‘Monster Fracks’ Are Getting Far Bigger. And Far Thirstier
Giant new oil and gas wells that require astonishing volumes of water to fracture bedrock are threatening America’s fragile aquifers.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/...lls-water.html
So part of the issue with conventional versus unconventional oil reserves is not just the price, but is the environmental impacts. A conventional reserve might have a fraction of the number of drill sites, where the oil site will keep delivering through the different methods of extracting the oil. Unconventional oil reserves like fracking shale requires multiple taps with short lives, long processes to seal off the drill tunnels, and they use a lot of fresh water. Apparently the water use is going up a lot.