Climate Change
Pennsylvania’s Fracking Wastewater Contains a ‘Shocking’ Amount of the Critical Clean Energy Mineral Lithium
A new study estimated there is enough lithium in the state’s wastewater to meet up to 40 percent of domestic needs. But experts are concerned the discovery will be used to justify more fracking.
In 2007, a geoscientist at Penn State named Terry Engelder calculated that Pennsylvania could be sitting on more than 50 trillion cubic feet of accessible natural gas deposits. Engelder later revised his calculation upward, to 489 trillion cubic feet, enough to meet U.S. natural gas demand for 18 years. These massive numbers set off the fracking boom in Pennsylvania, leading to drilling across the state. Since the rush began, there have been 13,000 unconventional wells drilled in Pennsylvania.