Sustainable Shale Oil and Gas

Shale oil and gas have altered the energy landscape, possibly permanently. They burst upon the fossil energy scene with a suddenness that initially defied prediction. Even the political balance of the world has changed. But, with the methods employed, the vast majority of the oil and gas remains in the ground. At the same time, serious environmental impact issues have been raised. A new volume in the Emerging Issues in Analytical Chemistry series, Sustainable Shale Oil and Gas: Analytical Chemistry, Geochemistry, and Biochemistry Methods was written on the premise that analytical methods to inform these areas were wanting. While not attempting to be comprehensive, it describes important analytical methods, some still in development. These methods are underpinned primarily by chemistry, but geochemistry and even biochemistry play significant roles. The book has a solutions flavor; problems are posed together with approaches to ameliorate them. - Provides a clear understanding of the potential environmental issues as well as a path to solutions - Includes background information for understanding potential impacts of shale operations from both an environmental and public health perspective - Authored by leaders from diverse disciplines with expertise in a variety of areas: groundwater quality, petroleum-related operations, microbial ecology, and electronic technologies - Reviews new sensing and evaluation methods that could be key enablers to sustainable fracking: portable mass spectrometry, microbiome analysis, DNA as tracers, and a microparticulate matter detector

Vikram Rao is the executive director of the Research Triangle Energy Consortium, having assumed this position on September 1, 2008. He spent 9 years with Halliburton and another 25 with predecessor companies. Most recently, he served as senior vice president and chief technology officer responsible for Halliburton's technology effort as well as intellectual asset management. He joined a predecessor company in 1974 as a senior research engineer. Dr. Rao currently advises the non-profit RTI International and the firms BioLargo Inc., Biota Technology Inc., Alchemy Sciences Inc., Fervo Energy Inc., Sage Geosystems Inc., Clyra Medical Technologies Inc., and Cybele Microbiome Inc. He is a past chairman of the North Carolina Mining and Energy Commission. He is the author of more than 30 publications and has been awarded 42 United States patents and foreign analogs. RTI Press released his book Shale Gas: The Promise and the Peril in July 2012 and a revised second edition in 2015. His book Sustainable Shale Oil and Gas in the Emerging Issues in Analytical Chemistry series, with Dr. Rob Knight, was released in 2016. Rao earned a doctorate and a master's in engineering from Stanford University and holds a bachelor's degree in engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras in Chennai, India.