Microbial impacts on shale gas exploitation

Understanding how microbial communities will respond to future exploitation of the subsurface is a key uncertainty, which cuts across many areas of science and technology, including the provision of clean water, the safe disposal of waste materials (e.g. CO2 and radwaste), harvesting geothermal energy and fracking for nonconventional gases. The development of a shale gas industry in the UK is seen as crucial to delivering a reliable and secure energy mix to the UK. However, microbial impacts during and after fracking are very poorly understood and could have major implications for the technology. For example, existing or introduced microorganisms could have beneficial impacts, enhancing gas recovery or helping bioremediate large volumes of water contaminated during fracking. They could also have negative impacts through souring reactions and reduced fluid/gas flow caused by biofilm formation. Making maximal use of expertise and infrastructure at Manchester and Rawwater (and building on a recently complete NERC IAA project between the partners), the objectives for this multidisciplinary PhD are therefore to;
1. Complete a detailed literature review of the microbiology of fracking systems, providing boundary conditions for the
project.
2. Identify key fracking additives that can be metabolised under in situ conditions and determine the biogeochemical
reactions that they support (focusing on souring reactions and polysaccharide production)
3. Determine the potential for microbial colonisation of fracture networks within shales under in situ conditions imposed in
the laboratories of the partners
4. Quantify the impact of microbial growth on porosity and fluid transport