NETL Database Upgrade May Help Pennsylvania Communities in Marcellus Formation Generate Revenue

An NETL-developed tool to measure the impact of energy production on water quality and model treatment options has been upgraded with data from Marcellus Shale hydraulic fracturing operations in Pennsylvania, providing communities in the Keystone State with information on a new potential revenue source.

NETL recently added data from the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (PA DEP) to the Lab's National Energy Water Treatment & Speciation (NEWTS) database, a free online resource that contains geochemical and geospatial data from wastewater sample records spanning 48 states.

Before the development of NEWTS, data from collected samples of energy-process water, which includes produced water from oil and gas operations, mine drainage, coal ash leachate and power plant effluent, was difficult to find and use because it is often stored in nonstandard formats and managed by various state and federal regulatory agencies.

NEWTS addresses those challenges by unifying and standardizing energy-related wastewater data. Municipalities, water authorities and other public and private entities can now seamlessly input data from collected samples into water treatment software programs to develop remediation models and improve water quality in their communities.

In the recent upgrade, NETL added data reported to PA DEP from more than 1,000 produced water streams from Marcellus natural gas well sites and reformatted the data for compatibility with popular geochemical modeling software such as OLI Studio and Geochemist's Workbench.

"The new dataset enables communities in the Marcellus region to not only identify chemicals in produced water and use the software to plan remediation strategies, but it also determines if the produced water in their areas contains lithium or other critical minerals, which could be extracted and used as a revenue source to offset the cost of community improvements," said NETL's Nick Siefert, researcher and co-developer of NEWTS.

NETL research has found that Marcellus Shale production wastewater from Pennsylvania could meet 38-40% of current domestic lithium consumption. A valuable chemical element, lithium is needed to operate rechargeable batteries for mobile phones, laptop computers, digital cameras, electric vehicles, heart pacemakers and other consumer products.

Like other critical minerals, the supply of lithium is controlled by foreign nations, making the development of a strong domestic supply of lithium a national priority to bolster U.S. economic and national security.

According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the Marcellus Shale formation extends under three-fifths of Pennsylvania as well as parts of West Virginia, New York, Ohio, Maryland and other portions of Appalachia. Pennsylvania is second only to Texas in estimated total proven natural gas reserves.

To produce commercial amounts of natural gas from the fine-grained rock of the Marcellus, higher permeability flow paths must be intercepted or created in the formation. This is generally done using hydraulic fracturing, where high-pressure water creates fractures in the rock, which are propped open by sand or other materials to provide pathways for gas to move to a well.

"The data recently added to NEWTS provides an additional tool to protect water supplies and creates a potential revenue stream for communities in a key state within the Marcellus formation," Siefert said.

NETL is a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) national laboratory dedicated to advancing the nation's energy future by creating innovative solutions that strengthen the security, affordability and reliability of energy systems and natural resources. With laboratories in Albany, Oregon; Morgantown, West Virginia; and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, NETL creates advanced energy technologies that support DOE's mission while fostering collaborations that will lead to a resilient and abundant energy future for the nation.