Industry Consortium to Fund Fracturing Pollution R&D

Marcellus shale gas well in West Virginia (dep.wv.gov)

A consortium of businesses, universities, and national labs has made funds available for research on technologies to address environmental and safety concerns of hydraulic fracturing — a.k.a. fracking — methods to extract natural gas from shale rock. The $35 million in funding from the Research Partnership to Secure Energy for America (RPSEA) is now open for proposals, with a due date of 6 March 2012.

The R&D sought by RPSEA focuses on processes for managing water supplies, chemicals, and waste disposal in natural gas drilling sites in the Marcellus and Eagle Ford shale regions. The projects specifically should address:

– Surface disruption associated with unconventional gas development and disposal of associated wastes.

– Methods for protecting groundwater from contamination during shale drilling, casing, cementing, and production operations.

– Minimizing the environmental impact of hydraulic fracturing operations by minimizing total fluid requirements.

– Improving the management of fluids used in hydraulic fracturing and other unconventional gas development processes, and providing data from these research activities for science-based regulations.

RPSEA is a not-for-profit consortium of some 175 members, including 22 research universities, six national laboratories and other major research institutions, large and small energy producers, and energy consumers. Funding for this project is provided by the Department of Energy’s (DoE’s) Ultra-Deepwater and Unconventional Natural Gas and Other Petroleum Resources Research and Development Program. RPSEA administers the program under a contract from DoE’s National Energy Technology Laboratory.

Hat tip: SmartBrief

Read more: Study Outlines Regulatory Issues for Natural Gas Fracking

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