Suchergebnisse

Intro -- UNCONVENTIONAL OIL AND GAS DEVELOPMENT: ENVIRONMENTAL AND PUBLIC HEALTH REQUIREMENTS, RISKS AND SIZE OF SHALE RESOURCES -- UNCONVENTIONAL OIL AND GAS DEVELOPMENT: ENVIRONMENTAL AND PUBLIC HEALTH REQUIREMENTS, RISKS AND SIZE OF SHALE RESOURCES -- CONTENTS -- PREFACE -- Chapter 1 UNCONVENTIONAL OIL AND GASDEVELOPMENT: KEY ENVIRONMENTALAND PUBLIC HEALTH REQUIREMENTS -- ABBREVIATIONS -- WHY GAO DID THIS STUDY -- WHAT GAO FOUND -- BACKGROUND -- Types and Locations of Oil and Gas Reservoirs -- Activities Associated with Oil and Gas Development -- FEDERAL ENVIRONMENTAL AND PUBLIC HEALTH LAWS APPLY TO UNCONVENTIONAL OIL AND GAS DEVELOPMENT BUT WITH KEY EXEMPTIONS -- Eight Federal Environmental and Public Health Laws Apply to Unconventional Oil and Gas Development -- Safe Drinking Water Act -- UIC Program -- Imminent and Substantial Endangerment Authority -- Clean Water Act -- NPDES -- Spill Reporting and Spill Prevention and Response Planning -- Imminent and Substantial Endangerment and Release Response Authorities -- Clean Air Act -- Mobile Sources-Criteria Air Pollutants -- Stationary Sources-Criteria Air Pollutants -- Stationary Sources-Hazardous Air Pollutants -- Stationary Sources-Greenhouse Gas Reporting -- Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act -- Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act -- Toxic Substances Control Act -- Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act -- Exemptions Are Related to Preventive Programs -- STATES IN OUR REVIEW IMPLEMENT ADDITIONAL REQUIREMENTS AND RECENTLY UPDATED SOME REQUIREMENTS -- States in Our Review Implement Additional Requirements and Certain Federal Requirements -- Siting and Site Preparation -- Drilling, Casing, and Cementing -- Hydraulic Fracturing -- Well Plugging -- Site Reclamation -- Waste Management and Disposal -- Managing Air Emissions

The United States is bucking the global energy trend, with a real prospect of becoming largely independent of fossil fuel imports, while major European consumers, China and India are preparing for increasing dependency. The global energy landscape is changing rapidly and profoundly, with trade flows shifting and security of supply issues re-shaping. At the same time, national energy paths increasingly diverge even within the OECD. Access to unconventional energy gives the United States a global competitive advantage, with far-reaching repercussions for economic and geopolitical structures. Russia – once an indispensable energy power – and the OPEC producers must adapt to a new market situation and enormous uncertainties about how the new world map for energy will fit together.

Section 1. Context and Framework for Analysis -- Section 2. Regulatory Regimes and Issues: regional perspectives -- Section 3. Acquiring Water for Fracturing: Conflicts and Regulatory Issues -- Section 4. What Comes Next? Disposing of Water from Hydraulic Fracturing -- Section 5. Charting and Path Forward: lessons learned and to be learned

The extraction and processing of unconventional oil is more energy intensive and has larger negative environmental impacts than the extraction of conventional oil. The European Union (EU) estimates that oil sands lead to 22% more emissions than conventional oil. The EU is very concerned by the potential climate and environmental impacts and has considered introducing a tax on imported unconventional oil in order to discourage its production. This study shows that a global ban on the use of unconventional oil substantially reduces global carbon dioxide emissions, but the policy is not efficient. A unilateral ban of the EU on unconventional oil has no climate benefits and it is expensive for Europe.

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "As with conventional oil and gas development, requirements from eight federal environmental and public health laws apply to unconventional oil and gas development. For example, the Clean Water Act (CWA) regulates discharges of pollutants into surface waters. Among other things, CWA requires oil and gas well site operators to obtain permits for discharges of produced water—which includes fluids used for hydraulic fracturing, as well as water that occurs naturally in oil- or gas-bearing formations—to surface waters. In addition, the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) governs the management and disposal of hazardous wastes, among other things. However, key exemptions or limitations in regulatory coverage affect the applicability of six of these environmental and public health laws. For example, CWA also generally regulates stormwater discharges by requiring that facilities associated with industrial and construction activities get permits, but the law and its regulations largely exempt oil and gas well sites. In addition, oil and gas exploration and production wastes are exempt from RCRA hazardous waste requirements based on a regulatory determination made by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 1988. EPA generally retains its authorities under federal environmental and public health laws to respond to environmental contamination."

AbstractOver the past decade, directional drilling and hydraulic fracturing enabled an unconventional oil and gas extraction (UOGE) boom in many regions of the United States, including parts of Pennsylvania. This revolution has created serious concerns about the capability of existing institutions to govern important societal outcomes associated with UOGE. We present a conceptual framework for assessing key societal outcomes influenced by UOGE governance. In applying this framework to Pennsylvania, we discern certain institutional strengths that have allowed the Commonwealth to reap appreciable short‐term economic growth from rich resource endowments. We also find, however, that several institutional weaknesses have allowed costs externalized to the environment, public health, and community integrity to offset some proportion of those economic benefits. Likewise, we find that governance of UOGE in Pennsylvania has contributed to a bifurcated sociopolitical landscape wherein adversarial coalitions dispute the legitimacy of the industry and its governance.

The United States has seen a resurgence in petroleum production, mainly driven by technology improvements (hydraulic fracturing and directional drilling) developed for natural gas production from shale formations. Application of both of these technologies enabled natural gas to be economically produced from shale and other unconventional formations, and contributed to the United States becoming the world's largest natural gas producer in 2009. Use of these technologies has also contributed to the rise in U.S. oil production over the last few years. In 2009, annual oil production increased over

The development of unconventional oil and gas shales using hydraulic fracturing and directional drilling is currently a focal point of energy and climate change discussions. While this technology has provided access to substantial reserves of oil and gas, the need for large quantities of water, emissions, and infrastructure raises concerns over the environmental impacts. Written by an international consortium of experts, this book provides a comprehensive overview of the extraction from unconventional reservoirs, providing clear explanations of the technology and processes involved. Each chapter is devoted to different aspects including global reserves, the status of their development and regulatory framework, water management and contamination, air quality, earthquakes, radioactivity, isotope geochemistry, microbiology, and climate change. Case studies present baseline studies, water monitoring efforts and habitat destruction. This book is accessible to a wide audience, from academics to industry professionals and policy makers interested in environmental pollution and petroleum exploration.