• Journal of Environmental Impact Assessment
• /
• v.23 no.3
• /
• pp.227-235
• /
• 2014

Interest has been growing worldwide in unconventional natural gas that has become an increasingly important source of energy in the world. Unconventional gas development, including shale gas, generally involves a larger environmental impact, compared to conventional gas development, due to its intensity and scale of the operation. There are a growing number of studies on identifying and minimizing the environmental impacts of unconventional gas development. This study aims to examines the current environmental policies and regulatory systems related to the unconventional gas development. The study shows that few environmental regulation exists concerning unconventional gas development, even in the USA where unconventional gas development is most actively pursued. Regulations, however, are being developed based on studies currently underway on health and environmental risks of unconventional gas development and on guidelines designed to reduce the risks. In a world where environmental regulations are ever strengthening, review the environmental regulatory systems and guidelines about unconventional gas need to be established for Korean firms to understand environmental impacts of unconventional gas development they invest or take part in, enabling them to manage and operate gas activities in a way that minimizes environmental damages.

• International Journal of Highway Engineering
• /
• v.16 no.3
• /
• pp.75-84
• /
• 2014

PURPOSES : Traffic congestions which occur in the intersections of arterials lead to mobility and environment problem, and then traffic agencies and engineers have been struggling for mitigating congestions with greenhouse gas emissions. As an alternative of solving theses problems, this study is to introduce a low-cost and high-effectiveness countermeasure as unconventional intersections which are successfully in operation in U.S.. The main feature of unconventional intersections is to reroute turning movement on an approach to other approach, which consequently more green time is available for the progression of through traffic. Due to improved progression, this unique geometric design contributes to reduce delays with greenhouse gas emission and provides a viable alternative to interchanges. This study is to evaluate the potential operation and environment benefits of unconventional intersections. METHODS : This study used the VISSIM model with Synchro and EnViVer. Synchro is to optimize signal phases and EnViVer model to estimate the amount of greenhouse gas emissions by each condition. RESULTS : The result shows that unconventional intersections lead to increase the capacity and to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, compared to existing intersections. CONCLUSIONS : Unconventional intersections have the ability to positively impact operations and environments as a low-cost and high-effectiveness countermeasure.

• Economic and Environmental Geology
• /
• v.47 no.3
• /
• pp.265-273
• /
• 2014

Unconventional resources are natural resources which require greater than industry-standard levels of technology or investment to exploit the commercial development. The key point is that unconventional resources are lower quality fuel sources and are not as economically viable as crude oil and conventional gas. Over the past 100 years, Conventional oil and gas has been satisfied with the energy demands. But developing countries such as China and India, the introduction of the developed countries and the surge of energy due to the depletion of unconventional energy resources will be the limelight. According to be analyzed in the academic literature to unconventional gas and oil(2000~2012) by the program of 'web of science', the research activities 402 papers in unconventional gas and 1,581 papers in unconventional oil.

• Economic and Environmental Geology
• /
• v.48 no.4
• /
• pp.361-369
• /
• 2015

Interest of unconventional Oil and Gas, which is produced in a different way, has been increasing due to exhaustion of traditional oil and gas. However production of unconventional Oil and Gas is closely related to its technology level. Accordingly in this research, we can analyze technology level of unconventional Oil and Gas with country/sector/year patent analysis. Through the result of this research, U.S is highest patent application national, patent application in oil sand is increasing. In addition, oil sands-realated patents and shale oil-realated patents applying actively in early 1970's and since the mid-1980's showed a decreasing trend. And patent application in unconventional oil and gas has been increasing due to the rise in the oil price 2000's.

• Journal of Environmental Impact Assessment
• /
• v.22 no.6
• /
• pp.639-648
• /
• 2013

Unconventional natural gas resources are now estimated to be as large as conventional resources. Unconventional natural gas has became an increasingly important source of energy in the world since the start of this century. The factors that drive natural gas demand and supply point more and more to a future in which natural gas plays greater role in the global energy mix. The expansion of using natural gas will be expected in Korea. This research aims to analyze environmental impacts of expansion of unconventional natural gas. This research was carried out for comparative analysis between global energy mix and Korea energy mix, and developed a case that reflect the changed energy mix due to the expansion of unconventional natural gas in Korea. Also this research evaluate the production of air pollutants and the cost of the damage in power generation sector. The results of this research can be summarized as that natural gas portion of future global energy mix (about 25%) is greater than Korea energy mix (about 12%). This research developed a case that replace 10% energy of power generation sector to natural gas in the 6th demand supply program, reflecting the changed energy mix due to the expansion of natural gas use. In that case, air pollutants would be reduced gradually through 2015 to 2027. In detail, carbon dioxide reduces 22 million tons and environmental damage cost reduces 4500 billion won by 2027.

• Economic and Environmental Geology
• /
• v.47 no.5
• /
• pp.551-561
• /
• 2014

Natural gas is the world's fastest-growing fossil fuel, with consumption increasing from 113 trillion cubic feet(Tcf) in 2010 to 185Tcf in 2040. While conventional natural gas streams from the earth relatively easily, unconventional gas finds are more difficult to develop and more costly to produce. Right now, there are six main types of unconventional gas, including deep gas, gas-containing shale, coalbed methane(CBM), geopressurized zones, Arctic and subsea hydrates, and tight gas. Tight gas refers to natural gas reservoirs locked in extraordinarily impermeable, hard rocks(sandstone, siltstone or carbonate sedimentary rocks). In this study, we analyzed total 375 papers(2000-2014) of tight gas by country, institution, international cooperation etc.

• Journal of Advanced Marine Engineering and Technology
• /
• v.39 no.9
• /
• pp.973-980
• /
• 2015

With their wide geographical distribution, unconventional resources are continuously compared against conventional resources, but their development is expanding because TRRs (Technical Recoverable Resources) are similar to conventional resources. In particular, there is active development of unconventional gas resources such as shale gas, tight gas, CBM (coalbed methane) and gas hydrate. However, it is difficult to calculate the material properties of unconventional resources, especially the gas content, with current geophysical logging technology. Additionally, some overseas companies have monopolies on related equipment and materials. Therefore, this study developed a reservoir PCS (Pressure Core Sampler). It can collect core samples without gaseous loss by maintaining high pressure from the moment the core is sampled and record pressure and temperature in real time. Successful performance testing was also carried out for official verification of the manufactured PCS. The reservoir PCS will contribute to the acquisition of geophysical well logging data as well as accurate and reliable cores.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
• /
• v.52 no.2
• /
• pp.154-165
• /
• 2014

Development of unconventional natural resources such as shale gas, shale oil and coal bed methane, has been activated and improved the productivity due to the recent technology advance in horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing. However, the flowback water mixed with chemical additives, and the brine water containing oil, gas, high levels of salts and radioactive metals is produced during the gas production. Potential negative environmental impact due to large volumes of the produced wastewater is increasingly seen as the major obstacles to the unconventional natural resource development. In this study an integrated framework for the flowback and brine water treatment is proposed, and we reviewed the upcoming state of the art technology in water treatment. Basic separation processes which include not only membrane, evaporation, crystallization and desalination processes, but the potential water reuse and recycling techniques can be applied for the unconventional natural resource industry.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Gas
• /
• v.18 no.3
• /
• pp.20-30
• /
• 2014

To develop a unconventional gas reservoir, an analysis of tight rock property are required. Especially, conventional measurements are difficult to be applied to unconventional resources such as tight gas reservoir because the permeability are extremely low compared to a conventional gas reservoir. In this study, an apparatus was developed for measuring low permeability and porosity based on a pressure pulse decay method under unsteady state conditions. The apparatus was applied for measuring the porosity and permeability of tight sand core samples from Gyeongsang basin in Korea. As a validation of the measurement, regression analysis was carried out using the dimensionless pseudo-pressure between the measured data and analytical solution. The results show the correlation coefficients above 0.96. Therefore, it is believed that the apparatus has a high accuracy.

• Journal of the Korean Professional Engineers Association
• /
• v.45 no.4
• /
• pp.30-34
• /
• 2012

Shale gas is one of the resources which require lots of new technologies for commercial production and has the most reserves among unconventional gas resources for commercial production at present. Especially, the growth of shale gas industry means the significant changes of paradigm and the development of shale gas is very different from conventional gas development in terms of geology, rock mechanics, petroleum engineering, development and production engineering. In this manner, shale gas may hold the key to expanding the long-term role of gas in the global energy mix.