MSGID: 1:317/3 64927cfe   
   PID: hpt/lnx 1.9.0-cur 2019-01-08   
   TID: hpt/lnx 1.9.0-cur 2019-01-08   
    Environmental risks and opportunities of orphaned oil and gas wells   
    Towards a framework for managing millions of abandoned oil and gas wells   
      
      
     Date:   
         June 20, 2023   
     Source:   
         McGill University   
     Summary:   
         Researchers are leading an international team whose goal is to   
         create a framework to help governments in the U.S. and around the   
         world assess and prioritize remediation strategies for orphaned   
         oil and gas wells. These inactive wells represent environmental   
         risks since they have the potential to contaminate water supplies,   
         degrade ecosystems, and emit methane and other air pollutants that   
         are harmful to human health. But plugging the wells also offers   
         various potential environmental opportunities such as underground   
         storage of carbon dioxide and hydrogen, or the development of   
         geothermal energy systems.   
      
      
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   FULL STORY   
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   McGill University researchers are leading an international team whose   
   goal is to create a framework to help governments in the U.S. and around   
   the world assess and prioritize remediation strategies for orphaned oil   
   and gas wells.   
      
   These inactive wells represent environmental risks since they have   
   the potential to contaminate water supplies, degrade ecosystems,   
   and emit methane and other air pollutants that are harmful to human   
   health. But plugging the wells also offers various potential environmental   
   opportunities such as underground storage of carbon dioxide and hydrogen,   
   or the development of geothermal energy systems.   
      
   Dealing with orphaned wells -- an incomplete picture and insufficient   
   money There are hundreds of thousands of orphaned oil and gas wells in   
   the U.S., at least 400,000 in Canada, and tens of millions of them around   
   the world. Since the former owners of these abandoned wells cannot be   
   traced or cannot clean up these wells, the responsibility for plugging   
   the wells typically falls to governments who may need further information   
   on how best to manage the orphaned wells.   
      
   In November 2021, as part of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL),   
   the U.S.   
      
   government allocated $4.7 billion USD to plug orphaned oil and gas wells   
   across the country.   
      
   "While this sounds like a lot of money, we estimate that the costs of   
   plugging the documented orphaned wells in the U.S. will exceed this sum   
   by 30-80% or possibly more," says Mary Kang, an Assistant Professor in   
   the Department of Civil Engineering at McGill University and the senior   
   and lead author of the paper published today in Environmental Research   
   Letterswhich lays out some of the environmental risks and opportunities   
   of various remediation strategies, as well as the information that still   
   needs to be gathered. "And it will certainly not cover the large number   
   of orphaned wells which are undocumented -- whose very existence we know   
   of but whose exact locations and depth remain unknown.   
      
   We need to rapidly develop a framework and environmental monitoring   
   datasets to prioritize wells for plugging, since tens of thousands   
   of wells will be plugged in a matter of years."  Over 4.5 million   
   Americans live close to unplugged gas or oil wells To gain a sense of   
   the larger impacts of these wells and help inform government policies,   
   the researchers analyzed data for over 80,000 documented orphaned oil   
   and gas wells in the U.S. while at the same time looking at available   
   socioeconomic, environmental, and natural resource data. Hundreds of   
   thousands more of these orphaned wells are spread across the country.   
      
   They found that over 4.6 million Americans (or about 13% of the nation's   
   population) live within one km (approximately 1/2 mile) of one of the   
   more than 80,000 documented orphaned gas or oil wells in the U.S. Among   
   this population, at a national level, there was an over-representation   
   of Hispanic/Latino and Native American populations. The researchers   
   also found that over one third of these wells are at about 1km (or 1/2   
   mile) from a domestic groundwater well, though they note that there is   
   generally insufficient data about the potential health risks associated   
   with orphaned wells.   
      
   ""Recent studies have identified air, water and human health hazards of   
   orphaned oil and gas wells however the literature is not yet extensive   
   enough to quantify the risks of this legacy infrastructure across the   
   country," adds Seth Shonkoff at PSE Healthy Energy.   
      
   Environmental opportunities -- wind power, subsurface gas storage,   
   and geothermal development The subsurface is a natural resource like   
   any other and many present-day as well as future applications will   
   require access to subsurface reservoirs that are not compromised by   
   oil or gas leakage. For example, the researchers found that most of the   
   documented orphaned wells (91%) are in areas where geologic formations   
   offer subsurface storage potential for carbon dioxide, hydrogen, and   
   natural gas, as long as they meet security standards. The researchers   
   also suggest that instead of restoring the surface to pre-development   
   conditions, the land could potentially be repurposed to produce wind   
   power, since almost 75% of the orphaned wells are in areas with top   
   wind capacity. In addition, approximately 33% of orphaned wells are in   
   regions, such as North Dakota, that are considered moderately favourable   
   to geothermal systems and 1% are found in areas such as Utah, Colorado and   
   California that are considered most favourable for geothermal development.   
      
   "This analysis shines a light on the need to find, prioritize, plug and   
   remediate orphaned wells -- which are often located in close proximity to   
   millions of Americans' homes -- and the major task ahead to understand   
   and mitigate their environmental impacts," said Adam Peltz, Director   
   and Senior Attorney at Environmental Defense Fund. "As Bipartisan   
   Infrastructure Law- funded plugging programs ramp up, this study provides   
   an unprecedented examination of the nature of the documented orphaned well   
   population at a crucial time. These findings also speak to the importance   
   of the pending Abandoned Well Remediation Research and Development Act   
   (AWRRDA) bill in Congress, which has the potential to accelerate research   
   to find and remediate the hundreds of thousands of orphaned wells across   
   the U.S. that remain undocumented."   
       * RELATED_TOPICS   
             o Matter_&_Energy   
                   # Petroleum # Energy_and_Resources # Energy_Policy   
             o Earth_&_Climate   
                   # Oil_Spills # Environmental_Issues #   
                   Energy_and_the_Environment   
             o Science_&_Society   
                   # Environmental_Policies # Energy_Issues # Land_Management   
       * RELATED_TERMS   
             o Fracking o Petroleum_geology o Methane o   
             Environmental_impact_assessment o Water_resources   
             o Greenhouse_gas o Evaporation_from_plants o   
             Environmental_engineering   
      
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   Story Source: Materials provided by McGill_University. Note: Content   
   may be edited for style and length.   
      
      
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   Journal Reference:   
      1. Mary Kang, Jade Boutot, Renee C McVay, Katherine A Roberts, Scott   
         Jasechko, Debra Perrone, Tao Wen, Greg Lackey, Daniel Raimi, Dominic   
         C Digiulio, Seth B C Shonkoff, J William Carey, Elise G Elliott,   
         Donna J Vorhees, Adam S Peltz. Environmental risks and opportunities   
         of orphaned oil and gas wells in the United States. Environmental   
         Research Letters, 2023; 18 (7): 074012 DOI: 10.1088/1748-9326/acdae7   
   ==========================================================================   
      
   Link to news story:   
   https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/06/230620174445.htm   
      
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