MIT Fracking Study—and More Energy News

Fracking is a war cry of sorts, illuminating an environmentally dubious way to harvest natural gas for some or, for others, heralding lower-cost energy by more efficient extraction. MIT scientists have just published paper that will help the public understand the costs and benefits of shale extraction techniques—and, perhaps, how to improve them.

The authors work right in the heart of the MIT Energy Initiative (MITEI). Francis O’Sullivan SM '04, ENG '06, PhD '07 is executive director of MITEI's Energy Sustainability Challenge Program; Sergey Paltsev is MITEI's assistant director for economic research. Their paper, "Shale gas production: potential versus actual greenhouse gas emissions," was published in the IOP Science Environmental Research Letters in November.

A recent article, MIT: The Facts On Fracking Methane Emissions, by the Energy Collaborative outlines the findings including

"the extraction of shale gas through hydraulic fracturing emits only a fraction more methane into the air than conventional gas drilling….. The finding is important because of the ongoing energy revolution due to shale and hydraulic fracturing, and because some opponents of shale natural gas and/or fracking claim its methane emissions are dramatically higher than those that occur during conventional natural gas drilling. Not so."

In other energy news, Fatih Birol, chief economist at the International Energy Agency, visited MIT to present the key findings in his agency's new World Energy Outlook. “The foundations of the global energy system are shifting substantially and rapidly,” he told the MIT audience Nov. 28. Among the disruptions he pointed out were skyrocketing oil prices, the demise of the nuclear power industry, and the rise within a decade of the US as the largest oil and natural gas producer in the world. Watch the video. Or read an MIT News interview focusing on the new report.

For more energy news from MIT, read MITEI's Energy Futures: Autumn 2012.