Effect of Drilling for Shale Gas on the Quality of Atmospheric Air

Shale gas is an alternative for conventional energy sources. When extracted in compliance with environmental and sustained development rules, it favors the concept of diversification of energy sources, giving spur to the development of economy and technology, and before all, to the energy safety of the country. Poland is among countries, where expectations regarding shale gas are very high. Most of the exploration works for shale gas there are performed with the use of rigs, whose subassemblies are driven by electrical motors powered by mobile generators driven by diesel engines. The number of aggregates and their total power are selected each time on the basis of power balance of particular technological subassemblies and the emergency generation system. Diesel combustion motors used for powering generators are the only source of dust and gaseous emissions to the air. A mobile technological boiler room fed with oil is another source of emissions in the winter period. For the purpose of evaluating impact of rigs on the air environment in the course of prospecting for shale gas an emission model was worked out with five emission points. Four sources were connected with the operation of combustion motors (each 1257 kW) powering generators, and the fifth one (375 kW) feeding technological boiler room. The results of the tests on the environmental impact on motors and boiler room used during shale gas prospecting on the quality of air have been presented in the paper. The tests were performed with the use of mathematical modeling employing real technological data from existing installations.