Potential impacts of emissions associated with unconventional hydrocarbon extraction on UK air quality and human health

A T Archibald,M L Williams,C Ordóñez,E Brent

doi:10.1007/s11869-018-0570-8

Abstract

Here, we report the first results of model sensitivity simulations to assess the potential impacts of emissions related to future activities linked to unconventional hydrocarbon extraction (fracking) in the UK on air pollution and human health. These simulations were performed with the Met Office Air Quality in the Unified Model, a new air quality-forecasting model, and included a wide range of extra emissions of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and nitrogen oxides (NOx) to reflect emissions from the full life cycle of fracking-related activities and simulate the impacts of these compounds on levels of nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and ozone (O3). These model simulations highlight that increases in NOx and VOC emissions associated with unconventional hydrocarbon extraction could lead to large local increases in the monthly means of daily 1-h maximum NO2 of up to + 30 ppb and decreases in the maximum daily 8-h mean O3 up to − 6 ppb in the summertime. Broadly speaking, our simulations indicate increases in both of these compounds across the UK air shed throughout the year. Changes in the 1-h maximum of NO2 and 8-h mean of O3 are particularly important for their human health impacts. These respective changes in NO2 and O3 would contribute to approximately 110 (range 50–530) extra premature-deaths a year across the UK based on the use of recently reported concentration response functions for changes in annual average NO2 and O3 exposure. As such, we conclude that the release of emissions of VOCs and NOx be highly controlled to prevent deleterious health impacts.

Highlights

Hydraulic fracturing or ‘fracking’ describes the industrial process used to extract hydrocarbons by pervasively fracturing a shale unit with high-pressure water, mixed with sand and chemical additives (Bickle 2012).This source of unconventional hydrocarbons has created a large amount of interest from investors in the petroleum industryFísicas, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, 28040 Madrid, Spain 5 Environmental Research Group, Kings College London, London, UK as well as environmentalists and the general public concerned with the impacts associated with it
The ‘Emission scenarios’ section provides information on our emission scenarios for increases in volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and nitrogen oxides (NOx) in the potential fracking regions, whilst in the ‘Results’ section, we present the results obtained from our Air Quality in the Unified Model (AQUM) simulations, including analyses of comparisons with observations of O3 and NO2 from the UK Automatic Urban and Rural Network (AURN) and the results from our emission scenarios
The balance between catalytic ozone production (R1–R5) and ozone loss is controlled by the abundance of VOCs and NOx and the rate constants involved in the elementary reactions

Summary

Introduction

Hydraulic fracturing or ‘fracking’ describes the industrial process used to extract hydrocarbons by pervasively fracturing a shale unit (termed shale plays) with high-pressure water, mixed with sand and chemical additives (Bickle 2012).This source of unconventional hydrocarbons has created a large amount of interest from investors in the petroleum industryFísicas, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, 28040 Madrid, Spain 5 Environmental Research Group, Kings College London, London, UK as well as environmentalists and the general public concerned with the impacts associated with it. Hydraulic fracturing or ‘fracking’ describes the industrial process used to extract hydrocarbons by pervasively fracturing a shale unit (termed shale plays) with high-pressure water, mixed with sand and chemical additives (Bickle 2012). This source of unconventional hydrocarbons has created a large amount of interest from investors in the petroleum industry. Whilst fracking as a technique has a long history, its wide-scale uptake is much more recent This increased uptake is driven largely by technological breakthroughs such as horizontal drilling, which will allow those involved to extract more of the oil and gas from geological reservoirs than previous methods would have permitted. The most productive sites are in very rural areas well away from large population settlements (US Energy Information Administration 2015)

Objectives

Results

Discussion

Conclusion