On Tuesday, September 2, 2014, a new study showed how drilling natural gas from shale rock required large amounts of water. However, most of the world’s shale gas is found in places where water is already scarce. According to the World Resources Institute, “the amount of recoverable natural gas from shale formations would increase global reserves by nearly half.” This would boost the world economy enormously and would potentially reduce greenhouse gases, seeing as burning gas for energy is much more efficient than coal. Research has confirmed that 38% of shale resources worldwide are found in geographical regions that “are either arid or under high to extremely high levels of water stress.”
Spokeswoman Katie Brown of Energy in Depth, stated that, while water use in fracking is high, even in the most “prolific fracking states,” fracking accounts for only 1% of the states’ total water use. Others disagree. Senior water scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Jay Famiglietti, stated that this information was skewed because the majority of fracking is conducted in a localized area, it “uses nearly 100% of local water supply” and “its environmental impacts can be devastating.”
This article again displays the controversy regarding fracking. Different organizations try to prove their evidence on fracking is correct.
Furthermore, this article displays the potential positive environmental impacts from fracking. The potential positive impact on energy consumption makes environmental scientists’ jobs all the more important, because they need to research alternate ways to extract oil without contaminating or consuming too much water.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/24/beverly-hills-fracking-ban_n_5208377.html<>