The best way to test this would be to install several groundwater monitoring wells at various depths and monitor them before, during and after
drilling natural gas wells.
In September 2009, Range Resources began
drilling a natural gas well near the home of Beth Voyles in one of the most heavily drilled counties in southwestern Pennsylvania.
Environmental controls designed to prevent leaks of methane from newly
drilled natural gas wells are effective, a study has found — but emissions from existing wells in production are much higher than previously believed.
Brought in to assist Office Administrative staff at EQT (company that
drills natural gas wells) in bringing all reports and filing current.
Not exact matches
Natural gas, which is traded locally, fell because producers
drilled too many successful
wells.
This means EQT needs to
drill fewer vertical
wells because it can
drill sideways into neighboring pockets of
natural gas.
He says Chesapeake Energy, which
drilled four
natural gas wells on his land, is cheating Continue Reading
This publication reports the number of
drills actively exploring for or developing oil or
natural gas wells in the United States and Canada.
Ty Wright Bloomberg Getty Images A rig hand removes a
drill pipe from a
natural gas well at a fracking site in Washington Township, Pa..
The Yale study of people in southwestern Pennsylvania found a greater prevalence of health symptoms reported among residents living close to
natural gas wells, including those
drilled via hydraulic fracturing.
The company — which Pegula formed in 1983 — had been active in upstate New York over the years, particularly in the early years of the 2000s, when it
drilled dozens of conventional
natural -
gas wells in the Trenton Black River formation in Chemung and Steuben counties.
Cuomo himself was in Broome County on Tuesday to announce the expansion of a marketing company in the area —
good economic development news for a region that was initially denied a casino license and has been debating the contentious hydrofracking issue for
natural gas drilling.
But activists opposed to hydrofracking want the topic of
natural gas drilling to be on the agenda as
well.
Others worry that the
natural gas drilling process that blasts
wells with chemical - laced water could ruin rich farmlands and dramatically harm growers.
ALBANY — State Sen. Greg Ball, a Republican known for his maverick sensibility, enhanced that reputation further with his introduction Wednesday of a proposed moratorium on hydraulic fracturing, the controversial
natural gas drilling technique
better known as hydrofracking that's under review by the state Department of Environmental Conservation.
One day after President Barack Obama touted hydrofracking of
natural gas as a bridge fuel, Gov. Andrew Cuomo's environmental commissioner says it's extremely unlikely that permits for
drilling wells will be issued in the next year.
The Pavillion area has been
drilled extensively for
natural gas over the last two decades and is home to hundreds of
gas wells.
Local regulatory requirements may not help: for instance, although the researchers discovered methane contamination at homes within 1,000 meters of active
natural gas wells, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection only holds
drilling companies responsible for drinking water within 305 meters.
Federal environment officials investigating drinking water contamination have found that at least three water
wells contain a chemical used in the
natural gas drilling process of hydraulic fracturing
The number of new
natural gas wells drilled each year in the United States has skyrocketed, from 17,500 in 2000 to a peak of more than 33,000 in 2008.
By measuring an uptick in online searches as
well as social media chatter and mass media coverage, Ion Bogdan Vasi, an associate professor of sociology at the UI and corresponding author of a new study, demonstrated how local screenings of Gasland — a 2010 American documentary that focused on communities affected by
natural gas drilling — affected the public debate on hydraulic fracking.
BP's efforts to
drill relief
wells are generally viewed as the company's
best, and perhaps only, chance to plug the Macondo 252
well gushing thousands of barrels of oil and
natural gas into the Gulf of Mexico each day for the past month and a half.
Cornell University researchers factored in the carbon emissions over the course of
natural gas's life cycle when it is extracted using hydraulic fracturing — which includes
drilling the
wells, erecting the construction sites, building pipelines to transport the
gas, fueling the pumps that force the water underground, and transporting the wastewater — and concluded that
natural gas is dirtier than coal.
And there are other challenges associated with fracking for
natural gas besides climate change, from what to do with the wastewater produced to drinking water contamination and even improperly
drilled wells that leak or explode and get out of control (a blowout).
The illustration displayed here explains the conventional, vertical
well method of extracting
natural gas, and the unconventional, more recent method of extracting
natural gas in shale via horizontal
drilling and hydraulic fracturing.
For decades,
natural gas (methane) deposits were tapped by single
wells drilled vertically over large, free - flowing pockets of
gas.
The EPA estimated in 2011 that
natural gas drilling accounts for about 1,200 gigagrams, or 2.6 billion pounds, of methane emissions each year from
well completions, equipment leaks and pneumatic controllers.
To determine emissions rates at
natural gas fields in Pennsylvania's Marcellus shale
gas fields, the researchers used emissions data gathered from an airplane that flew over
natural gas wells in southwest Pennsylvania in June 2012, some of which were in the process of being
drilled.
The study shows that during
drilling, as much as 34 grams of methane per second were spewing into the air from seven
natural gas well pads in southwest Pennsylvania — up to 1,000 times the EPA estimate for methane emissions during
drilling, Purdue atmospheric chemistry professor and study lead author Paul Shepson said in a statement.
He said regulators have always thought that there are few emissions during the
drilling process, but when
drilling rigs
drill through shale layers containing a lot of
natural gas, a pressure pulse will send
gas out of the
well and into the atmosphere.
As an example, in the United States, ultra deepwater (greater than 5,000 feet) Gulf of Mexico — where some of our nation's most promising new discoveries have been made — only 21 percent of
wells drilled have resulted in a discovery of oil and
natural gas.
That's why a great deal of attention was paid last week to the results of a two - day aerial survey over
gas fields in southwestern Pennsylvania that calculated emission rates of methane (the main component of
natural gas) from two
well pads still in the
drilling phase.
The Department of Energy's Energy Information Administration has posted a short update on trends in
natural gas production in the United States that's worth noting simply because it illustrates the profound nature of the energy transitions that are being propelled by the exploitation of shale deposits using hydraulic fracturing, known
best as fracking, along with horizontal
drilling.
A frequent talking point of other
natural gas foes is the prospect of
gas companies poised to deploy a forest of rigs to
drill 50,000
wells.
In a July 28 Op - Ed article in The Times, Ingraffea, a prominent foe of the
drilling technique
best known as fracking, challenged the widespread view of
natural gas as a «bridge» from coal to a cleaner energy future, saying it was a «gangplank to a warm future.»
China's largest coal company, China Shenhua Energy Co. announced plans to form a joint venture with Energy Corp. of America to
drill 25
natural gas wells in Pennsylvania.
Check out this report from the experts at IHS CERA for analysis of the flaws in Howarth's approach, plus more details about how
natural gas wells are
drilled.
Natural gas drilling energy footprint:
Well pads with frack tanks and
drilling rig.
Modern hydraulic fracturing combined with horizontal
drilling allows multiple
wells to be
drilled from one spot, reducing the size of the
drilling area above ground by as much as 90 percent.4 Fracking is the key to unlocking vast U.S. shale resources, freeing up oil and
natural gas that previously was inaccessible while protecting groundwater supplies and the environment.
As the
well is
drilled deeper, additional casing is installed to isolate the formation (s) from which oil or
natural gas is to be produced, further protecting groundwater from the producing formations in the
well.
According to the U.S. Energy Department, up to 95 percent 1 of new
wells drilled today are hydraulically fractured, accounting for two - thirds 2 of total U.S. marketed
natural gas production and about half 3 of U.S. crude oil production.
Over the past several years, vast caches of
natural gas trapped in deeply buried rock have been made accessible by advances in two key technologies: horizontal
drilling, which allows vertical
wells to turn and snake more than a mile sideways through the earth, and hydraulic fracturing, or fracking.
The ability to
drill horizontal oil and
gas wells and to «frack» shale by injecting pressurized sand and chemicals into the rock has enabled a huge boom in
natural -
gas production over the past decade.
The global warming consequences of
drilling for oil and
natural gas are
well - documented.
U.S. Department of Energy statistics show «up to 95 percent of new
wells drilled today are hydraulically fractured, accounting for more than 43 percent of total U.S. oil production and 67 percent of
natural gas production.»
The letter to the Environmental Protection Agency from Attorney General Scott Pruitt of Oklahoma carried a blunt accusation: Federal regulators were grossly overestimating the amount of air pollution caused by energy companies
drilling new
natural gas wells in his state.
[44]
Drilling expanded greatly in the past several years due to higher
natural gas prices and use of horizontal
wells to increase production.
The nonactive and active data depicted in Fig. 3 are subdivided based on the host aquifer to illustrate that the methane concentrations and δ13C values increase with proximity to
natural -
gas well drilling regardless of aquifer formation.
The claim is quite dramatic and makes for a
good press release, benefiting the Center for Environmental Health (CEH) campaign against unconventional oil and
natural gas (UOG)
drilling, widely known as «fracking».
Regarding «tighter public disclosure requirements as
well as studies of the health and environmental consequences of the chemicals used in
natural gas drilling,» 49 % of people surveyed would strongly support this and 29 % somewhat support this.