Since oil and gas drilling began nearly 150 years ago, the salty wastewater it produces has been a nuisance for operators. Now, the electric vehicle revolution could turn the industry’s billions of barrels of brine into dollars.
It’s one of the more ambitious ideas in terms of dealing with carbon dioxide - burying it in pools of salty water beneath the seabed. Such an idea - if it worked - has the potential to safely store carbon dioxide for thousands of years.
A network of wells, tanks, pipelines, pump houses and roads cut into the Allegheny National Forest in Elk County to harvest $350 million worth of oil. What worries state and federal environmental regulators isn't the project's growth but its death.
As more places face a scarcity of fresh water, desalination is seen as a possible answer. But energy and financial requirements limit how widely it can be used.
