浅谈页岩气开发对水环境的影响

结合我国页岩气藏地质条件、开发工艺探讨了页岩气勘探开发对水环境的影响,包括页岩气开发中各建设工程对地表水和地下水的污染以及淡水资源的巨量消耗。进一步结合涪陵焦石坝片区页岩气勘探开发环境保护实践经验,提出了水环境保护措施及解决对策,建议优化页岩气开发规划,制定页岩气相关技术标准和规范,加强页岩气开采环境影响评价管理,推进清洁生产工艺研发,为页岩气的大规模开发提供参考和借鉴。     

页岩气资源开发的环境影响研究综述

自美国页岩气资源商业化开发以来,引起了人们对其所引发的环境问题的担忧。通过对近几年研究和报道情况的梳理,发现页岩气资源大规模开发会对水资源、大气环境、地质环境及周边环境产生影响。其中,水资源消耗与污染问题最大,温室效应、地质灾害、环境生存矛盾也不容忽视。因此,建议加强对该领域潜在的环境影响进行研究,在新环保开采技术尚未产生、相关环保管理制度尚未完善之前应审慎大规模开采页岩气资源。     

我国页岩气压裂开采与环境保护现状

分析了我国页岩气的资源现状、页岩气开采压裂技术和环保问题及页岩气开采压裂技术面临的挑战,如水资源挑战、监管和环保治理的缺失等。建议建立健全页岩气开采环境影响评价机制,加强页岩气项目的环境监管,完善页岩气勘探开发项目的环境管理规定,尽快制定页岩气压裂开采技术标准和开发规范。当前应当做好矿权秩序维护,建立先导试验区,探索重要的成熟技术和管理模式及经验非常必要。     

我国页岩气开发环境保护面临的形势及对策

页岩气作为一种重要的非常规新能源,已成为我国油气"十三五"规划的重点目标之一。文章借鉴美国、加拿大和欧洲多国的页岩气开发经验和教训,指出页岩气开发过程存在的生态破坏、水污染、甲烷泄漏、噪声污染、固体污染等潜在环境风险。压裂取水对区域生态环境和水资源的影响、压裂返排液对地下水环境的潜在影响、危险废物废弃油基泥浆和油基钻屑的环境风险等对我国页岩气可持续发展提出严峻考验。为此,我国相关部门正在加快相关环保技术研究、环保法律法规和标准规范的制定、实施战略环境影响评价等工作,逐步加强对页岩气开发过程的环境监管,完善全过程监管体制。     

页岩气勘探开发过程中的环境影响

当前,我国正积极推进页岩气资源的勘探和开发工作,但其对环境的影响尚缺乏科学评价和规范管理。在系统分析页岩气勘探开发主要流程:井场选址与建设、水平井钻井、水力压裂和投产等的基础上,辨识了其造成生态破坏和环境污染的主要因素以及可借鉴的技术和经验。结合我国页岩气资源的分布和勘探开发现状,从法规政策、企业责任以及技术创新三个层面,提出我国页岩气开发过程中环境保护和管理应努力的方向。     

页岩气开发过程中的环境影响——以四川盆地为例

自2013年以来,国家有关部门积极组织开展了全国页岩气资源潜力调查评价及有利地区的优选工作,四川盆地是目前中国页岩气勘探开发的重点地区,也是最成功的地区。在分析页岩气勘探开发主要环节工程的基础上,总结了页岩气开发带来的环境问题并从体系建设方面提出了3点建议。研究工作将为盆地页岩气开发工程的可持续发展提供科学参考。     

页岩气开发过程中存在的环境问题及对策

我国正处于页岩气开发的试验期,页岩气开发会带来水资源紧缺、水和土壤污染及甲烷泄漏等环境污染问题,因此,分析页岩气开发带来的环境问题并制定应对措施十分必要。文章详细分析了页岩气开发过程中可能引起的一系列问题,并结合我国页岩气开发实际情况提出了解决对策,希望能为我国页岩气的开发提供一定的参考。     

页岩气勘探开发现状及环境影响与风险

研究页岩气的开发利用对缓解我国的能源危机,降低能源对外依存度具有重要意义。文章集中分析了页岩气勘探开发的重要性、我国近年来页岩气勘探开发的现状及政策,指出:开发利用页岩气主要存在未经证实的资源储备风险、开发技术方面的风险、自然环境风险、企业资金风险。分析认为,页岩气勘探开发需建立长期科学可行、可持续的规划;在环境风险管理监督方面、体制方面还需进一步完善。     

我国页岩气开采进程影响因素分析

通过对比美国采区的相关资料,分析中、美两国在成藏条件、地质条件、开采技术、管网设施、环境保护的约束等方面的差异性,系统的总结了影响页岩气开采进程的因素。结果表明我国发育的页岩类型多样、地质条件复杂且未掌握页岩气开发的核心技术、管网设施简单以及环境保护的制约等多方面的因素,是页岩气开采进展缓慢的重要因素。     

浅析宜宾市在页岩气开发过程中如何做好生态环境保护工作

随着社会和国民经济的发展,我国对能源的需求量不断增加。美国"页岩气革命"使页岩气作为一种新型清洁高效的非常规能源出现并受到了广泛关注。页岩气的开发有助于改善和保障我国能源结构和安全,因此我国也相继投入到页岩气的勘探开发热潮中。据探明,四川盆地页岩气储量丰富,宜宾市恰好处于有利开发区,已被国家列为先导试验区,拟为页岩气的滚动开发积累经验。但目前对这一新兴行业尚缺乏科学、系统的行政管理和环境监管等法规体系,先行开发过程中难免面临一系列的生态破坏和环境影响等问题。针对当前全国试验区开发的形势,在宜宾市页岩气开发的现实基础上,系统分析了这些问题并提出了对策与建议,旨在为后续页岩气的可持续开发和环境管理与保护工作提供一些参考。     

页岩气开发面临的环保挑战及建议

我国的页岩气勘探开发处于起步阶段,还未建立完善的环保政策,大规模开发将面临诸多环保挑战。我国页岩气主要分布在四川、重庆等南方地区,结合该区域地少人多、地质灾害多发等特点,文章从页岩气压裂作业所需水资源、大量压裂返排液和地层水无害化处理、勘探开发过程中噪声污染以及开发用地与耕地之间的矛盾等方面探讨了页岩气开发面临的主要环境风险,并提出了页岩气开发的环保对策建议。     

页岩气开采中压裂废液处理技术的发展及应用

作为新型的天然气资源,近年来页岩气的开采力度不断增加。文章广泛调研页岩气开采过程中的场地修复、压裂废液处理等方面的环境污染风险,国内外现行压裂废液的处理工艺,系统分析了中和法、絮凝法和氧化法等处理工艺,并结合实际应用效果和企业需求对技术发展方向进行了预测,可为非常规油气资源开发领域提供理论参考。     

Questioning the local: environmental regulation,shale gas extraction,and the politics of scale

ABSTRACT

The exploration and potential extraction of shale gas – better known as fracking – has emerged as one of the most contentious dimensions to local environmental politics in the UK. Local residents and environmental activists have raised concerns about health, noise, ground water contamination, seismicity, environmental amenity, and other impacts of the industry on communities. Despite the complexities of shale gas extraction, an emphasis on the local has shaped key dimensions of the debate around the appropriate location for well pads to the relative exclusion of other issues. This paper draws on fieldwork in Lancashire, UK, to reflect on the political construction of scale in order to explore how an emphasis on “the local” can restrict political debate over shale gas to narrow concerns with land-use planning thereby obviating a fuller engagement with wider questions concerning risk, energy policy, and climate change. It is concluded that a more nuanced conception of scale is necessary for understanding how concerns with shale gas are diminished rather than strengthened through the current planning policy and regulatory regime operating in the UK.     

The use of best management practices to respond to externalities from developing shale gas resources

The public is concerned that activities accompanying hydraulic fracturing in the development of shale gas resources are unnecessarily adversely affecting them and the environment and is petitioning elected representatives to take actions to reduce risks. The health risks associated with fracturing chemicals and air pollutants are relatively unknown and constitute the impetus for public concern. An evaluation of state legal and regulatory provisions regarding best management practices discloses that states are not adopting timely regulations to protect people and the environment from activities accompanying hydraulic fracturing. Simultaneously, regulatory policy concerning negative externalities suggests that governments underinvest in the protection of human health and environmental quality. Governments have choices in protecting people from dangers that accompany shale gas development. Due to the risks of injuries and unpaid damages from shale gas development, governmental policies need to evolve to accord people greater health protection.     

Fair fracking? Ethics and environmental justice in United Kingdom shale gas policy and planning

The exploitation of shale gas resources is a significant issue of environmental justice. Uneven distributions of risks and social impacts to local site communities must be balanced against the economic benefits to gas users and developers; and unequal decision-making powers must be negotiated between local and central governments, communities and fracking site developers. These distributive and procedural elements are addressed in relation to UK policy, planning, regulatory and industry development. I adopt an explicitly normative framework of policy evaluation, addressing a research gap on the ethics of shale gas by operationalising Shrader-Frechette’s Principle of Prima Facie Political Equality. I conclude that UK fracking policy reveals inherent contradictions of environmental justice in relation to the Conservative Government’s localist and planning reform agendas. Early fracking policy protected communities from harm in the wake of seismic risk events, but these were quickly replaced with pro-industry economic stimulation and planning legislation that curtailed community empowerment in fracking decision-making, increased environmental risks to communities, transferred powers from local to central government and created the conditions of distributive injustices in the management of community benefit provisions. I argue that only by “re-localising” the scale of fracking governance can political equality be ensured and the distributive and procedural environmental injustices be ameliorated.     

Framing Shale Gas for Policy-Making in Poland

Despite enthusiasm about new gas reserves, shale gas has not come to Poland without controversies. This study examines how shale gas has been framed as a public issue by political and business elites, experts, local communities and civil society organizations. Through a frame analysis, we found three main frames about shale gas: shale gas as a novel economic resource, as a strategic resource for energy security and as a threat. However, only the first two frames, proposed by political and business elites, have shaped the policy process. The third frame, constructed by local actors and civil society groups, has had minimal impact. We explain this exclusion drawing on the deficit model of risk communication. This approach reveals that Polish experts, and business and political actors, during their interactions with local groups, have framed proponents of the threat frame as ‘incompetent actors’ effectively excluding the threat frame from policy processes.     

Wells and well-being: neoliberalism and holistic sustainability in the shale energy debate

Based on semi-structured interviews with 31 Ohioans, this article argues that individuals who are concerned about shale energy development draw from a discursive framework that diverges dramatically from the position promoted by industrial proponents. While the oil and gas industry and its supporters largely embrace a neoliberal outlook that most closely correlates well-being with economic growth, citizens troubled by such development are guided by a more holistic perspective that links well-being to numerous interrelated non-economic elements including human health, community continuity, political empowerment, and environmental sustainability. This work contributes to an emerging understanding of how environmental change and socionatural well-being converge in the novel context of shale energy development and aims to give voice to those who cope with the direct consequences of twenty-first-century fossil fuel extraction. Approaching discourse – defined here as shared communication patterns that simultaneously reproduce and generate distinctive understandings of the world – as a dynamic arena of sociopolitical struggle, I further suggest that shale energy opponents use holistic sustainability discourse to actively or implicitly challenge neoliberal strategies for guiding thought and governing action.     

A Framework to Predict the Impacts of Shale Gas Infrastructures on the Forest Fragmentation of an Agroforest Region

We propose a framework to facilitate the evaluation of the impacts of shale gas infrastructures (well pads, roads, and pipelines) on land cover features, especially with regards to forest fragmentation. We used a geographic information system and realistic development scenarios largely inspired by the PA (United States) experience, but adapted to a region of QC (Canada) with an already fragmented forest cover and a high gas potential. The scenario with the greatest impact results from development limited by regulatory constraints only, with no access to private roads for connecting well pads to the public road network. The scenario with the lowest impact additionally integrates ecological constraints (deer yards, maple woodlots, and wetlands). Overall the differences between these two scenarios are relatively minor, with <1 % of the forest cover lost in each case. However, large areas of core forests would be lost in both scenarios and the number of forest patches would increase by 13–21 % due to fragmentation. The pipeline network would have a much greater footprint on the land cover than access roads. Using data acquired since the beginning of the shale gas industry, we show that it is possible, within a reasonable time frame, to produce a robust assessment of the impacts of shale gas extraction. The framework we propose could easily be applied to other contexts or jurisdictions.