Fracking's Thirst for Water: Investors Warned of the Hidden Financial Risks
InsideClimate News 2014-02-05
Summary:
By Bob Port
Some of the nation's driest, drought-plagued places have quickly become its busiest hot spots of drilling for shale gas and oil, especially in Texas, Colorado and California.
It's a dust-bowl-sized problem likely to become worse, according to a study released Wednesday by the non-profit Boston financial advisory firm Ceres. Fracking, the controversial drilling technique, is consuming billions of gallons of water each year in states where water is increasingly scarce. The report warns that investors need to demand information about how energy companies are managing this problem or risk their investment portfolios being clobbered.
Put simply, Ceres is saying there probably isn't enough fracking water where fracking most wants to happen. And eventually, there will be a price to pay.
The study found that nearly half the wells being hydraulically fractured in the U.S. since 2011, a time of explosive growth in shale energy drilling, were in regions with high or extremely high water stress. More than half were in places suffering drought. Modern-day fracking extracts gas or oil locked a mile or more underground by injecting pressurized water, sand and a brew of chemicals into a long horizontal vein of shale. On average, the Ceres study found, a single gas fracking site consumed 1.9 million gallons of water per year—enough water, based on EPA estimates, to supply the yearly needs of 13 families of four people. A fracking site can produce for as long as four decades, according to industry literature.