The enormous pressure of the shale formation sends oil and gas gushing out the well when it is first fracked.
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The seawater down there is so cold that when natural gas bubbles out of the well into the water it forms methane hydrates, which clog the uptake pipe.
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In this process, after a well is drilled, pressurized water is injected into the well to fracture the shale and open fissures that enable natural gas to flow more freely out of the well.
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But if the well is not cemented properly, the gas leaks out into the other units, particularly drinking water aquifers, as it comes back up the well.
China has a huge thirst for energy that it will slake from as many wells as it can, with planned big increases in wind power and in gas as well as the nuclear build-out and ever more coal-fired plants.
And then that allows the gas to flow out of the rock into the well bore.
Residents who have been able to call out reported gas and water were unavailable for a radius well beyond the city of about 1 million.
The pressure in the capped-off well could blow a new hole in it, letting oil and gas leak out through the seabed.
More fluid was coming out of the well than was going in, a sign that natural gas might have been intruding into the well bore.
Business advisory firm Deloitte said the amount of drilling, as well as the number of oil and gas field deals on the UK Continental Shelf, levelled out in the first quarter of this year.
While both coal and gas play important roles in our energy future, and there is another agenda to regulate coal-fired power plants out of existence, the claim is contrary to the well-accepted fact that the greenhouse gas impacts of burning natural gas are less than coal.
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