to an unprecedented ban of fracking in New York state, and the outcome of the federal EPA's investigation of water pollution just across the state border in Dimock, Pennsylvania. The industry, with powerful political allies, effectively challenged the federal government’s attempts to intervene in drilling communities in Pennsylvania, Wyoming, and Texas with water problems. But it met its match in a grassroots movement—known as "fractivism"—that sprouted from seeds sown in upstate New York community halls and grew into one of the state’s most influential environmental movements since Love Canal.Wilber weaves a narrative tracing the consequences of shale gas development in northeast Pennsylvania and central New York through the perspective of various stakeholders. Wilber's evenhanded treatment explains how the revolutionary process of fracking has changed both access to our domestic energy reserves and the lives of people living over them.He gives a voice to all constituencies, including farmers and landowners tempted by the prospects of wealth but wary of the consequences; policymakers struggling with divisive issues concerning free enterprise, ecology, and public health; and activists coordinating campaigns based on their respective visions of economic salvation and environmental ruin. Throughout the book, Wilber illustrates otherwise dense policy and legal issues in human terms and shows how ordinary people can affect extraordinary events.

Concern over natural gas extraction across the U.S. and particularly from the Marcellus Shale formation, which underlies approximately two-thirds of the state of Pennsylvania, has been growing in recent years as natural gas drilling activity has increased. Identifying sources of concern and risk from shale gas development, particularly form the hydraulic fracturing process, is an important step in better understanding sources of uncertainty within the industry. Hydraulic fracturing is a well stimulation technique used in the production of natural gas from shale. While hydraulic fracturing has been in use for decades as a method for oil and gas recovery, recent advances in horizontal drilling techniques and fracturing fluid production have made previously unattainable natural gas reservoirs accessible and economically recoverable. In the years after hydraulic fracturing came into widespread use in Pennsylvania, a large amount of data on flowback characteristics became available due to public and regulatory attention to the process. Chapter 3 examines and analyzes the constituents that make up flowback waters collected from drilling sites in the states of Pennsylvania, New York, and West Virginia. Flowback sampling data were collected from four different sources and compiled into one database with a total of 35,000 entries. Descriptive statistical analysis revealed high concentrations of chlorinated solvents, disinfectants, dissolved metals, organic compounds, radionuclides and TDS. Relative prioritization scores were developed for 58 constituents by dividing observed mean concentrations by the Maximum Contamination Level (MCL) guidelines for drinking water. The following constituents were found to have mean concentrations over 10 times greater than the MCL: Barium, Benzene, Benzo(a)pyrene, Chloride, Dibromochloromethane, Radium, and Thallium. Regulatory inspection and violation reports also provide insight into the impact of natural gas extraction on the surrounding environment, human health, and public safety. Inspection reports for natural gas wells in Pennsylvania were collected from the Pennsylvania DEP Compliance Report from 2000 to 2014. Logistic regression analysis of 215,444 inspection records for 70,043 conventional and unconventional wells was conducted in order to compare the odds of violations occurring under different circumstances. The results in Chapter 4 revealed that, when inspected, conventional wells had 40% higher odds of having a violation, but unconventional wells had higher odds for environmental violations related to waste discharge as well as cementing and casing failures. From there, a list of twelve failure scenarios of concern was developed focusing on specific events that may occur during the shale gas extraction process involving an operational failure or a violation of regulations to identify and prioritize potential failure scenarios for natural gas drilling operations through an elicitation of people who work in the industry. Illegal dumping of flowback water, while rated as the least frequently occurring scenario, was considered the scenario least protected by safety controls and the one of most concern to the general public. In terms of worker safety, the highest concern came from improper or inadequate use of personal protective equipment. While safety guidelines appear to be highly protective regarding PPE usage, inadequate PPE is the most directly witnessed failure scenario. Spills of flowback water due to equipment failure are of concern both in regards to the welfare of the general public and worker safety as they occur more frequently than any other scenario examined in this study. In Chapter 6 of this study, the flowback data collected and the violation and failure scenario analyses conducted are used to develop potential exposure scenarios to wastewater from shale gas development. A risk assessment of occupational and residential exposure pathways to flowback water as carried out. Constituents of concern in flowback water were identified from the previous prioritization. The occupational cancer risk estimate for median concentrations did not exceed the target lifetime cancer risk of 10-6 except for benzo(a)pyrene, which exceeds the target risk level even at the 2.5 percentile value. The upper limit of cancer risk form exposure to heptachlor also exceeds 10-6 in this model. Hazard quotient for barium in the same model exceeds 1 (1.7) and results in a total hazard index of 2. The residential risk assessment revealed that several carcinogenic compounds found in flowback water exceed target limits and significantly increase the risk of an individual developing cancer following chronic exposure. In general, exposure from the dermal pathway posed the greatest risk to human health. Considering non-carcinogenic effects, only barium and thallium exceed target limits, where the ingestion pathway seems to be of greater concern than dermal exposure. Exposure to radionuclides in flowback water, particularly through the inhalation pathway as they volatilize from the water to the air, poses a greater threat to human health than other contaminants examined in this assessment.

Although a technique for hydraulic fracturing—more commonly known as fracking—was developed and implemented in the 1970s in Texas, fracking of the Marcellus Shale formation that stretches from West Virginia through Pennsylvania to New York did not begin in earnest until the twenty-first century. Unconventional natural gas production via fracking has ignited debate, challenged regulators, and added to the complexity of twenty-first-century natural resource management. Through a longitudinal study taken from 2000 to 2015, Jonathan M. Fisk, Soren Jordan, and A. J. Good examine how the management of natural resources functions relative to specific regulatory actions including inspections, identifying violations, and the use of specific regulatory tools. Ultimately, they find that factors as disparate as state policy goals, elected officials, the availability of data, inspectors, front-line staff, and the use of technology form a context that, in turn, shapes the use of specific regulatory tools and decisions.

My thesis seeks to explore the challenge of value capture from natural resources using the case of the Marcellus Shale in West Virginia and Pennsylvania as an exemplar. I examine the mechanisms in place to capture the economic benefits of shale gas extraction in these two states, performing a rough cost benefit analysis that attempts to quantify the economic impact of a single natural gas well drilled in each state. The thesis has two objectives: first, to determine whether or not drilling in the Marcellus Shale produces benefits that are captured and distributed in a way that accounts for the costs of natural gas extraction in Pennsylvania and West Virginia. Second, I hope to provide a cost benefit analysis framework that any locality considering allowing the shale gas industry to operate within its boundaries could utilize to recognize gaps in the distribution of costs and benefits early on, prior to the start of drilling. In addition to performing a cost benefit analysis under normal operations, I also estimate the costs associated with a groundwater contamination rate of 1.2% of drilled shale gas wells in 2012 in both states. This analysis reveals that the costs of groundwater contamination exceed the level of funding allocated to address these potential costs by more than $1 billion in some scenarios. In response to this lack of cost coverage, I suggest several policy solutions aimed at increasing the level of financial assurances states have in place to address the potential negative externalities resulting from the shale gas industry. By limiting the potential negative economic impact of the shale gas industry, these policy suggestions also support stronger value capture.