Environmental Considerations Associated with Hydraulic Fracturing Operations
by James A. Jacobs, Stephen M. Testa
Appendix ASelected University Studies, State, and Federal Reports
A.1 Selected US University Studies
Presented as independent academic scientific research, following are a series of US university studies, many funded by federal or state grants, universities, or private industry, mostly published in 2010–2015 on various aspects of unconventional oil and gas drilling and production which were released to the general public and scientific community. Due to the controversial nature and the widespread use of the new drilling and extraction technologies, the university studies were developed to address many of the public concerns with fracking: greenhouse gas emissions, environmental impacts to air quality, water resource quantity and quality, human health concerns, worker safety, and socioeconomic changes. Many of the studies contained appropriate methodologies and reasonable and commonsense conclusions based on actual data and field evidence. A few of the university studies were less than credible in their objectivity, methodology, and conclusions. The selected university studies related to unconventional oil and gas production issues are listed alphabetically:
- Carnegie Mellon University (Jiang et al. 2011) study evaluated the life cycle of greenhouse gases from Marcellus gas resources and compared the emissions with the national average methane emission for the year 2008. Excluding combustion of the shale gas, the study estimated an increase of 11% in greenhouse gas emissions ...