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New book addresses the question: is sustainable shale oil and gas indeed an oxymoron?

RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, NC— A new volume in the Emerging Issues in Analytical Chemistry series from Elsevier and RTI Press, “Sustainable Shale Oil and Gas: Analytical Chemistry, Geochemistry, and Biochemistry Methods,” provides a clear understanding of the potential environmental issues and public health implications of shale oil and gas extraction.

The book is written by Vikram Rao, Ph.D., executive director of the Research Triangle Energy Consortium, and a consultant for RTI and Rob Knight, Ph.D., a professor at the University of California, San Diego, and an expert on the human microbiome. Rao has more than 30 years of experience in energy research and development and Knight is one of the founders of microbiome analytics. 

Aimed at engineers and other practitioners in the energy field, “Sustainable Shale Oil and Gas” takes stock of technical and regulatory problems related to the rapid expansion of hydraulic fracturing. It is aimed at finding solutions that can make shale oil and gas production profitable while protecting the environment and human well-being.

 “Shale oil and gas have altered the world energy landscape, possibly permanently,” Rao said. “They burst upon the fossil energy scene with a suddenness that initially defied prediction but the bounty carried environmental baggage.”

The authors point out that analytical chemistry, geochemistry, and biochemistry all play a role in developing sustainability in shale oil and gas production. They review several new sensing and evaluation technologies that could help in this goal.

The last sentence of the book reads, “That which cannot be measured, cannot be regulated, or otherwise controlled or exploited.”  This describes the essential motivation for the book: current analytical methods need augmentation.

The book is available through Amazon and the Elsevier Store.

Rao has also written “Shale Oil and Gas: The Promise and the Peril, Revised and Updated Second Edition” and “Shale Gas: The Promise and the Peril.”