The Business Case for Sustainable Hydraulic Fracturing

The Kleinman Center is thrilled to host a lecture by Senior Fellow John Quigley examining the business case for sustainable fracking.

Sustainable natural gas development requires the industry to embrace innovation to develop fracturing technologies that eliminate the use of water and chemicals and development practices that reduce environmental impacts – and in the process capture a wide range of additional economic, social, and environmental benefits. The business case for sustainable shale gas development involves creating a way to fully recognize and account for all of the risks and costs of unconventional natural gas development, and to value water and other ecosystem services in that process. A bottom-line approach to sustainability can reconcile both society’s and industry’s goals and could propel advances in technology and best practices – and improve regulators’ ability to adequately respond to this rapidly evolving industry. Putting these principles into practice could minimize most of the current, much-debated risks of the unconventional oil and gas development. It would greatly support the natural gas industry’s social license to operate.