The first step is to acknowledge the problem. The second step is to bring in the scientists.

Experts are examining the question of what to do with the millions of barrels of produced water that the world’s oil and gas industry generates every day.

A number of industry scientists are convening at the Unconventional Resources Technology Conference (URTeC) in Houston this week to talk about solutions. It will take a lot of them. Every barrel of oil that comes out of horizontal fracking brings four barrels of toxic produced water with it.

“The oil business is really the water business,” said Geoffrey Thyne, CTO at ESal (Engineered Salinity), a Wyoming-based company modifying injection water chemistry to boost production. “Produced water, it’s an expense, it’s got salts and oils in it.”

The easiest and cheapest solution—reinjecting produced water back below the surface—has been discarded because it caused the ground to shake in Oklahoma and Texas, so regulators in those states have curtailed it.

Produced water has many different metals in it—sodium, potassium, calcium, magnesium, lithium, boron and more—but “all of these brines are mostly sodium and chloride,” Thyne said.

Techniques such as surface discharge, evaporation and offshore disposal either don't treat enough water or cost too much, Thyne said at a presentation at URTeC. Now companies are experimenting with options like filtration, coagulation and thermal distillation to make the water usable, if not drinkable.

“Thermal distillation is the biggest thing in Texas right now,” he said. It takes lots of energy but might work well in West Texas where there’s plenty of solar power.

Fatick Nath, an assistant professor at Texas A&M International University in Laredo, said finding an environmentally friendly way to treat produced water is essential. Even taking water far out to sea damages ocean ecosystems.

The water also represents an unconventional reuse opportunity, Nath said, with potential applications in irrigation, livestock, industrial use and power generation. He envisioned a complete management strategy for produced water incorporating multiple types of treatment, transport and reuse with limited disposal.

Both Nath and Thyne said scientists will need help from another group of people—the ones who make state and federal laws. The cost of returning produced water to beneficial reuse depends on the state’s definition of beneficial reuse. Industrial and municipal customers, who typically demand supplies that will last for decades, may need legal changes before they agree to contracts for recycled produced water.

Even so, Thyne said, the right combination of law and science may add greatly to the value of produced water. All those minerals are worth something if you can extract them.

“There’s a lot of stuff in this water,” he said. “One man’s garbage is another man’s gold.”

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