Talk:Shale gas

Overlapping with Hydraulic fracturing article
There seems to be some overlapping with the the Hydraulic fracturing article, e.g. concerning the environmental sections. For example, the earthquakes sections probably is related to the specific method called hydraulic fracturing and not the shale gas as a type of natural gas. It would be probably necessary to look environmental sections in this article and in the hydraulic fracturing article in complex and decide, which information suits better in which article to avoid unnecessary duplication and mixing the subjects. Beagel (talk) 19:39, 26 August 2012 (UTC) Really agree with these comments.Iztwoz (talk) 18:38, 18 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Because "hydraulic fracturing" has become a sort of popular shorthand for environmental concerns associated with unconventional oil and gas, I suggest that the environmental section go to Environmental impact of hydraulic fracturing, or to Environmental impact of hydraulic fracturing in the United States, as appropriate. Plazak (talk) 12:58, 13 May 2013 (UTC)
 * As there is still a significant overlapping with Environmental impact of hydraulic fracturing, I propose to replace the current environmental section here with a summary of that article to harmonize the information in different articles. This was done recently for the Hydraulic fracturing article. Of course, information about environmental imapcts which are not caused by hydraulic fracturing but which is notwithstanding this relevant to the shale gas production and usage, should be added to that summary here. Beagel (talk) 20:22, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

Advocacy tag still needed?
I've corrected or toned down the worst NPOV vios (that I saw), and added some balancing information. Article now seems reasonably balanced, imo. Note that I'm a geologist -- not an oil guy, but sympathetic to the industry. So editors with other viewpoints should check too. Do we still need the tag? You might ID what you see as problematic stuff.

Article is definitely a shining star compared to, forex, Hydraulic fracturing . Now there's a can of worms.... --Pete Tillman (talk) 06:48, 14 December 2013 (UTC)


 * The entire section The relative impacts of natural gas and coal is framed in a debating style, suggesting that environmentalists prefer coal mining to shale oil. That’s entirely inappropriate for an encyclopaedia and smells like advocacy to me.  The tag is definitely still required!  ☸ Moilleadóir ☎ 03:47, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

Definitely. It is a heavily biased article. Unbelievable. It reads like someone from the industry has written it and will not accept any criticism. I haven't read such a biased article in a while on Wikipedia. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.77.254.204 (talk) 12:39, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

Definitely still needed. Can someone add the "citation needed" and "unclear" on the following sentence in the introduction "Human and public health will both benefit from shale gas displacing coal burning.". It seems biased, suffers from the problem Moilleadóir pointed out and simply doesn't make sense. Liberivore (talk) 09:02, 13 November 2014 (UTC)


 * the section The relative impacts of natural gas and coal (!!) does not belong on teh page "shale gas" or needs to be completely rewritten. I see that analysis as "industry written, framed in debating style" has dragged on for 3 years without resolution. i see no advocacy tag, so i assume industrial view persisted?--Wuerzele (talk) 16:56, 17 May 2016 (UTC)

What is shale gas, and how much energy does it deliver?
I couldn't find out from this article the composition of shale gas. I am inclined to believe that it may be mainly methane, but is it something else as well? If so, what, and in what proportion? And those "Trillions of cubic feet" are, to me, quite incomprehensible/useless. What would it be in MTOE (Millions of tons of oil equivalent) or terajoules? I guess I could calculate it from the numbers of cubic feet given. Assuming it is all methane (which I, like I just said, don't know if it is) I'd calculate it from the molecular weight of methane and its heat of combustion. I would be happy to do that and put the result on this page if Wikipedia could reassure me that such a simple calculation wouldn't count as "original research" and as such be inadmissible. But first I'd need to know the composition of shale gas. Please, anyone? 83.251.97.118 (talk) 15:41, 4 January 2017 (UTC)


 * By its composition, shale gas (not to be confused with synthetic gas manufactured by pyrolysis of oil shale) is ordinary natural gas. It differs from natural gas only by the environment of its deposition (trapped in shales). Beagel (talk) 19:32, 4 January 2017 (UTC)


 * Shale gas, like any other natural gas, is mostly methane. But it often contains heavier hydrocarbons C2-C5 which increase the energy per unit volume significantly above that of methane. In the Bakken play, the gas at the wellhead averages about 1,400 BTU/ft3, compared to about 1,000 for methane. The C2-C5 are removed as natural gas liquids (NGLs, which is not the same as condensate) prior to marketing the gas. The proportion of NGLs in the gas may vary significantly with location in a play, such as in the Marcellus, Eagle Ford, and Woodford plays. Plazak (talk) 21:26, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

Neutrality and style issues
This article has serious issues with neutrality and encyclopedic style. The lead section especially does an extremely poor job of explaining what exactly shale gas is, and seems to be biased towards proponents of it, citing mostly outdated sources as "recent" evidence of the abundance of shale gas, its positive influence on energy production, and its low climate impacts (all of which are claims I find suspect, especially with the evident disregard for encyclopedic style or proper research). I don't want to completely gut this because I am not qualified or able to rewrite the lead section in an academically comprehensive way, but I beg someone with more geology or energy knowledge to please fix this ASAP. Toadspike (talk) 19:19, 7 July 2022 (UTC)