California's epic drought is pushing Big Oil to solve a problem it's struggled with for decades: what to do with the billions of gallons of wastewater that gush out of wells every year.
Golden State drillers have pumped much of that liquid back underground into disposal wells. Now, amid a four-year dry spell, more companies are looking to recycle their water or sell it to parched farms as the industry tries to get ahead of environmental lawsuits and new regulations.
The trend could have implications for oil patches across the country. With fracking boosting the industry's thirst for water, companies have run into conflicts from Texas to Colorado to Pennsylvania. California could be an incubator for conservation efforts that have so far failed to gain traction elsewhere in the U.S.
If you were thinking California's drought might accelerate desalinization technology, you're wrong. It's actually helping the oil and natural gas industries make more money.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 13 2015, @01:07AM
So, you reckon selling the remaining salt - all of it - wouldn't cause any problems? It wouldn't, for example, depress the prices of salt, causing businesses to close? Employment would fall, too. You see no problem with that?
Because you think you've found a solution (ha!) to the problem doesn't mean you're not creating others.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 13 2015, @03:45AM
That's called "the market". Why would the market doing what it always does ever be a problem?