Listing description
Shale gas is natural gas that is found trapped within shale formations.[1] Shale gas has become an increasingly important source of
natural gas in the United States since the start of this century, and interest
has spread to potential gas shales in the rest of the world.
Detailed description
In 2000 shale gas
provided only 1% of U.S. natural gas production; by 2010 it was over 20% and
the U.S. government's Energy Information
Administration predicts that by
2035, 46% of the United States' natural gas supply will come from shale gas.[2]
Some analysts expect
that shale gas will greatly expand worldwide energy supply.[3] China is estimated to have
the world's largest shale gas reserves.[4] A study by the Baker Institute of
Public Policy at Rice University concluded that
increased shale gas production in the US and Canada could help prevent Russia
and Persian Gulf countries from dictating higher prices for the gas they export
to European countries.[5]
The Obama administration
believes that increased shale gas development will help reduce greenhouse gas
emissions.[6] In 2012, US carbon
dioxide emissions dropped to a 20-year low.[7] Human and public health will both benefit
from shale gas displacing coal burning.
A 2013 review by the
United Kingdom Department of Energy
and Climate Change noted that most
studies of the subject have estimated that life-cycle greenhouse gas (GHG)
emissions from shale gas are similar to those of conventional natural gas, and
are much less than those from coal, usually about half the greenhouse gas
emissions of coal; the noted exception was a 2011 study by Howarth and others
of Cornell University, which concluded that shale GHG emissions were as high as those
of coal.More recent studies
have also concluded that life-cycle shale gas GHG emissions are much less than
those of coal, among them, studies
by Natural Resources
Canada (2012), and a consortium formed
by the US National Renewable
Energy Laboratory with a number of
universities (2012).
Some 2011 studies
pointed to high rates of decline of some shale gas wells as an indication that
shale gas production may ultimately be much lower than is currently projected. But shale-gas
discoveries are also opening up substantial new resources of tight oil / "shale
oil".[18]
History
US
Shale gas was first
extracted as a resource in Fredonia, New York, in 1821,[19][20] in shallow,
low-pressure fractures. Horizontal drilling began in the 1930s, and in 1947 a
well was first fracked in the U.S.[2]
Federal price
controls on natural gas led to shortages in the 1970s.[21] Faced with declining
natural gas production, the federal government invested in many supply
alternatives, including the Eastern Gas Shales Project, which lasted from 1976
to 1992, and the annual FERC-approved research budget of the Gas Research Institute, where
the federal government began extensive research funding in 1982, disseminating
the results to industry.[2] The federal
government also provided tax credits and rules benefiting the industry in the1980 Energy Act.[2] The Department of
Energy later partnered with private gas companies to complete the first
successful air-drilled multi-fracture horizontal well in shale in 1986. The
federal government further incentivized drilling in shale via the Section 29
tax credit for unconventional gas from 1980-2000. Microseismic imaging, a
crucial input to both hydraulic fracturing in shale and offshore oil drilling, originated from
coalbeds research at Sandia National
Laboratories. The DOE program also applied two technologies that
had been developed previously by industry, massive hydraulic fracturing and
horizontal drilling, to shale gas formations.[22] that led to
microseismic imaging.
Although the Eastern
Gas Shales Project had increased gas production in the Appalachian and Michigan
basins, shale gas was still widely seen as marginal to uneconomic without tax
credits, and shale gas provided only 1.6% of US gas production in 2000, when
the federal tax credits expired.[21]
George P. Mitchell is regarded as the
father of the shale gas industry, by making it commercially viable in the Barnett Shale by getting costs
down to $4 per 1 million British thermal units (1,100 megajoules).[23] Mitchell Energy
achieved the first economical shale fracture in 1998 using slick-water
fracturing.[24][25][26] Since then, natural
gas from shale has been the fastest growing contributor to total primary energy
in the United States, and has led many other countries to pursue shale
deposits. According to the IEA, shale gas could increase technically
recoverable natural gas resources by almost 50%.[27]
Geology
Because shales
ordinarily have insufficient permeability to allow significant
fluid flow to a wellbore, most shales are not commercial sources of natural
gas. Shale gas is one of a number of unconventional sources of natural gas;
others include coalbed methane, tight sandstones, and methane hydrates. Shale gas areas
are often known as resource
plays[28](as opposed to exploration plays). The
geological risk of not finding gas is low in resource plays, but the potential
profits per successful well are usually also lower.
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