U.S. demand for natural gas has and will continue to increase, with consumption growing 26% in the past decade from 25.53 tcf in 2012 to 32.29 tcf in 2023; faster than in any of the four decades preceding.

The U.S. initially grew its natural gas production on conventional wells, but they traditionally have a finite lifespan – about 20-30 years – during which only 60% of the gas present below the surface is able to be extracted. As the number of new conventional plays dwindled, producers turned to new ‘unconventional’ methods of extraction to sustain production but can only pull up 12% of an unconventional well’s total natural gas reserves.

The continual drilling of new unconventional wells requires millions of dollars of capital to be invested and releases thousands of tons of CO2 into the atmosphere, but producers must keep drilling to meet the nation’s increasing demand.

However, thousands of only partially extracted conventional natural gas wells are strewn across the United States, and they contain trillions of cubic feet of remaining gas that traditional technologies are unable to extract. As these wells are left idle, they leave in their wake numerous communities that prospered from their production and have languished once the wells dry up.