Hydraulic Fracturing Produces Less Wastewater Per Unit of Gas, but More Overall

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://www.nicholas.duke.edu/news/hydraulic-fracturing-produces-less-wastewater-per-unit-of-gas-but-more-overall

[font face=Serif][font size=5]Hydraulic Fracturing Produces Less Wastewater Per Unit of Gas, but More Overall[/font]

Jan 22, 2013
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[font size=4]DURHAM, N.C. -- Hydraulically fractured natural gas wells are producing less wastewater per unit of gas recovered than conventional wells would. But the scale of fracking operations in the Marcellus shale region is so vast that the wastewater it produces threatens to overwhelm the region's wastewater disposal capacity, according to new analysis by researchers at Duke and Kent State universities.[/font]

[font size=3]Hydraulically fractured natural gas wells in the Marcellus shale region of Pennsylvania produce only about 35 percent as much wastewater per unit of gas recovered as conventional wells, according to the analysis, which appears in the journal Water Resources Research.

"We found that on average, shale gas wells produced about 10 times the amount of wastewater as conventional wells, but they also produced about 30 times more natural gas," said Brian Lutz, assistant professor of biogeochemistry at Kent State, who led the analysis while he was a postdoctoral research associate at Duke. "That surprised us, given the popular perception that hydraulic fracturing creates disproportionate amounts of wastewater."

However, the study shows the total amount of wastewater from natural gas production in the region has increased by about 570 percent since 2004 as a result of increased shale gas production there.

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http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/wrcr.20096 (Doesn’t work yet.)
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/wrcr.20096/abstract

[Champion Jack]

1. 7,000,000 gallons of fresh water per Frack, water that can't be returned to the natural cycle,

each well may be Fracked up to 15 times ,you can't drink gas

[NYC_SKP]

2. I know how fracturing works, but not how conventional wells work.

How the hell do conventional wells use more water?

I suppose there's still drilling mud, a water mixture used while drilling, but how can it be a greater volume than drilling PLUS fracturing?

[OKIsItJustMe]

3. “How…do conventional wells use more water? ”

They don’t. They use less water, but they also produce less gas (a lot less.)

Dividing the volume of water used by the volume of gas produced, they require more water per unit of gas produced.