Discussion for article #235683
To be clear, the quoted scientists are mainly convinced of a link between wastewater injection and the earthquakes, not between the process of fracking itself and the earthquakes. Big distinction.
It is striking that you can go to the USGS website and almost every day there is a 3.0 or higher recorded. The OK governorās advice? Get earthquake insuranceā¦only problem is the fine print states that it doesnāt cover man made quakes. Guess Mary has to come up with additional words of wisdom.
5 quakes reported today
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/map/
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frackĀ·ing1
ĖfrakiNG/
noun
the process of injecting liquid at high pressure into subterranean rocks, boreholes, etc., so as to force open existing fissures and extract oil or gas.
No, Iām sure this wouldnāt have any effect on the stability ofthe surrounding areaā¦???
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Good point. Just like it is the bullet and not the gun that kills people. Big distinction.
R U nuts man?
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Earthquake activity in Oklahoma in 2013 was 70 times greater than it was before 2008, state geologists reported. Oklahoma historically recorded an average of 1.5 quakes of magnitude 3 or greater each year. It is now seeing an average of 2.5 such quakes each day, according to geologists.
Thatās 700 times greater, not 70.
The largest jolt linked to wastewater injection ā a magnitude-5.6 that hit Prague, Oklahoma, in 2011 ā damaged 200 buildings and shook a college football stadium.
Shook a football stadium? This menace to our liberty must be stopped
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āā¦chemicals are pumped into rock formations to crack them openā¦ā
Cracking the earth open.
Thatās the definition of an earthquake.
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Eventually Fracking will cause a quake strong enough to kill or seriously damage someone and then the oil companies will deny it happened or that they are responsible.
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Wow, with the apples and oranges. The issue is the disposal of wastewater, not with the actual process of hydraulic fracturing. Did you read the article? If wastewater were disposed of in a different way, the destabilization would not occur (at least, in the way that scientists have identified).
Did you read the article?
From the article:
Scientists have mainly attributed the spike to the injection of wastewater deep underground, a practice they say can activate dormant faults. Only a few cases of shaking have been blamed on fracking, in which large volumes of water, sand and chemicals are pumped into rock formations to crack them open and free oil or gas.
Wastewater injection can cause movement along existing faultlines. Fracking creates new faults. So, yeah, different processes. Itās much like the distinction between being killed by the blast from and explosion and being killed by shrapnel from an explosion. Different processes, same result.
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We are talking about a little bit of shaking. That is not the problem. The problem is that few people care much about protecting deep geological structures, some hundreds of millions of years old. Out of sight out of mind. Right now in California, for example, nobody, including Shell and ExxonMobil, the top frackers in the area, will cop to the damage done to deep structures in the western parts of the San Joaquin Valley, which parallels the San Andreas Fault. Minor temblors are a daily occurrence. But you also now have subsidence from removing 10 cubic kilometers of groundwater annually (net excess of recharge rate) which has caused the ground to sink as much as 12 meters in some places, along with an uncontrolled reinjection or seepage of āproduction waterā from steam injection.
At the table of the investment bankers in Tokyo, New York or London, such shaking is a de minimus issue compared to keeping capital productive. Thus, it is far more likely that investor suits related to the poor profitability or outright fraud associated with hydrocarbon mining operations will have a much bigger impact than regulatory agencies in the pocket of incumbent hydrocarbon producers. Beyond California, the article mentions shaking in āAlabama, Arkansas, Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico, Ohio, Oklahoma and Texas.ā Conceivably the only state on the list here where you might expect action is Colorado, which values its geology and has one of the worldās leading mining schools. Doing something, however, would require its part-time legislature to make and approve rules. Even here, it is unlikely the rules would get out of committee. If I recall, the same committee that is in charge of mining issues is in charge of grazing rights, so until fracking represents an issue for cows, horses and bison, it is probably not happening.
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Heās repeating nearly word for word a report I saw on the local news here a few weeks ago. Itās not the fracking! Itās the water injection, see?!
Need more studies!
The only problem is that Republicans donāt believe in science especially when it comes between them and their fossil fuel profits. Right wing energy states are passing laws banning anti-fracking bans in their states. In Denton, Texas they just passed legislation that prevents local towns from banning fracking and Oklahoma is considering the same legislation. These energy state politicians are bought and paid for by the energy industries in their states and will do what they tell them to do despite the potential geological disasterās their industries may cause.
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Iām not disputing that the process of fracking is capable of producing earthquakes, Iām noting that the scientists quoted in this article areāas in the material you quotedāāmainly attribut[ing] the spike to the injection of wastewater deep underground.ā Further:
āThe picture is very clearā that wastewater injection can cause faults to move, said USGS geophysicist William Ellsworth.
And:
Yet another study, this one published Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications, connected a swarm of small quakes west of Fort Worth, Texas, to nearby natural gas wells and wastewater disposal.
And:
Last year, regulators in Colorado ordered an operator to temporarily stop injecting wastewater after the job was believed to be linked to several small quakes.
The title of this article suggests that drilling is primarily being blamed, when in reality itās wastewater disposal thatās the primary culprit.
Scientists are likewise convinced that direct punches in the face cause nosebleeds and black eyes but the correlation is debatable. At least by the accused offender.