There are four challenges to China’s domestic shale gas development, Lin said:
- Domestic fracking and horizontal drilling technologies are inadequate and access to experienced foreign advisers is limited.
- In the absence of skills that might prevent it, there are concerns about shale drilling’s use of and impacts on China’s increasingly limited water supplies.
China is 'up a creek', no pun intended, when it comes to their water supplies and energy solutions. I've read stories over the past few years of cities that have literally sunk measurably due to the depletion of the underlying water tables. Something that is rarely mentioned when grandiose plans of increasing solar farms are talked about is the amount of water that is needed to keep the panels clean so they can operate at peak efficiency. With China's dirty air, their water usage is going to be above what other countries need to generate the same amount of output. Where is the water going to come from? I am surprised China is not fast-tracking even more nuclear plants (even though they too use water) as their main energy solution.
They should also take a page from the capitalist handbook a la the X-Prize for space exploration and offer a $1 Billion prize to anyone/group who can come up with an economical desalinization solution. For benefitting humanity, apart from getting to a point of almost free energy, getting cheap fresh water would have an incredible societal impact globally. Offering a life-changing prize would have college classes around the world working on it. Basement/backyard tinkerers looking for a solution. The answer is out there.