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Coal Bed Methane
Blog posts reflect the views of their authors.
This blog is meant to be read with the story:
Coal Bed Methane Extraction: “Don't Worry. It's Not Fracking”
This background information is in process.
Shale gas fracking pushes water mixed with a chemical cocktail under intense pressure to fracture the rock and release gas or oil.
Coal bed methane extraction [CBM] instead pumps the existing "formation water" out of the coal seam. When enough has been pumped out, the methane gas follows up the well bore.
Formation water coming to the surface in the course of shale bed fracking is not intended. But this is no exact science, A great deal of it coming up unplanned will effectively ruin the potential of a fracked shale bed well.
But the "produced water" that include the introduced chemical cocktails bring back the same "naturally occuring" materials when they return to the surface. While naturally occuring, the concentration levels are typically much higher than what we are already exposed to on the earth's surface.
The discovery of high levels of naturally occuring radioactive materials [NORMs] in the Kennetcook wastes is what has effectively stranded the continued disposal of those waste waters, now stuck at AIS Debert as well as at the originating waste ponds in Kennetcook.
Elevated levels of arsenic and heavy metals are also routinely found in formation waters, and are common in the geology of Nova Scotia.
See also:
COAL BED METHANE: THE EVIL TWIN OF SHALE GAS
Background material to be added later.
If you have a question, put it in a Comment to this blog.
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