Collaborative Research: EAGER: A New Approach to the Analysis of the Risk of Hydrofracking Fluid Migration from Unconvential Shales to Groundwater Aquifers

1247338/1247437 Mouser/Pinder水平水力压裂技术的进步，加上对大量非常规页岩资源的勘探，导致了能源繁荣，迅速超越了阿巴拉契亚地区的经济。不幸的是，页岩开发活动的进展速度正在推动新的监管政策，而这些技术对水资源可持续性可能产生的有害影响尚未得到了解。水力压裂液的生物、物理和化学性质将决定它们与孔隙结构和地层流体的相互作用。了解这些流体的命运和寿命对于我们理解这些活动对饮用水供应的风险至关重要。这项研究的目的是更好地描述与非常规页岩开发相关的流体的生物物理化学性质，并建立基于风险的流动和传输模型，以解决其在地下的时空分布。研究人员将检查水力压裂和排液的物理性质和生物降解性潜力，并测量非常规页岩和周围地层岩心的主导物理特征，以量化描述流体如何在介质中流动的本构关系。研究人员将把实验得出的特性与行业知识和可能的裂缝水力传导性结合起来，制定一个基于风险的流动和输送模型，能够预测流体从页岩地层到地下水含水层的运动。这项研究将有助于量化深层水力压裂过程在可预见的时间范围内迁移到较浅的地下水含水层的可能性，这些含水层为工业、商业或家庭供水提供服务。它还应该提供关于水力压裂流体化合物如果从非常规页岩地层中被动员，将在地下环境中持续多长时间的洞察。通过将实验得出的属性与专家知识和传输建模方法相结合，这项研究将促进我们对能源开发活动中使用的流体属性的理解，并为从业者提供一种新的工具，以评估一系列水文地质情景下的迁移风险。将通过参加关于阿巴拉契亚地区页岩能源开发的推广会议和正在举行的研讨会论坛，向广泛的利益攸关方通报在该项目中进行的研究。

1247338/1247437Mouser/PinderAdvancements in horizontal hydraulic fracturing technologies combined with the exploration of vast unconventional shale resources have led to an energy boom that is rapidly transcending economics of the Appalachian region. Unfortunately, shale development activities are progressing at a rate that is driving new regulatory policies before the possible detrimental effects of these techniques on water resource sustainability are understood. The biological, physical, and chemical properties of the hydrofracking fluids will govern their interaction with pore structures and formation fluids. Understanding the fate and longevity of these fluids is critical to framing our understanding of the risks of these activities to potable water supplies. The objective of this research is to better characterize the biophysiochemical properties of fluids relevant to unconventional shale development, and formulate a risk-based flow and transport model for solving their spatiotemporal distribution in the subsurface. The investigators will examine the physical properties and biodegradability potential of fracking and flowback fluids, and measure the governing physical characteristics of rock cores from unconventional shale and surrounding formations in order to quantitate the constitutive relationships that describe how fluids move through media. The investigators will combine experimentally-derived properties with industry knowledge and a probabilistic fracture hydraulic conductivity to formulate a risk-based flow and transport model capable of predicting fluid movement from shale formations to groundwater aquifers. This research will help quantify the likelihood that hydrofracking processes occurring at depth could migrate to shallower groundwater aquifers that serve industrial, commercial, or domestic water supplies within a foreseeable time frame. It should also provide insight into how long the fracking fluid compounds would persist in the subsurface environment if they were mobilized from the unconventional shale formations. By integrating experimentally-derived properties with expert knowledge and a transport modeling approach, this research will both advance our understanding of fluid properties used during energy development activities and provide a new tool for practitioners to assess migration risk under a range of hydrogeologic scenarios. The research undertaken in this project will be communicated to a broad range of stakeholders through participation in extension meetings and ongoing workshop forums on shale energy development in the Appalachian region.