Life Cycle Assessment of Shale Gas in the UK

Abstract

The remarkable US growth of shale gas and the associated decrease in the US natural gas prices has catalysed an increasing interest of shale gas resource exploration in other areas of the world. Commercial drilling operations have not yet commenced, but exploration is taking place in some European countries, including the UK. Major environmental concerns, regarding the amount and the handling method of the emissions associated with hydraulic fracturing, the disposal of waste water and the low well productivity, have pushed some countries to ban exploration and trials. We contextualized the shale gas extraction to the UK condition where the estimate of recoverable gas has made the debate on shale gas highly interesting. We used the methodology of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and estimated the environmental burden of shale gas production, processing and distribution at low pressure to the consumer. In this paper we have reported the detailed hot spot analysis of the impact of shale gas on the watersheds.