19 Facts About Shale gas

Shale gas is natural gas that is found trapped within shale formations.

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.

Shale gas was first extracted as a resource in Fredonia, New York, in 1821, in shallow, low-pressure fractures.

Shale gas is one of a number of unconventional sources of natural gas; others include coalbed methane, tight sandstones, and methane hydrates.

The geological risk of not finding Shale gas is low in resource plays, but the potential profits per successful well are usually lower.

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Shale gas has been produced for years from shales with natural fractures; the shale gas boom in recent years has been due to modern technology in hydraulic fracturing to create extensive artificial fractures around well bores.

Some gas produced is held in natural fractures, some in pore spaces, and some is adsorbed onto the shale matrix.

Further, the adsorption of Shale gas is a process of physisorption, exothermic and spontaneous.

Numbers for the estimated amount of "technically recoverable" shale gas resources are provided alongside numbers for proven natural gas reserves.

Extraction and use of shale gas can affect the environment through the leaking of extraction chemicals and waste into water supplies, the leaking of greenhouse gases during extraction, and the pollution caused by the improper processing of natural gas.

In late 2010, the U S Environmental Protection Agency issued a report which concluded that shale gas emits larger amounts of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, than does conventional gas, but still far less than coal.

Study published in May 2011 concluded that shale gas wells have seriously contaminated shallow groundwater supplies in northeastern Pennsylvania with flammable methane.

The EPA stated that the finding was specific to the Pavillion area, where the fracking techniques differ from those used in other parts of the U S Doug Hock, a spokesman for the company which owns the Pavillion gas field, said that it is unclear whether the contamination came from the fracking process.

Shale gas development leads to a series of tiered socio-economic effects during boom conditions.

Where coal exploration requires altering landscapes far beyond the area where the coal is, aboveground natural Shale gas equipment takes up just one percent of the total surface land area from where Shale gas will be extracted.

The footprint of a shale gas derrick is only a little larger than the land area necessary for a single wind turbine.

Shale gas deposits are generally several thousand feet below ground.

Shale gas tends to cost more to produce than gas from conventional wells, because of the expense of the massive hydraulic fracturing treatments required to produce shale gas, and of horizontal drilling.

One of the byproducts of shale gas exploration is the opening up of deep underground shale deposits to "tight oil" or shale oil production.