Shale Gas Issues: Squeezed Between Necessity and Reality

Originally published February 10, 2012

Keywords: shale gas, onshore shale basins, natural gas, shale formations

"Total annual production volumes of 3 to 4 trillion cubic feet may be sustainable for decades. This potential for production in the known onshore shale basins, coupled with other unconventional gas plays, is predicted to contribute significantly to the US's domestic energy outlook."
~ Modern Shale Gas Development in the United States—A Primer, US Department of Energy (April 2009).

"Estimates of these [fracturing] distances...are at best imprecise. Clues about the direction in which fractures are likely to run from the well may be derived from seismic and other data, but virtually nothing can be done to control that direction; the fractures will follow Mother Nature's fault lines in the formation.... One difficulty is that the material facts are hidden below miles of rock, making it difficult to ascertain what might have happened."