Environmental Impacts of Hydraulic Fracturing

Abstract

Frank R. Spellman The author or the publisher appears to have chosen this title because of the recent prominence of hydraulic fracture stimulation (“fracking”). A book published in early 2013 that purports to address the environmental impacts of fracking of unconventional gas resources might be expected to at least summarize the environmental issues and regulations that were of importance by late 2011 when the Marcellus, Barnett and other shale gas plays were under full development. However, this book does not meet that criterion. For example, you won't find anything here about the controversy that developed in the pages of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) in late 2011 over the suspected effects of hydraulic fracturing on domestic wells in Pennsylvania, e.g., the work of the Duke University team (Osborn et al., 2011), and the rebuttals by Cabot Oil & Gas of Pittsburgh (Molofsky et al., 2011) and various academics (e.g., Davies, 2011). The Duke team presented data collected from domestic or other private wells completed in bedrock in northeastern Pennsylvania and adjacent New York State. They reported a strong correlation of dissolved methane concentrations …