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5 Priorities for the Future
Pages 77-94

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From page 77...
... Current and potential ERP products considered by the committee ranged from resource assessments and databases to economic recovery assessments, basic research, and evaluation of environmental impacts of resource development. The committee identified program-wide strategies to improve relevance of both the ERP portfolio and its products.
From page 78...
... Releasing such derived products simultaneously with the assessments would allow ERP product consumers to evaluate the spatial variation in the density of input data as well as to evaluate the numerical values for individual geologic variables (e.g., reservoir porosity) within an assessment unit.
From page 79...
... Combining lifecycle analyses with analyses of competing resource demands and environmental risks allows consideration of such questions as: "Given the need for a certain amount of natural gas, where should wells be placed to minimize conflicts with other priorities (e.g., endangered species and financial risk)
From page 80...
... In anticipation of greater challenges related to water, the ERP might also begin to incorporate additional spatial information about heterogeneities of water resources (e.g., variability in formation water volumes needed for hydraulic fracturing, and compositional heterogeneities of produced waters) and capacity of specific geologic units for produced water disposal.
From page 81...
... The ERP could assess both technically and economically recoverable oil and gas using a variety of approaches: it might apply similar approaches to those it applies in its coal assessments,1 to approaches used by the USGS Energy and Mineral Resources mission area (e.g., Meinert et al., 2016) , or to approaches applied by the oil and gas industry.
From page 82...
... Next-Generation Assessment Approaches Effective ERP resource assessments of the near future will need to be dynamic and flexible so that the growing volume of new data becoming available may be quickly incorporated and accounted for. They need to accommodate systems approaches to management by including the information about water resources, waste disposal, environmental factors, factors affecting production viability, and lifecycle assessments.
From page 83...
... These include for assessments and products related to coal, oil and gas, wind, uranium, energy storage, and methane hydrates. Oil and Gas Oil and gas companies will continue to create their own resource assessments to better understand the global hydrocarbon endowment and to meet Securities and Exchange Commission requirements for publicly traded companies.
From page 84...
... Current ERP reporting strategies, however, make this difficult. Raw and Derived Data Raw and derived data products associated with oil and gas assessments need to be available publicly in a timely manner for ERP product consumers so that consumers may better understand the reliability of both the ERP's resource assessments and any independent assessments that may have been conducted.
From page 85...
... The overall environmental impacts have yet to be evaluated fully. The ERP might collaborate with the USGS Water Resources mission area to evaluate the impacts of specific high-water-volume hydraulic fracturing development strategies on water resource depletion and potential groundwater contamination.
From page 86...
... Because much of the nation's coal resource base has been characterized, however, basic research for exploration and development, particularly from the standpoint of mining, needs to be a lesser priority for the ERP. Similarly, the need for basic research on coalbed methane resources currently lacks immediacy: coalbed methane development is mature but has been hampered by competition from other parts of the gas industry that employ high-watervolume hydraulic fracturing.
From page 87...
... There may be opportunities to leverage synergistic ERP activities involving the characterization of produced water volumes and compositions associated with oil and gas development, although areas of high-temperature geothermal potential often are not located in oil and gas provinces. Continued basic research on geothermal resources will allow the ERP to maintain a reputation of excellence, innovation, and leadership, and, most importantly, to contribute to higher-quality resource assessments.
From page 88...
... The ERP's expertise is better utilized for assessments of geologically based energy resources. Uranium ERP uranium research was initiated to inform policy makers when a resurgence in lowcarbon electricity generation by nuclear power was anticipated (NRC, 1999)
From page 89...
... The ERP and USGS Water Resources Mission areas collect raw water samples and conduct detailed, high-quality analyses of major and trace elements and isotopes to better understand the source and quality of produced waters. This information is stored in the produced water database.5 The ERP needs strategies to update and expand that database by incorporating a greater number of basic water chemistry analyses, coupled with detailed analyses for trace elements, transition metals, natural radioactive and organic constituents, and other constituents that may contribute to toxicity, particularly those from the oil and gas reservoirs.
From page 90...
... Heightened interest in reuse of produced water for industrial and agricultural applications also provides an opportunity for the ERP and Water Resources mission areas to collaborate with external groups on new analytical approaches for water samples with complex matrices, thereby identifying previously unrecognized constituents of produced waters that may influence treatment and reuse decisions. The combination of chemistry data with produced water volumes data (described in the previous section)
From page 91...
... Until further data are collected on the technical recoverability of gas hydrates from onshore deposits, however, resource assessments will not likely be a priority. Lack of production and exploration data for onshore gas hydrate resources in the United States demonstrates no ongoing need to maintain hydrate resources databases until more data are acquired; 2.
From page 92...
... Given the uncertainties of the contributions of methane hydrates to the future energy mix, emphasis placed on methane hydrates research by the ERP in the next 10-15 years will need to reflect progress (or lack thereof) toward development of viable technologies for natural gas production from hydrates as well as on the information needs of ERP product consumers.
From page 93...
... Underground Natural Gas Storage Given the growth of natural gas production and the nation's increasing dependence on natural gas, availability is becoming more reliant on pipelines and storage options. Natural gas is commonly stored underground and under pressure in depleted oil or natural gas 7 See http://energystorage.org/compressed-air-energy-storage-caes.
From page 94...
... The ERP might provide national or regional-level assessments of the location and character of geologic storage options for natural gas. 8 See https://www.eia.gov/naturalgas/storage/basics/.


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