Reducing Environmental Impacts by Radical Large-Scale Change in Hydraulic Fracturing

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This workshop's goal is to identify potential transformational research approaches for the recovery of unconventional oil and gas that would achieve a radical large-scale improvement in the recovery factor and much reduced environmental impacts. This would be accomplished by changing hydraulic fracturing. This workshop is based on the understanding that the recovery of hydrocarbons from unconventional resources, led by the US, has drastically changed the world and continues to be important to the US and the world. This relatively new source of gas and oil has required horizontal drilling and intensive hydraulic fracturing. Although many improvements have occurred, hydraulic fracturing technologies remain inefficient. The recovery factor continues to be low, less than ten percent of the hydrocarbon liquids in place. This leads to substantial environmental impacts as massive amounts of water and sand are injected to create the required formation surface area for production. The volumes of water required and the mass of sand injected per barrel of new oil recovered continues to increase. These commodity volumes lead to projections of even higher environmental impacts as oil production increases. A small group of experts from universities, industry, and national laboratories will be convened with a moderator with considerable experience in coordinating innovative brainstorming-type meetings. The discussion and recommendations for research opportunities to achieve a drastic large-scale change will be presented in a Final Report and distributed widely. Defining this research requires vision, as well as strong science and engineering. The challenge mandates multi-disciplinary participation, involving solid and fluid mechanics, chemistry, physics, mathematics, and application fields such as petroleum and mining engineering. Great talent is available within industry, universities, and national laboratories to work the problem; however, what is missing is a focus on the required research opportunities. This workshop will bring together a diverse group of scientists and engineers in an innovative environment to define these research opportunities. It is certain that an approach different from "business-as-usual" is required. Drastic, large-scale change must be considered; however, this will be difficult in the current atmosphere that is based primarily on short-term cost reductions. Radical change will not be easy and will require the joint efforts of industry, universities, and national laboratories. A first step to gain industry support is to define research opportunities that have potential for radical but viable change. Once potential opportunities are defined and vetted by experts drawn from diverse sectors, impactful industry engagement is anticipated.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.