Economics
One Way to Solve Fracking’s Water Problem: Don’t Use Water
A bold idea from scientists hoping to push debates over shale gas drilling in a new direction.
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The shale gas revolution brought the U.S. both energy-superpower status and a short list of headaches. There are engineering challenges, many wells have a disappointingly short productive lifetime, and those lifetimes can vary even within the same field.
Then there are the much-debated environmental trade-offs. Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, requires copious water. And while gas-fired power plants produce less CO2 than coal-fired plants, environmentalists are quick to point out that methane itself is a potent greenhouse gas and leaks needlessly from aging infrastructure.