After the Fukushima nuclear disaster, a reassessment of the energy system is needed in order to include such aspects as human security and resilience. More open and careful discussions are needed concerning the various risks and uncertainties of future energy options, both in Japan and globally....

Hydraulic fracturing of shale formations in the United States has led to a domestic energy boom. Currently, water is the only fracturing fluid regularly used in commercial shale oil and gas production. Industry and researchers are interested in non-aqueous working fluids due to their potential...

This study models the uncertainty range in the future gas production output from US shale plays up to 2025. The future spread in gas output in our models follows from variations in the number of wells that will be drilled according to three distinct scenarios. Each scenario assumes a well...

This study evaluates the economic feasibility of five emergent shale gas plays on the European Continent. Each play is assessed using a uniform field development plan with 100 wells drilled at a rate of 10wells/year in the first decade. The gas production from the realized wells is monitored...

Tapping its large reserves of unconventional gas, China has launched shale gas exploration and started drilling wells in trial development zones. To better understand the potential energy and air pollution implications of shale gas production in China, this study developed a hybrid life cycle...

Exploitation of shale gas in the UK is at a very early stage, but with the latest estimates suggesting potential resources of 3.8×1013 cubic metres – enough to supply the UK for next 470years – it is viewed by many as an exciting economic prospect. However, its environmental impacts are...

Low gas wellhead prices in North America have put its shale gas industry under high competitive pressure. Rapid technology innovation can help companies to improve the economic performance of shale gas fields. Cash flow models are paramount for setting effective production and technology...

China is facing serious issues involving energy sufficiency, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and air pollution caused partly by the rapid growth of vehicles. In order to relieve those problems, new energy vehicles are introduced into the bus and car market. We adopt life cycle analysis to...

This paper describes the nexus of energy justice, supply and security. It advances the case that energy justice is the relatively new concept in this triangle of issues and an area requiring research. There are three central tenets of energy justice: distributional, procedural and recognition...

There are increasing concerns that physical material constraints threaten energy security and the growth of emerging technologies. Traditional approaches to quantify material criticality utilize single-score metrics which are narrowly focused on physical scarcity and often lead to...