High-volume Hydraulic Fracturing Research Articles

Social Vulnerability and Groundwater Vulnerability to Contamination From Unconventional Hydrocarbon Extraction in the Appalachian Basin.

Unconventional oil and gas (UOG) development, made possible by horizontal drilling and high-volume hydraulic fracturing, has been fraught with controversy since the industry's rapid expansion in the early 2000's. Concerns about environmental contamination and public health risks persist in many rural communities that depend on groundwater resources for drinking and other daily needs. Spatial disparities in UOG risks can pose distributive environmental injustice if such risks are disproportionately borne by marginalized communities. In this paper, we analyzed groundwater vulnerability to contamination from UOG as a physically based measure of risk in conjunction with census tract level sociodemographic characteristics describing social vulnerability in the northern Appalachian Basin. We found significant associations between elevated groundwater vulnerability and lower population density, consistent with UOG development occurring in less densely populated rural areas. We also found associations between elevated groundwater vulnerability and lower income, higher proportions of elderly populations, and higher proportion of mobile homes, suggesting a disproportionate risk burden on these socially vulnerable groups. We did not find a statistically significant association between elevated groundwater vulnerability and populations of racial/ethnic minorities in our study region. Household surveys provided empirical support for a relationship between sociodemographic characteristics and capacity to assess and mitigate exposures to potentially contaminated water. Further research is needed to probe if the observed disparities translate to differences in chemical exposure and adverse health outcomes.

The prospected air quality measurements for further unconventional natural gas developments in China based on the United States experience

The technological innovation of horizontal drilling and high-volume hydraulic fracturing has promoted the development of unconventional natural gas (UNG) production worldwide, and hence has aroused public concern about the air pollution it may bring about. In this study, we have provided (1) an overview of the study on air pollutants from UNG emissions in the USA, focusing on both the air pollutant characterization and their related observation technologies/platforms; and (2) the potential air quality measurements of UNG development emerging in China. This study will provide useful information for Chinese environmental researchers and the local governments to deal with related air quality issues.

A Consideration of Wildlife in the Benefit-Costs of Hydraulic Fracturing: Expanding to an E3 Analysis

High-volume hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) for natural gas in the Marcellus Shale (underlying about 24 mil ha in New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, West Virginia, Ohio, and Virginia) has become a politically charged issue, primarily because of concerns about drinking water safety and human health. This paper examines fracking in the Marcellus region, and the tradeoffs between the energy and economic potential of natural gas extraction and the environmental impacts on wildlife. Therefore, we introduce a new E3 analysis that combines the costs and benefits as regards energy, economics, and the environment. The Marcellus Shale has the most proven reserves of natural gas of any basin in the United States, at 129 trillion cubic feet. Income from natural gas development comes primarily from direct and indirect jobs, and induced jobs (those created when direct workers spend their earnings in a community), taxes and fees, and royalty and lease payments to rights holders. Fracking, however, has detrimental effects on wildlife and wildlife habitats. Terrestrial habitat effects are primarily due to landscape fragmentation from the clearing of land for pipeline and well pad development, which often removes mature forest and creates open corridors and edge habitats. An increase in forest edge and open corridors is associated with shifts in the bird community, as generalist species that do well around people increase in abundance, while forest specialists decline. Invasive plants associated with disturbance further degrade forest habitats. Aquatic habitats are also affected, both directly and indirectly. Hydraulic fracturing requires up to 20 mil L of water per well fracture, most of which comes from surface water sources in the Marcellus region. The removal of water, especially in smaller headwaters, can increase sedimentation, alter water temperature and change its chemistry, resulting in reductions in aquatic biodiversity. Given the reality that hydraulic fracturing will continue, there is a need to develop practices that best minimize negative impacts on terrestrial and aquatic habitats, as well as policies and the resolve to enforce these practices. To achieve a more sustainable balance between economic, energy, and environmental costs and benefits, we recommend that industry, scientists, non-governmental organizations, mineral rights holders, landowners, and regulators work together to develop a set of best management practices that represent the best knowledge available.

Fast-running model for high-volume hydraulic fracturing

We develop a rapid simulator of hydraulic fracture growth in complex geologic layered conditions and extensively drilled multistage fractured wells in a reservoir. The simulator allows running independent simulations for thousands hydraulic fractures within a minute on modern personal computers. The model is meshless and has a simplified rectangular fracture shape; however, coupling all conventional hydraulic fracture mechanics equations makes the model accurate enough. We demonstrate it via comparison with exact analytical solutions in limiting toughness-, viscosity-, and leakoff-dominated regimes, as well as via comparison with other commercial simulators on real field cases. Field validation of the model by temperature log measurements is also provided.To demonstrate the practical implications of the model for reservoir engineering, we show several examples of numerical simulations for a huge number of hydraulic fractures in a reservoir, which interact with each other due to the closeness of stimulated wells and perforation clusters. Rapid simulations allow obtaining the field-scale simulations of fracture growth in the range of a minute and efficiently building distributions of asymmetric fracture growth both in length and in height. We show that the stress shadow effect causes undesired outbreaks to adjacent gas- or water-saturated geological layers if the fracture placement in a reservoir is dense enough. Even small spatial misalignment of stages in the offset wells may result in changes of geometry of transverse fractures growing from neighbored wells. Vertical true vertical depths mismatch in offset wells; their deviations in the dip and azimuth angles are shown to cause the asymmetry of fracture growth as well, which hardly can be predicted in field development workflows without rigorous fracture simulations. Examples of longitudinal fracturing in horizontal wells demonstrate the strongest distortion of conventionally assumed lateral symmetry and height growth similarity of fractures created in one horizontal well. Our simulations also show that these results are affected by the viscosity of pumped fracturing fluids. The presented model of field-scale interactive fracture growth in a reservoir enables finding the best fracture placement characteristics and pumping schedule for the needs of field development with hundreds to thousands of fractures in a short time frame.

A threat-centered theory of policy entrepreneurship

We know relatively little about the conditions that encourage people to jump into the political fray as policy entrepreneurs, advocates who devote substantial time, energy, and resources to campaigning for a policy goal. This paper aims to fill that gap by investigating the catalysts of policy entrepreneurship in municipalities across the State of New York, where between 2008 and 2012, hundreds of local jurisdictions passed measures opposing or supporting high-volume hydraulic fracturing (fracking). These local policy actions were often enthusiastically encouraged and, in some cases, vociferously opposed, by enterprising advocates. I propose a threat-centered theory of policy entrepreneurship, emphasizing the role of loss aversion in pushing actors toward advocacy. The empirical analysis shows that oppositional advocacy within a polity draws would-be policy entrepreneurs into battle.

Small, Local Governments and Their Management of Hydraulic Fracturing.

Small, local governments are often considered "low capacity" when it comes to environmental management. This article examines how local government officials in 26 municipalities in Pennsylvania have managed high-volume hydraulic fracturing (HVHF or "fracking"). The data show that the perception of the "problems" related to HVHF and perceived resident expectations for if and how local governments should respond to these problems vary by municipality with clear differences between municipalities with zoning and those without zoning. With the exception of one municipality with the unique circumstance of having both active natural gas and coal extraction occurring, all municipalities believed they had adequate capacity to manage the problems associated with HVHF. This result shows the importance of local responses to local problems and calls into question whether capacity-building efforts are necessary in low capacity municipalities.

The devil we know and the angel that did not fly: An examination of devil/angel shift in twitter fracking “debates” in NY 2008–2018

AbstractRecent work has applied the Narrative Policy Framework (NPF) to examine narrative strategies in policy debates on social media platforms. We contribute to the literature by applying the NPF to fracking policy debates in New York using well‐established Natural Language Processing tools, including sentiment analysis. We combine this computational approach with a qualitative hand‐coding of pro‐ and antifracking Twitter influentials. This approach allows us to consider a much larger corpus of tweets over a much longer time frame than has been done thus far. We adapt and test NPF propositions related to the use of the devil/angel shift strategies before and after a major state‐wide policy change, that is, a state‐wide moratorium on high volume hydraulic fracturing or fracking. Overall, we find evidence for the use of the devil shift narrative strategy by the pro‐fracking coalition aimed at the Governor prior to the moratorium. After the moratorium, the relative percentage of Tweets containing devil shift sentiments decreases as the pro‐fracking coalition generally downshifts in its use of angel shift language without a corresponding increase in devil shift language, whereas, conversely, the anti‐fracking coalition generally downshifts in its use of devil shift language without a general increase in angel shift language. When we shifted our analysis to Tweets containing fracking and the Governor, we found a similar postban decrease in devil shift language among anti‐fracking users. Our findings offer lessons for using computational tools in the NPF as an approach to expand analytic ability and for the operationalization of concepts such as narrative strategies and policy entrepreneurs.

Do public review processes reflect public input? A study of hydraulic fracturing reviews in Australia and Canada

High volume hydraulic fracturing (HVHF) is a contentious issue worldwide. It is a crucial policy issue due to its significant impact on multiple stakeholders and, as a result, requires extensive public consultation and exposure. One process deployed in some liberal democracies to address this controversy is forming an independent expert review panel to receive public submissions and then prepare a report for policymakers. Our paper investigated how closely the review panel reports reflect and weigh the public submissions and to explore the subjects in which there is agreement or disagreement across the various reports. This study used the Leximancer automated text analysis software to compare key themes in the sub-national reports and public submissions. We find a consistent pattern across jurisdictions of public submissions reflecting health and environment while official reports focus on industry and economic development. There is a wide range of congruency between the jurisdictions on the capacity of the expert reports to reflect public opinion. Following from this divergence, we aim to contribute to more meaningful discussions regarding effective communication strategies between the government and the public to ensure review panel reports fairly represent public concerns.

Exploring controls on halogen and methane occurrence in groundwater of New York State

The expansion of unconventional oil and gas development (UOGD) by means of horizontal drilling and high-volume hydraulic fracturing has been accompanied by concerns regarding the potential impacts to water resources and public health. The ban on UOGD in New York State (NYS) allows the natural processes that control groundwater chemistry and dissolved methane to be evaluated without complications that could arise in regions impacted by prior unconventional shale gas development. We evaluated the controls on the occurrence and spatial variability of methane, chloride, bromine, and iodine, covering much of NYS and encompassing a range of underlying bedrock geologies. Groundwater samples were collected from 108 domestic and public supply wells. Methane concentrations in groundwater ranged from <0.001–84.6 mg/L. The variables most consistently associated with methane occurrence in groundwater included: 1) bedrock geology penetrated by wells, 2) groundwater chemical composition, and 3) confinement characterization of the well. The geochemical parameters iodine, chloride, and sodium/calcium suggested that elevated concentrations of methane were likely associated with deep brines. Elevated methane concentrations were frequently accompanied by both high bromine and iodine concentrations in this study, indicating that the potential of halogens as tracers for dissolved methane needs to be further investigated.

Mechanical degradation of polyacrylamide at ultra high deformation rates during hydraulic fracturing

Degradation of drag reducer polyacrylamide under high volume hydraulic fracturing (HVHF) conditions alters its polymer size, distribution and chemical composition, potentially affecting the toxicity and treatability of the resulting wastewater.

The Food-Energy-Water Nexus, Regional Sustainability, and Hydraulic Fracturing: An Integrated Assessment of the Denver Region

Intersections of food, energy, and water systems (also termed as the FEW nexus) pose many sustainability and governance challenges for urban areas, including risks to ecosystems, inequitable distribution of benefits and harms across populations, and reliance on distant sources for food, energy, and water. This case study provides an integrated assessment of the FEW nexus at the city and regional scale in ten contiguous counties encompassing the rapidly growing Denver region in the United States. Spatial patterns in FEW consumption, production, trans-boundary flows, embodied FEW inputs, and impacts on FEW systems were assessed using an urban systems framework for the trans-boundary food-energy-water nexus. The Denver region is an instructive case study of the FEW nexus for multiple reasons: it is rapidly growing, is semi-arid, faces a large projected water shortfall, and is a major fossil fuel and agricultural producer. The rapid uptake of high-volume hydraulic fracturing (HVHF) combined with horizontal drilling in populated areas poses ongoing risks to regional water quality. Through this case study, fracking is identified as a major topic for FEW nexus inquiry, with intensifying impacts on water quantity and quality that reflect nationwide trends. Key data gaps are also identified, including energy for water use and food preparation. This case study is relevant to water and sustainability planners, energy regulators, communities impacted by hydraulic fracturing, and consumers of energy and food produced in the Denver region. It is applicable beyond Denver to dry areas with growing populations, agricultural activity, and the potential for shale development.

Shale, Quakes, and High Stakes: Regulating Fracking-Induced Seismicity in Oklahoma, USA and Lancashire, UK

High-volume hydraulic fracturing combined with horizontal drilling has “revolutionized” the United States’ oil and gas industry by allowing extraction of previously inaccessible oil and gas trapped in shale rock [1]. Although the United States has extracted shale gas in different states for several decades, the United Kingdom is in the early stages of developing its domestic shale gas resources, in the hopes of replicating the United States’ commercial success with the technologies [2, 3]. However, the extraction of shale gas using hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling poses potential risks to the environment and natural resources, human health, and communities and local livelihoods. Risks include contamination of water resources, air pollution, and induced seismic activity near shale gas operation sites. This paper examines the regulation of potential induced seismic activity in Oklahoma, USA, and Lancashire, UK, and concludes with recommendations for strengthening these protections.

The impact of stakeholder engagement on local policy decision making

We investigate how grassroots stakeholder engagement in municipal meetings shapes the decision making of local elected officials (LEOs) by examining the choices LEOs in New York State made on how to regulate high-volume hydraulic fracturing (HVHF) or fracking. We analyzed the content of 216 meeting minutes and 18 policy documents for 13 municipalities in New York. Our observations suggest that government responsiveness to local activism is shaped by the level of contestation between grassroots stakeholders. They reveal that contestation among grassroots stakeholders encourages LEOs to try to deflect responsibility for regulating fracking. When this contestation is high, LEOs tend to pursue actions which may limit but not prohibit HVHF within their jurisdiction. In contrast, when there is no contestation, LEOs more actively pursue substantive policy actions that prohibit HVHF. Generally, we find that that the level of contestation among grassroots stakeholders about HVHF impacts the political actions LEOs take.

Conventional Oil-The Forgotten Part of the Water-Energy Nexus.

The impacts of unconventional oil and gas production via high-volume hydraulic fracturing (HVHF) on water resources, such as water use, groundwater and surface water contamination, and disposal of produced waters, have received a great deal of attention over the past decade. Conventional oil and gas production (e.g., enhanced oil recovery [EOR]), which has been occurring for more than a century in some areas of North America, shares the same environmental concerns, but has received comparatively little attention. Here, we compare the amount of produced water versus saltwater disposal (SWD) and injection for EOR in several prolific hydrocarbon producing regions in the United States and Canada. The total volume of saline and fresh to brackish water injected into depleted oil fields and nonproductive formations is greater than the total volume of produced waters in most regions. The addition of fresh to brackish "makeup" water for EOR may account for the net gain of subsurface water. The total amount of water injected and produced for conventional oil and gas production is greater than that associated with HVHF and unconventional oil and gas production by well over a factor of 10. Reservoir pressure increases from EOR and SWD wells are low compared to injection of fluids for HVHF, however, the longer duration of injections could allow for greater solute transport distances and potential for contamination. Attention should be refocused from the subsurface environmental impacts of HVHF to the oil and gas industry as a whole.

Communicating activist roles and tools in complex energy deliberation

This article analyzes online policy tools used by public participants to participate in complex environmental risk deliberation, specifically in terms of HVHF (high volume hydraulic fracturing). This article argues that institutional environmental deliberation tools, which are increasingly found online, are embedded in ideological discourse frames that are often at odds with public user ideologies. This article argues that environmental deliberation tools designed and created by stakeholders through participatory design models are more effective in promoting complex deliberations about environmental risk. Such participatory tools more clearly take into account environmental justice, intersectional and precautionary considerations.

Irrigating underground: Assembling, disassembling, and reassembling the hydraulic fracturing energy-water nexus

This paper explores how a novel and water-intensive method of energy production – high-volume hydraulic fracturing (a.k.a., “fracking” or “fracing”) – has taken hold in a river basin that is over-appropriated, is managed via a water governance regime that did not anticipate hydraulic fracturing's idiosyncrasies, and where public concern about dedicating freshwater to hydrocarbon production is high. Via a grounded examination of hydraulic fracturing water use in Colorado’s busiest oilfield and most crowded river basin, I argue that the practice has come to exist – and persist – despite these countervailing forces because it is an ephemeral energy-water assemblage. It is always in motion, is tough to monitor, and emerges only to disappear and reemerge again. This shape-shifting capacity distinguishes hydraulic fracturing from better-known energy-water couplings such as the hydroelectric dam and from historical surface irrigation practices in the American West. It also has consequences. While the uncritical energy-water literature suggests that these energy-water relations have been sufficiently characterized by volumetric gallons-per-well estimates, and the physical ephemerality of the hydraulic fracturing assemblage keeps its on-the-ground complexities elusive, an abridged and uncomplicated picture of hydraulic fracturing endures in the academic literature and public discourse. The partial understandings that result make this assemblage simpler to produce and reproduce. This study responds to calls for more nuanced analyses of energy-water relations. It also contributes to assemblage theory by examining the relationship between instability and stability in the lives of an assemblage, which underscores the importance of processes of disassembly and reassembly within assemblage-style analyses.

Language and environmental justice: articulating intersectionality within energy policy deliberations

ABSTRACT The widespread practice of shale gas extraction via high volume hydraulic fracturing (HVHF) has created challenges for communities who attempt to understand HVHF risk. This study uses a critical discourse lens to understand how intersectionality, and environmental justice language frames might be more clearly established in tools that stakeholders must use to engage in energy policy deliberation. I examine how stakeholders in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York navigate public comment tools in an attempt to understand environmental risk. Using both interview and think aloud protocol, I find that possibilities to voice concern about HVHF risk vary by locality and state. HVHF policy deliberation that does not often include ‘intersectional’ and ‘environmental justice’ frameworks results in an uneven distribution of HVHF risk across and within states. By understanding various discourse frames within policy tools in different states, a more just system of risk identification might emerge.

Exploring the Place of Animals and Human–Animal Relationships in Hydraulic Fracturing Discourse

Throughout human history, energy security has been a prominent concern. Historically, animals were used as energy providers and as companions and sentinels in mining operations. While animals are seldom used for these purposes in developed communities today, this legacy of use is likely to have far-reaching consequences for how animals and human–animal relationships are acknowledged in energy development. The US is currently experiencing an energy boom in the form of high volume horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing (HVHHF); because animals are the most at risk from this boom, this study uses a thorough content analysis of peer-reviewed HVHHF articles mentioning animals from 2012–2018 to assess how animals and human–animal relationships are discussed. Three dominant article theme classifications emerge: animal-focused articles, animal-observant articles, and animal sentinel articles. Across themes, articles seldom acknowledge the inherent value or the social and psychological importance of animals in human lives; instead, the focus is almost exclusively on the use of animals as sentinels for potential human health risks. Further, what is nearly absent from this body of literature is any social science research. Given that relationships with animals are an integral part of human existence, this study applies environmental justice principles, serving as a call to action for social science scholars to address the impacts of HVHHF on animals and human–animal relationships.

Characterizing Flaring from Unconventional Oil and Gas Operations in South Texas Using Satellite Observations.

Over the past decade, increases in high-volume hydraulic fracturing for oil and gas extraction in the United States have raised concerns with residents living near wells. Flaring, or the combustion of petroleum products into the open atmosphere, is a common practice associated with oil and gas exploration and production, and has been under-examined as a potential sourceof exposure. We leveraged data from the Visible Infrared Imaging Spectroradiometer (VIIRS) Nightfire satellite product to characterize the extent of flaring in the Eagle Ford Shale region of south Texas, one of the most productive in the nation. Spatiotemporal hierarchical clustering identified flaring sources, and a regression-based approach combining VIIRS information with reported estimates of vented and flared gas from the Railroad Commission of Texas enabled estimation of flared gas volume at each flare. We identified 43887 distinct oil and gas flares in the study region from 2012 to 2016, with a peak in activity in 2014 and an estimated 4.5 billion cubic meters of total gas volume flared over the study period. A comparison with well permit data indicated the majority of flares were associated with oil-producing (82%) and horizontally drilled (92%) wells. Of the 49 counties in the region, 5 accounted for 71% of the total flaring. Our results suggest flaring may be a significant environmental exposure in parts of this region.

Assessing changes in groundwater chemistry in landscapes with more than 100 years of oil and gas development.

With recent improvements in high-volume hydraulic fracturing (HVHF, known to the public as fracking), vast new reservoirs of natural gas and oil are now being tapped. As HVHF has expanded into the populous northeastern USA, some residents have become concerned about impacts on water quality. Scientists have addressed this concern by investigating individual case studies or by statistically assessing the rate of problems. In general, however, lack of access to new or historical water quality data hinders the latter assessments. We introduce a new statistical approach to assess water quality datasets - especially sets that differ in data volume and variance - and apply the technique to one region of intense shale gas development in northeastern Pennsylvania (PA) and one with fewer shale gas wells in northwestern PA. The new analysis for the intensely developed region corroborates an earlier analysis based on a different statistical test: in that area, changes in groundwater chemistry show no degradation despite that area's dense development of shale gas. In contrast, in the region with fewer shale gas wells, we observe slight but statistically significant increases in concentrations in some solutes in groundwaters. One potential explanation for the slight changes in groundwater chemistry in that area (northwestern PA) is that it is the regional focus of the earliest commercial development of conventional oil and gas (O&G) in the USA. Alternate explanations include the use of brines from conventional O&G wells as well as other salt mixtures on roads in that area for dust abatement or de-icing, respectively.