Water shortages could pose as great a threat to energy security as political instability or terrorism, leading peak oil theorist Matt Simmons told delegates at the Global Marine Renewable Energy Conference in Seattle, Washington, last month.
The energy investment banker, who has long warned of dwindling energy supplies, said concerns about water quality in the US could also bring shale gas exploration and production to a halt. Fraccing operations in the US’s Barnett shale gas field alone will consume some 100 billion gallons of water, he said. ‘Water scarcity poses a far greater risk than energy scarcity. Without water, society dies. Without water, most energy sources stop.’
Simmons is the founder of the Ocean Energy Institute, which is working with the University of Maine to develop a large wind farm offshore New England (OE March). The project would use electricity generated by wind to produce liquid ammonia to fuel a new generation of cars, with desalinated water as a byproduct.
Simmons said concerns about drinking water pollution from fraccing operations in shale gas plays could scuttle the nascent industry.
‘Shale gas, which has emerged as a new energy miracle thanks to modern technology, is basically unlikely even to be a shortterm energy bridge,’ he said. ‘The individual well decline curves are extremely steep – in fact, they’re almost vertical. The water intensity to hydraulically fracture the shale is extreme.’
The US Environmental Protection Agency is studying the safety of frac water disposal. Each well, Simmons said, produces about 7 million gallons of chemically contaminated wastewater. Government regulators could halt production under the Clean Water Act of 1972 as early as the end of this year, Simmons said. ‘That will end shale gas, period. Dead.’
Simmons said he was encouraged by the Obama administration’s decision to open much of the Atlantic coast and Alaska to offshore oil and gas exploration, but cautioned that years of seismic exploration would be needed to determine potential reserves. ‘Essentially, we don’t have a clue what’s there,’ he observed.
Even if more of the US OCS were opened to drilling, production would be unlikely to offset the decline in production at Mexico’s Cantarell oil field, he said, adding that Cantarell and North Sea production has declined by about 5 million b/d over the past five years. ‘There’s no way we’ll make that up,’ he said.
Simmons spoke at the conference during a day dominated by talk of environmental and technology transfer issues related to emerging ocean renewable energy technologies.
‘Our oceans contain remarkable energy that was never accessed or tapped,’ Simmons said. ‘If our energy supplies are feeble and in decline, if our potable water is shaky too, then how will the world survive to 2025, or even maybe 2015? In my opinion, ocean energy is, in all probability, our only solution.’ OE