Google Funding the Next Big One?

wdavies writes "According to this New York Times article, Google is funding a controversial deep drill geothermal project north of San Francisco. Apparently the company, AltaRock, omitted to disclose that the same deep drilling caused a major quake in Basel, Switzerland when it was last used. Given the notorious geological instability of the Northern Californian coast, this strikes me as kind of dumb — and given the known likelihood of this technique producing earthquakes, somewhat EVIL."

Comments

Unfair Blame to Both Google And AltaRock

[eldavojohn]

Yes, Google's given these guys $6.5 million. But the United States federal government has given them $200 million--especially the Department of Energy. If you're a United States citizen, you should be aware that you are also funding "the next big one."

Also the article says it's "nearly the same" drilling technology as the one that caused the quake in Basel while the summary says it's the same. It seems it's not the same though. The article goes on to say:

Officials at AltaRock, with offices in Sausalito, Calif., and Seattle, insist that the company has learned the lessons of Basel and that its own studies indicate the project can be carried out safely. James T. Turner, AltaRock's senior vice president for operations, said the company had applied for roughly 20 patents on ways to improve the method.

I don't know about Basel but I'm certain these guys know they would face serious legal/criminal action if they didn't know for sure it was safe.

Re:Unfair Blame to Both Google And AltaRock

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know about Basel but I'm certain these guys know they would face serious legal/criminal action if they didn't know for sure it was safe.

They just need to know to the best of their ability that it is safe, maybe they are just an incompetent lot.

Re:Unfair Blame to Both Google And AltaRock

[sonamchauhan]

> I don't know about Basel but I'm certain these guys know they would face serious legal/criminal action if they didn't know for sure it was safe.

Why don't you read the article?

Alarmed, Mr. Häring and other company officials decided to release all pressure in the well to try to halt the fracturing. But as they stood a few miles from the drill site, giving the orders by speakerphone to workers atop the hole, a much bigger jolt shook the room.

"I think that was us," said one stunned official.

Analysis of seismic data proved him correct. The quake measured 3.4 -- modest in some parts of the world. But triggered quakes tend to be shallower than natural ones, and residents generally describe them as a single, explosive bang or jolt -- often out of proportion to the magnitude -- rather than a rumble.
Triggered quakes are also frequently accompanied by an "air shock," a loud tearing or roaring noise.

The noise "made me feel it was some sort of supersonic aircraft going overhead," said Heinrich Schwendener, who, as president of Geopower Basel, the consortium that includes Geothermal Explorers and the utility companies, was standing next to the borehole.

Re:Unfair Blame to Both Google And AltaRock

[sonamchauhan]

Forgot to add ... why aren't they drilling in some desert area... some abandoned nuclear test site? Sure, the power transmission losses will be larger, but so will the safety (especially compared to SF)

Re:Unfair Blame to Both Google And AltaRock

[mini me]

Yes, but unlike Google, the government's motto is "Do evil." At least I'm pretty sure it is.

Re:Unfair Blame to Both Google And AltaRock

[Anonymous Coward]

to be fair, $200 million is just a drop in the bucket compared to all the other stolen money that you have no control over.

Re:Unfair Blame to Both Google And AltaRock

[that this is not und]

You're correct. That's why limited small government is so important.

Re:Unfair Blame to Both Google And AltaRock

[Darkness404]

Yes, Google's given these guys $6.5 million. But the United States federal government has given them $200 million--especially the Department of Energy. If you're a United States citizen, you should be aware that you are also funding "the next big one."

And what am I going to do with this knowledge? I can't exactly refuse to pay taxes, nor in our convoluted sense of "freedom" elect any officials with real (positive) tax reforms. Sure, I could complain to congress, but honestly the entire internet has been complaining about many, many, many laws with little to no response about them (the DMCA, prohibition of certain drugs, copyright reform, etc).

I don't know about Basel but I'm certain these guys know they would face serious legal/criminal action if they didn't know for sure it was safe.

All releasing pressure does is make the next earthquake less powerful. Really, if you cause an earthquake in this way, you are simply accelerating a natural process, however this is A) predictable and B) will create less damage, compared to the natural quake.

Re:Unfair Blame to Both Google And AltaRock

[eldavojohn]

Forgot to add ... why aren't they drilling in some desert area... some abandoned nuclear test site? Sure, the power transmission losses will be larger, but so will the safety (especially compared to SF)

First of all it's "north of San Fransisco" and by North they mean it's actually North of Santa Rosa. And it looks to be about 20 miles north of that up near Clear Lake. And if you go to their project site and look at the map at the bottom, you'll notice in the past week there's been 3.0 or larger earth quakes in that region. The 3.4 they had in Basel looks to be just another daily occurrence in those parts.

If you look where they're drilling, there's not a whole lot of homes around there. I'm not sure what the radius of destruction is from the epicenter for a "big one" but I don't think it's massive enough to hit a lot way out there. I could be wrong. But you know, I bet if they see a 3.4 like Basel, they shut it down if the government doesn't first. I do like the interactive map on their site so you can see the earthquakes relative to their drilling.

Who knows? They could have determined that unstable areas are safer for drilling since the region around you is having 3.0+ earthquakes all the time? Not like you're going to screw anything up if the plates are shifting constantly anyway, right?

Also, the government funded stuff is all over the place (Utah included) so don't worry, they want this energy source available to all and non centralized. I'm not sure what your motivation is here or why the summary labeled this as pure evil Personally, I'm interested in what this could do for non-polluting energy. I think in order to get the drilling permits and convince backers it was safe enough for America you would have to show a lot of proof. But I'm not a seismologist. Looks worth a shot to me though.

Lastly people take risks in the name of discovery and production. It happens every time a human leaves Earth's gravitational pull, it happened in the early days of a lot of technology until it was perfected. I'm not arguing we should risk human lives, I'm just pointing out that we might be blowing a risk out of proportion that, since non of us are seismologists, none of us really understand. Is it like drilling a pinhole through a one inch slab of marble or drilling the pinhole through one millimeter thick pie crust? I highly doubt they'd be wasting their time if they didn't know the ground would remain stable long enough for their tunnel to remain intact. It looks like they're taking precautions and claim to have refined the process to make it safer at least.

Re:Unfair Blame to Both Google And AltaRock

[Anonymous Coward]

Would breaking off and sinking California really be all that bad for the rest of the country?

Re:Unfair Blame to Both Google And AltaRock

[The Grand Falloon]

Also, Clear Lake is pretty shitty. They would be hard pressed to fuck it up any worse than it is. Seriously, the only time that lake is ok to swim in is in the middle of the night (so you can't see the water) when you're drunk off your ass (to make your body a hostile environment to all the things that are going to try to grow inside you). And the locals, man, don't get me started.

Re:Unfair Blame to Both Google And AltaRock

[Anonymous Coward]

Just how could one ever hope to prove that drilling caused an earthquake? I find it very difficult to believe that any sane amount of drilling could ever start an earthquake. I might be convinced that drilling could trigger a quake that would have occurred a few minutes later if no drilling had taken place.

Re:Unfair Blame to Both Google And AltaRock

[ForexCoder]

First of all it's "north of San Fransisco" and by North they mean it's actually North of Santa Rosa. And it looks to be about 20 miles north of that up near Clear Lake.

That's not that far away if a large (6-7 magnitude) quake hits. If you don't believe me, read up on the Loma Prieta Quake in 1989. 42 people died in the collapse of the Cypress structure over 50 miles away from the epicenter. It also took out a section of the Bay Bridge and destroyed many building in San Francisco. This was from a quake that was centered south of Santa Cruz.

Re:Unfair Blame to Both Google And AltaRock

[tomhudson]

... or it's an easy way to "Terminate" California's budget problems:

1. Have California, along with the "underwater" housing literally slide underwater into the ocean, along with the debtors, the expenses of maintaining the infrastructure, the political, social, and financial problems dealing with illegals, etc.
2. PROFIT! - Get disaster relief funding

Think of it - land that was inland now becomes beach-front property ... how much of that land does Google have options on?

Re:Unfair Blame to Both Google And AltaRock

[ozmanjusri]

Would breaking off and sinking California really be all that bad for the rest of the country?

Hell yeah!

If California breaks away, the weight of Maine hanging so far east will drag the whole country into a barrel roll around the Houston/Williston axis. Before you know it, the USA will be face-down in the ocean with it's ass in the air.

Re:Unfair Blame to Both Google And AltaRock

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

And what am I going to do with this knowledge? I can't exactly refuse to pay taxes, nor in our convoluted sense of "freedom" elect any officials with real (positive) tax reforms. Sure, I could complain to congress, but honestly the entire internet has been complaining about many, many, many laws with little to no response about them (the DMCA, prohibition of certain drugs, copyright reform, etc).

Well... hold on here. when you say "the entire Internet has been complaining", you mean a couple-few hundred thousand people have been bitching about these things on blogs, twitter, email, useless "e-petitions", and in some cases mass form emails sent to congresscritters -- form letters indistinguishable from spam for all intents.

How many of "the entire Internet" have actually written a letter to their representative, or even know who their representatives are?

People do have power, but they have to use it. And sitting around complaining to others who already agree with them doesn't count.

Re:Unfair Blame to Both Google And AltaRock

[Virtual_Raider]

I don't know about Basel but I'm certain these guys know they would face serious legal/criminal action if they didn't know for sure it was safe.

They just need to know to the best of their ability that it is safe, maybe they are just an incompetent lot.

I guess in that case they would be guilty of criminal negligence or something similar. I for one welcome our ground breaking overlords :)

Re:Unfair Blame to Both Google And AltaRock

[Rufus211]

First of all it's "north of San Fransisco" and by North they mean it's actually North of Santa Rosa. And it looks to be about 20 miles north of that up near Clear Lake. And if you go to their project site and look at the map at the bottom, you'll notice in the past week there's been 3.0 or larger earth quakes in that region. The 3.4 they had in Basel looks to be just another daily occurrence in those parts.

Santa Rosa's not exactly far from San Francisco. And since it's just Santa Rosa that's close you're fine with them being leveled in an earthquake?

Also you fail to note that those "daily occurrences" are only there because of other, much smaller, geothermal plants next door. If 3.0's are acceptable daily occurrences from the smaller plants, then would 4.0's or 5.0's be acceptable daily occurrences from this new, larger plant?

Re:Unfair Blame to Both Google And AltaRock

[Darkness404]

Well... hold on here. when you say "the entire Internet has been complaining", you mean a couple-few hundred thousand people have been bitching about these things on blogs, twitter, email, useless "e-petitions", and in some cases mass form emails sent to congresscritters -- form letters indistinguishable from spam for all intents. How many of "the entire Internet" have actually written a letter to their representative, or even know who their representatives are?

Yes, and those few hundred thousand usually happen to be the ones most affected by it. Its similar to putting a bunch of restrictions on dairy farmers and watch how the public doesn't seem to care much about it yet dairy farmers do, but using that reasoning to keep the legislation in effect because most of the population doesn't know how it works. Same with the DMCA, the people who complain about the DMCA are usually those affected by it, plus, I consider it part of congress's duties to check out what their legislation has done not just to the lobby groups but on those who it also affects who don't have the millions to be represented. Despite making a huge change in copyright law, the DMCA hasn't done anything positive save for the safe harbor provisions, the rest has lead to nothing but destruction. If a person were to Google DMCA they would find the first batch of results to be not only "this is what the DMCA is" but active anti-DMCA groups. They should take that as a sign that they might need to review that bill and repeal it if need be.

As for writing letters, I have written a few letters to my representatives and the only time I got a letter back was when I specifically urged them to vote against a certain bill, I revived a nicely written reply assuring me that they were heavy promoters of the bill and they would vote for it. Considering there was no way that anyone beyond a third-grade reading level could mistake that what I wrote was in support of the bill the only logical explanation is they didn't read it.

As for voting, in America if it isn't a republican or democrat you are out of luck. For example, I am a libertarian, however I don't think that there will be a libertarian in high office for quite some time. I share some beliefs with both republicans and democrats but both have things I am overwhelmingly against, for example, even though republicans are pro economic freedom, they seem to think we need laws prohibiting anything that might be morally questionable which I disagree with strongly. And even though I am for a lot of the pro-freedom of speech that democrats propose, I strongly oppose their crusade to tax everything, their crusade for stronger government and their crusade on weakening second amendment rights.

So really, my beliefs are not represented at all in congress and those who are supposed to be listening to me don't, nor do they even take the time to check what their actions did to the world.

Re:Unfair Blame to Both Google And AltaRock

[Anonymous Coward]

Breaking off from the USA wouldn't be that bad, our economy is strong enough to do it. Yeah our budget has taken one to the chin lately but all that money we pour out to the federal gov staying home would sure help fix that.

Re:Unfair Blame to Both Google And AltaRock

[Anonymous Coward]

And the locals, man, don't get me started.

Apparently they have mod points, and they are angry.

Re:Unfair Blame to Both Google And AltaRock

[wordsnyc]

Ayn? Is that you? Alan said you'd come back to save us.

Re:Unfair Blame to Both Google And AltaRock

[Curlsman]

Born and raised in California, earthquakes tend to be boring:
Magnitude 3.x is what the news programs talk about in between the weather and highway traffic.
4.x tends to be somebody says something fell over.
5.x is when you start to notice...

Loma Prieta was 6.9 and the epicenter about 60 miles from my home, about the same distance to the houses that collapsed and burned in San Francisco. It's not the distance but the local ground conditions that made the difference: the only thing that happened at my house was an empty soda can fell over. In the Marina District, the landfill (from the 1906 earthquake) turned to jello, something like that happened in Oakland to the freeway, and my house on a natural slope was fine.

Besides, there is no "if" about a coming large quake, only "when", and to a lesser extent where: most likely the northern end on the Hayward fault. Santa Rosa would be the San Andreas fault.

Re:Unfair Blame to Both Google And AltaRock

[The Master Control P]

Yes, you retard, losing the 7th largest economy in the entire world would be rather bad for the rest of the states.

Re:Unfair Blame to Both Google And AltaRock

[servognome]

So really, my beliefs are not represented at all in congress and those who are supposed to be listening to me don't, nor do they even take the time to check what their actions did to the world.

Elected officials aren't going to listen to everybody. They listen first to the people who helped them get elected, the people who voted for them, then their own gut feeling. Rather than trying to influence your representative directly, educate and organize your neighbors. Unless you can deliver a congress person votes, there is no practical reason for them to listen to you. The DMCA exists is because legislators are afraid of anything that could cost their districts jobs and money. Why would a representative change the staus quo and upset businesses when those asking for change can't deliver votes?

Well organized vocal minorities can have a great amount of influence. The trade embargo against Cuba has continued because it's an important issue to Cuban exiles in Florida, an important electoral state.

Just writing letters or even e-protests won't make a politician change. Convincing your neighbors to vote in accordance with the issue(s) you find imporant will. It's a lot of work, but freedom isn't easy.

Re:Unfair Blame to Both Google And AltaRock

[Dhalka226]

Yes, and those few hundred thousand usually happen to be the ones most affected by it.

To be fair, while the people directly affected by something are naturally going to be the loudest in support or opposition, I'm not sure that they should be the ones most involved in the decisions about it. At their heart, laws deal with interactions between people and that means that a lot of the time they're going to end up in some way harming one group of people or another. Even something as simple as theft harms thieves by putting them in jail for doing it, we just generally accept as a society that that is right and proper; that they deserved their outcome. In less clear-cut cases, some groups end up harmed--sometimes greatly--because doing so is perceived to do more good for more people than the harm it inflicts. It's just a form of utilitariansm.

In other words, laws should be evaluated on their own merits. That includes the complaints of those affected by it, but only as part of a broader outlook. In your example, it's entirely possible that the "bunch of restrictions" placed on dairy farmers has a public health benefit, or serves to drive down costs for the rest of the public. Of course a dairy farmer wouldn't like to see anything cut into his profits, but I think there's something to be said for trying to ensure that even poor people have access to milk without considering it a luxury. Being a libertarian I'm sure you'd argue that the market would handle it and that's fine, but it doesn't necessarily speak against the law.

As for writing letters, I have written a few letters to my representatives and the only time I got a letter back was when I specifically urged them to vote against a certain bill, I revived a nicely written reply assuring me that they were heavy promoters of the bill and they would vote for it [. . .] the only logical explanation is they didn't read it.

Somebody read it, or at least scanned it. They knew enough to know you were writing about a specific bill. As far as the response, rather than chalking it up to inattentiveness or some sort of neglect, the more likely explanation is it's simply a form letter that they sent to anybody who wrote about that particular topic. You obviously disagree with the position, but despite the impersonal nature of the reply, did you come away from reading that with any doubt as to where they stood the matter?

I don't know how many letters a given politician might receive during their term, but it's probably impractical for them to respond to each of them in a personal way.

As for voting, in America if it isn't a republican or democrat you are out of luck.

I agree on a personal level, but the reality is republican or democrat isn't what matters. What matters is what the public is willing to vote people out of office for.

I recall an episode of the West Wing about flag burning. They had a poll that the public overwhelmingly supported an amendment to make flag burning illegal. One pollster tried to spin that as "lead the charge for this amendment and you sew up re-election right now." Another came along later and explained, "he never asked them how much they care." As it turned out, only an exceptionally small minority of a large majority would actually base their vote on the president's support or lack of support for such an amendment.

Back to real life and your example: Even if you're completely correct that "the entire Internet" is overwhelmingly against the DMCA, and even if you're entirely correct that we can extrapolate that to mean the vast majority of the American public is overwhelmingly against the DMCA--and I don't actually believe you've made a strong case for either at this point--how much do these people care? How many are willing to vote their representatives out of office for it? How many are w

Re:Unfair Blame to Both Google And AltaRock

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know about Basel but I'm certain these guys know they would face serious legal/criminal action if they didn't know for sure it was safe.

Hm, there was the subway building company that caused buildings to collapse in Amsterdam (IIRC) and then caused for yet more buildings to collapse in Cologne (Germany) a few months later, including the historical archive. A dozend people lost their home and two their life. Oddly enough I haven't heard of any real consequences yet.

Re:Unfair Blame to Both Google And AltaRock

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

Anecdotal evidence saying how you personally write to your reps doesn't cut it. I write to mine to -- but the real problem is that we're in the minority. A very, very, very small minority. Until people start doing more than complaining to each other, it will remain that way.

The best way for that change to occur will be for the people who who complain to each other start complaining to others outside of the choir. Logically, coherently, and in a way that makes them both aware of the problem and willing to help fix it.

As for the rest, it doesn't change on its own. Probably just idealism, but the things that the political parties have stood for over time have changed -- and one would have to assume this is the result of the people we vote in and out of office. Will the names of the parties change? You're probably right, not for a very long time. BUt it need not be that long before the beliefs they represent under their current names change. A few political "generations" (terms) is often enough to effect that kind of change.

Re:Unfair Blame to Both Google And AltaRock

[Temporal]

Also you fail to note that those "daily occurrences" are only there because of other, much smaller, geothermal plants next door.

Do you have a link to back that claim? Earthquakes in the 1-4 range really are a natural daily occurrence all across CA and many other places in the world. Check out the USGS real-time map:

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/recenteqsus/

Re:Unfair Blame to Both Google And AltaRock

[wdavies]

Note - the $200 million is not for AltaRock, its the total investment in all Geothermal. Not clear that there is ANY US government money for them. It's an aside really, who's funding them, its more that they seemed to misrepresent the technique as being safe to Fed Agency overseeing it. To the comments below, about the tons of existing earthquakes, the thing to read/watch is the pop out explanation - the existing low-level geothermal ops are causing those quakes -- and the companies have admitted as much. The issue is what the are going to do has far more destructive power than the existing ops. I agree its not clear that it could really cause the next big one 8+ (given its distance from the San Andreas fault) but you really want to be responsible for even a 5 or 6 in that area. The main thing is that they lied though, and they should go thru another safety review and have someone on hand to shut them down if something looks wrong when they start.

FTA: "Even so, there is no shortage of money for testing the idea. Mr. Reicher has overseen a $6.25 million investment by Google in AltaRock, and with more than $200 million in new federal money for geothermal, the Energy Department has already approved financing for related projects in Idaho by the University of Utah; in Nevada by Ormat Technologies; and in California by Calpine, just a few miles from AltaRockâ(TM)s project."

Re:Unfair Blame to Both Google And AltaRock

[wdavies]

The area does have quakes, BUT if you look at where they STARTED to cluster once drilling started it becomes really obvious that the drilling and water insertion causes additional (like a lot more) quakes. The geologists know this is the case. The issue at stake is what happens when you drill way deeper into the rocks below -- here's thge video from the times showing what happens.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/06/23/us/Geothermal.html

Re:Unfair Blame to Both Google And AltaRock

[Asclepius99]

So Google stole the plot from Superman?

Re:Unfair Blame to Both Google And AltaRock

[im_thatoneguy]

I'm always mildly concerned when I can tell a staffer had time to actually respond to *MY* email. While the impersonal canned mass email reply is disconcerting in its own way... if they take the time to even write up a single paragraph for *ME* I worry there aren't enough people communicating with their senators and congressmen/women.

Re:Unfair Blame to Both Google And AltaRock

[Anonymous Coward]

If they can create earthquakes, then this is great news. It's always better to be able to create a small earthquake than to wait for a bigger one to happen.

Plus people in the region could be told to move out of the area when the experiment is happening. Much better than being caught in an earthquake while on a bridge over the bay.

In fact I think this technology has more potential as a tool to manage eartquakes than at producing energy

Re:Unfair Blame to Both Google And AltaRock

[kramulous]

That's awesome! I've never experienced a quake. I remember once there was this 'pop' but that's it. But I love that you guys have become desensitised. Kinda like us and killer animals everywhere.

Just loved the perspective. Thanks.

Re:Unfair Blame to Both Google And AltaRock

[cerberusss]

Yes, but unlike Google, the government's motto is "Do evil." At least I'm pretty sure it is.

They combined and transformed into a small potato that doesn't give a shit.

Re:Unfair Blame to Both Google And AltaRock

[Canazza]

Actually, they stole it from Max Zorin

Re:Unfair Blame to Both Google And AltaRock

[Anonymous Coward]

Not clear that there is ANY US government money for them.

The article says at least $36 million has gone to AltaRock from the government.

Re:Unfair Blame to Both Google And AltaRock

[Asclepius99]

Wouldn't that be them planning to flood Yahoo! and Bing headquarters?

Re:Unfair Blame to Both Google And AltaRock

[TheRaven64]

It's worth reminding everyone that the Richter scale is logarithmic, so a 4.0 quake is ten times more powerful than a 3.0, and so on. The largest Earthquake we've had in the UK in my lifetime has been a 5.2, and it was barely noticeable by anyone more than a few miles from the epicentre (and even there, about the worst thing to happen was a few chimneys got cracked; Victorian houses aren't really designed with earthquake-proofing in mind). We get one in the 3-4 range every few years, and the only way most of us find out about it is by seeing it in the news. If you're standing still and paying attention when it happens, you'll notice, otherwise you'll miss it. A lorry driving down the road outside makes the room shake at least as much. Causing a 3.0 is probably not something that you should aim to do, but the only people who will notice are the ones watching seismographs.

Re:Unfair Blame to Both Google And AltaRock

[TheRaven64]

I occasionally write to US Senators thanking them for passing laws like DMCA and their current patent law, which give a competitive advantage to non-US corporations. Perhaps someone in Canada could do the same with my MEPs, thanking them for the EUCD?

Re:Unfair Blame to Both Google And AltaRock

[popsensation]

I think Google should drill a canal from the water a plenty parts of Northern California down to LA so the city and county and state can stop stealing water from other states who don't have an abundant supply! I have an even better idea. I'm going to place him in an easily escapable situation involving an overly elaborate and exotic death.

Re:Unfair Blame to Both Google And AltaRock

[Vintermann]

"The entire internet has been complaining" indeed. The internet is very good at isolating you from people you disagree with (if you want to) and making it look like there are a lot more people like you than there really are (whether you want to or not). The vast amount of people on the internet probably don't know what the DMCA is, or care much for copyright reform.

Drugs? Give me a break. A majority of the world's population doesn't even drink alcohol - granted, this is a lot because India and China have little tradition for it, but it might put this "everyone really thinks like me" delusion into perspective.

Re:Unfair Blame to Both Google And AltaRock

[mcvos]

Hm, there was the subway building company that caused buildings to collapse in Amsterdam (IIRC) and then caused for yet more buildings to collapse in Cologne (Germany) a few months later, including the historical archive. A dozend people lost their home and two their life. Oddly enough I haven't heard of any real consequences yet.

Because consequences would cost money and they're already way over budget.

I do like the idea of the new subway, but I don't understand why they always underestimate cost and risk so much.

Re:Unfair Blame to Both Google And AltaRock

[assert(0)]

No, not 10. Two pts on the Richter magnitude scale is 1000x the energy, so one pt is sqrt(1000) = 31.6.

Re:Unfair Blame to Both Google And AltaRock

[umghhh]

Just to put things straight - you think that it is in human capacity to know things for sure, to know things are absolutely safe etc??? Even this drilling in Basel - how certain that is that the quake would not have happened anyway even without this drilling exercise??? Human desire for explanation is insatiable of course as is our pattern searching need and that sometimes overwhelms our capacity in actually looking at these patterns and explanations with critical eye i.e. taken into account all limitations that they come with. I would say technology gets improved, reasons and explanations are provided and quakes happen anyway. You may however look at this in the following way: longer it takes between the quakes bigger they are as the tension and amassed energy ready to be released is bigger. From this perspective maybe they should have started their drilling already dozen of years ago?

Re:Unfair Blame to Both Google And AltaRock

[TheLink]

Everyone gets desensitized to the danger - it's part of getting on with our lives.

Otherwise we'd never cross the street, or be in cars.

Even those grazing animals in Africa just munch away and ignore the lions not far away. They only take notice if the lions start moving towards them. Despite a gazelle or two getting chomped on every so often.

We could move elsewhere of course, but moving is risky too.

Re:Unfair Blame to Both Google And AltaRock

[Rogerborg]

Congratulations on hijacking the discussion! However, next time, try adding something like "Surely all sane people agree with Ron Paul that mandatory gun ownership is required to prevent abortions."

Re:Unfair Blame to Both Google And AltaRock

[techiemikey]

I hate to say this, but the Richter Scale islog base 10.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richter_magnitude_scale

perhaps you were thinking of this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moment_magnitude_scale

Re:Unfair Blame to Both Google And AltaRock

[Godwin O'Hitler]

There was a well publicised 5.2 quake last year with its epicenter in Lincolnshire only 20 miles from where I live.
All I can say is the feeling was almost ... sexual!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Lincolnshire_earthquake

Re:Unfair Blame to Both Google And AltaRock

[Cassander]

Santa Rosa's not exactly far from San Francisco. And since it's just Santa Rosa that's close you're fine with them being leveled in an earthquake?

As a lifetime resident of Santa Rosa, I hereby formally approve of your proposal for earthquake-based levelling, and wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

But I should warn you you're going to need one doozy of a quake to actually level the place. The 1906 "San Francisco" Earthquake hit harder up here than it did in San Francisco, and that one still left 4 buildings standing.

Re:Unfair Blame to Both Google And AltaRock

[jo42]

applied for roughly 20 patents on ways to improve the method

Patents for drilling a hole in the ground? :facepalm:

Re:Unfair Blame to Both Google And AltaRock

[The Grey Mouser]

No, assert(0) is correct: the total energy of a quake varies as the 3/2 power of the seismic moment. Both the Richter and Moment magnitude scales are based around the base-10 logarithm of the seismic moment, but that isn't the same as the total released energy of the quake.

By the way, I noticed that this fact is mentioned in the second paragraph of the very link that you cited. Did you perhaps stop reading after the first? ;-)

Re:Unfair Blame to Both Google And AltaRock

[techiemikey]

Huh...so it is...It would help if the "2 points = x1000" part was in the same location on both pages. I was reading the section called "Richter magnitudes"

Re:Unfair Blame to Both Google And AltaRock

[drinkypoo]

First of all it's "north of San Fransisco" and by North they mean it's actually North of Santa Rosa. And it looks to be about 20 miles north of that up near Clear Lake. And if you go to their project site and look at the map at the bottom, you'll notice in the past week there's been 3.0 or larger earth quakes in that region. The 3.4 they had in Basel looks to be just another daily occurrence in those parts.

I live in the region we're discussing, which is the most geothermally active spot in the inhabited world. We have a superfund site down the road where they buried the arsenic pressure-washed off of the turbine blades. The geothermal power site itself is storing Arsenic and other major toxics in open concrete pits near the generators. When the pits fill up, they are covered over with concrete, and the walls raised so that they can put more toxics in.

Assuming they'll be accessing the same system of vents, the water that they are pumping into the ground and heating it will probably be contaminated with the same stuff that comes OUT of the steam vents which run Calpine Geothermal Power, thus creating another serious environmental catastrophe. We were starting to have cows born with two heads and shit like that; they ended up digging up [most of] the Arsenic-contaminated soil and containing it on the same site with a rubber liner.

Most so-called "green power" is anything but.

I highly doubt they'd be wasting their time if they didn't know the ground would remain stable long enough for their tunnel to remain intact. It looks like they're taking precautions and claim to have refined the process to make it safer at least.

That depends. Have they been paid yet?

Re:Unfair Blame to Both Google And AltaRock

[steveo777]

They were going to do that anyway

Re:Unfair Blame to Both Google And AltaRock

[pdboddy]

While I would argue that trying to base cause and effect off of one incident is a bit off, I would also argue using a drilling technique blamed for causing an earthquake in one of the most earthquake prone areas on the West Coast is nuts. :P

Re:Unfair Blame to Both Google And AltaRock

[Blakey Rat]

Someone didn't learn about the "ring of fire" in high school. Washington State gets those little quakes quite often, too. They only hit the news if they get up to magnitude 4 or so.

Re:Unfair Blame to Both Google And AltaRock

[jayme0227]

What lesson did they learn from the Basel project if they maintain that it is uncertain whether or not the Basel project caused the earthquakes? You can't say "There was no problem, but we've learned from the problem."

Re:Unfair Blame to Both Google And AltaRock

[Anonymous Coward]

Finally, was are going to get some coastline in Arizona...

Re:Unfair Blame to Both Google And AltaRock

[artemis67]

That explains why the government is going trillions of dollars into debt on a drunken spending spree in the midst of a recession.

Re:Unfair Blame to Both Google And AltaRock

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.star-telegram.com/news/story/1427138.html

    5 quakes in 1 week and the first in county history. Caused by all the new natural gas drilling going on.

Re:Unfair Blame to Both Google And AltaRock

[Anonymous Coward]

you'll notice in the past week there's been 3.0 or larger earth quakes in that region. The 3.4 they had in Basel looks to be just another daily occurrence in those parts.
[...] But you know, I bet if they see a 3.4 like Basel, they shut it down if the government doesn't first. I do like the interactive map on their site so you can see the earthquakes relative to their drilling.

Who knows? They could have determined that unstable areas are safer for drilling since the region around you is having 3.0+ earthquakes all the time? Not like you're going to screw anything up if the plates are shifting constantly anyway, right?

Let me transcribe some sentences of that short video in TFA for you:

[...] is on a spot that already experiences as many as 1000 earthquakes a year.
Most of those quakes are triggered by an older geothermal operation over a roughly 30 sqm area called The Geysers.
[...]
The energy companies concede that their activity set off earthquakes with a magnitude below 3.
But larger tremors have the same clustering, strongly suggesting that the larger tremors are also triggered.

What they're saying is that most of those quakes you mention, also the >3.0 ones, have been triggered by older, shallower geothermal projects. Neither the government nor the companies have shut these projects down. They're still operating. The clustering of large quakes in exactly the same area is really salient. Are you contesting the reasoning of the article? On what grounds?

Is it like drilling a pinhole through a one inch slab of marble or drilling the pinhole through one millimeter thick pie crust?

Again, RTFA. This new process is not just about "drilling a pinhole". It's about drilling deeper than before, into the underlying hard rock (felsite) and then deliberately setting off earthquakes in the felsite to produce cracks in a large volume of rock.

If you did read the article before replying to it, you're either willfully ignorant or you're spreading disinformation.

Re:Unfair Blame to Both Google And AltaRock

[Cross-Threaded]

Knee-jerk (non-thought out) response:

Losing the 7th largest economy in the entire world is not a bad thing when that economy is helping to drag the others down.

Re:Unfair Blame to Both Google And AltaRock

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually I think it's just "Do waste money." Evil just has the highest tax-wasting potential per crackpot scheme.

If they actually found something USEFUL to do, why, we might have surplus money again! And that just leads to all sort of bad Presidents. ...err, precedents.

Re:Unfair Blame to Both Google And AltaRock

[Anonymous Coward]

City Manager Chester Nolen said the five earthquakes are the first in Johnson County's 150-year history.

Except he doesn't know what he's talking about. A geologist would never have said such a thing.

Re:Unfair Blame to Both Google And AltaRock

[Cross-Threaded]

I am not a geologist, however, setting off small earthquakes seems like a very good idea in terms of preventing the big earthquakes.

I think of it as analogous to setting off small avalanches in the mountains to prevent big avalanches.

Really, I don't see it as any different from using a pressure relief valve in a steam system.

Re:Unfair Blame to Both Google And AltaRock

[Lakitu]

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/recenteqsus/Quakes/quakes_all.php

Re:Unfair Blame to Both Google And AltaRock

[Bigjeff5]

Up in Alaska we get them as well, but I think we get them in smaller numbers with greater magnitude. I say I think, because the last 5 or 6 we've had that I know of, I didn't feel. I usually sleep through them.

If you want a big quake though, take a look at the 1964 earthquake. It's peak magnitude was more than 10 times as powerful as the 1906 San Francisco quake, it released 90 times more energy, it lasted for 6 weeks, and in the first day alone had 11 aftershocks that were about double the 1906 quake. It destroyed Anchorage, but fortunately it was not a very big town yet. Tsunamis created by the quake killed people in Oregon and California, and it is still the third largest quake on record.

We've had a few big ones since, in the 6's and 7's, but nothing that big.

Re:Unfair Blame to Both Google And AltaRock

[natedubbya]

Lastly people take risks in the name of discovery and production.

Kind of like all of that awesome energy we get from releasing CO2 as a byproduct? Releasing all that CO2 is a risk we currently take in the name of production.

Your line of reasoning to support this project is perfectly transferrable to someone arguing that it's worth the risk to burn coal and oil instead. The only difference appears to be that you personally support drilling.

Re:Unfair Blame to Both Google And AltaRock

[DragonWriter]

Also you fail to note that those "daily occurrences" are only there because of other, much smaller, geothermal plants next door.

No, earthquakes of magnitudes under 4 are regular occurences throughout California (or, at least, along its many faultlines, including the ones in the area at issue) because of all the active fault systems, not because of geothermal plants. This is pretty well established.

Re:Unfair Blame to Both Google And AltaRock

[geekoid]

"Lastly people take risks in the name of discovery and production. It happens every time a human leaves Earth's gravitational pull,"

Yes, but this risks can involve a lot of people who didn't make a choice to take the risk.

"I highly doubt they'd be wasting their time if they didn't know the ground would remain stable long enough for their tunnel to remain intact"
I'm suspect that's the same line of thinking they thought before they started making earthquakes before.
It's stupidly expensive way to get energy anyways.

Re:Unfair Blame to Both Google And AltaRock

[geekoid]

"..many other places in the world. "
I suspect Washington State qualifies as "other places in the world."

Re:Unfair Blame to Both Google And AltaRock

[DragonWriter]

I hate to say this, but the Richter Scale islog base 10.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richter_magnitude_scale

perhaps you were thinking of this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moment_magnitude_scale

While the moment magnitude scale is log base 30, which would seem roughly consistent with GPs (+1 magnitude => x1000 energy), its not log base 30 in energy, but in seismic moment, which is why for medium earthquakes it tracks pretty close to the Richter scale, which is log base 10 in energy. Consequently, neither scale is +1 magnitude => x1000 energy, even approximately.

Re:Unfair Blame to Both Google And AltaRock

[steelfood]

No, where there is a void in power, there will always be an entity to fill it. Do you really think corporations will regulate themselves? Do you really think people are capable of regulating themselves? A power vacuum creates a shortcut for the ambitious to become powerful. So if the government does not govern, then the corporations will, or an unofficial dictator will. If you wish to govern yourself but not be governed by others, then society is not the place for you.

What we need is a government that serves the people. Since the government is of other people, the only way that will happen is if the government fears the populace. This means we need a vigilant, educated, and strong populace. But it's hard to fear a populace that's too busy watching the latest episode of American Idol to notice their freedoms slipping away one by one, much less do anything about it.

Re:Unfair Blame to Both Google And AltaRock

[EdZ]

It WAS worth the risk! Would you rather that industrial revolution never happened?

Re:Unfair Blame to Both Google And AltaRock

[Bigjeff5]

The energy goes up exponentially along with the magnitude, which goes up logarithmically. So, a 5 is 10 times more powerful than a 4, but releases 30 times the energy. They tend to be wider and move more earth, which accounts for the extra energy released.

It matters what exactly you are measuring when you describe your scale, which is why there is disparity there. What's fun is that if you bump the magnitude up another 0.2 on the richter scale you triple the energy released. A 5.2 on the richter scale releases about 90 times the energy of a 4.0. Fun stuff eh?

Re:Unfair Blame to Both Google And AltaRock

[hax4bux]

Oh, ya. Big risk of litigation. There are earthquakes all the time, who could say if AltaRock was the cause? Easy target for litigation, worthy or not.

I was taking a geology course around the time of the Loma Prieta earthquake. The instructor mentioned several theories for earthquake mitigation, but said the USGS would never risk it because of the potential backlash.

Re:Unfair Blame to Both Google And AltaRock

[Blakey Rat]

I suspect your post qualifies as "annoying pedantic bullshit." If you don't have anything to contribute to the conversation, please don't bother.

Re:Unfair Blame to Both Google And AltaRock

[Dragoness Eclectic]

Like another poster said, in California, a 3.4 is boring. Barely noticed the several thousand times a year one happens.

To put it in perspective, here's a list of Magnitude 3.0 or higher earthquakes in the US in the last 7 days.

Here's a week of California quakes.

I think people in Basel, Switzerland are a bit on the jumpy side.

This one happened when I was working in California in Silicon Valley. At 5.6, that got people's notice. I, on the other hand, who was new to California and just knew that California had "lots of earthquakes", didn't realize it was out of the ordinary and actually caused some local excitement until I turned on the news. It was much weaker than the 7.6 that smacked Diego Garcia while I was stationed there in 1983; about the same as the aftershocks we had for months.

Nov 30 17 46 00.6 6.85 S 72.11 E 10 G 6.6 7.6 1.2 402 CHAGOS ARCHIPELAGO REGION. Ms 7.7 (BRK).
                                    Mo=1.1*10**20 Nm (GS). Mo=4.1*10**20 Nm (HRV).
    Some damage (VI) to buildings and piers on Diego Garcia. About a 1.5 meter rise in wave height in the lagoon
    and significant wave damage near the southeastern tip of the island. Forty-centimeter tsunami at Victoria,
    Seychelles. Large zone of discolored sea water observed 60 to 70 kilometers north-northwest of Diego Garcia.

It's a matter of what you are used to.

Re:Unfair Blame to Both Google And AltaRock

[Anonymous Coward]

ok, superman 1 is _not_ a good movie to base your public policy on.

Re:Unfair Blame to Both Google And AltaRock

[Anonymous Coward]

You seem to be describing Lex Luthor's evil plan in the first Superman movie.

Re:Unfair Blame to Both Google And AltaRock

[holmstar]

Damn you and your deceptive sig! While I think the dolphin bubble ring video is cool, this is not the first time that you have fooled me into looking at it when I just wanted to see more comments.

Re:Unfair Blame to Both Google And AltaRock

[jo42]

Funny, that -- it ain't tagged "Flamebait" when it comes to computer technology patents...

Re:Unfair Blame to Both Google And AltaRock

[hurfy]

A lot of the effect depends on location and depth. In 2001 we had some quakes that got up to 4.0 and took out a lot of old chimmeys and stuff. One begins to rethink running out of the house during a quake after picking up 33 bricks that rained down :O We even had quakes that were felt but not recorded they were so localized and shallow. Kinda scary as there was and still isn't any real clue as to quakes here.

Of course that part of CA probably does not have any old chimmeys left standing anyway so.......

Still sounds like asking for trouble tho

Re:Unfair Blame to Both Google And AltaRock

[TheLink]

But it says "Too many replies" which is a bit different from what Slashdot says ...

One day I'll get around to changing the video :).

Re:Unfair Blame to Both Google And AltaRock

[Anonymous Coward]

Unless your side is in power. Then, remember the motto is (or should be) actually: "Do evil to your political enemies, give goodies to your friends".

Re:Unfair Blame to Both Google And AltaRock

[Hatta]

triggered quakes tend to be shallower than natural ones

Isn't this a good thing then? They are relieving the stress built up between the tectonic plates. It seems to me that they are decreasing the likelihood and severity of the next "big one".

Re:Unfair Blame to Both Google And AltaRock

[CAIMLAS]

Something occurred to me. Why are they digging to harness geothermal for power?

I know that it's a known power source, but consider. There are a lot of other energy types within the earth, all of which are 'vibratory'. What if they could construct a structure which would harness and amplify the various energy/radiation types and catalyze them into an energy source - say, by agitating/exciting hydrogen, helium or the like to a point just before explosion/implosion, creating sufficient heat to power a steam generator?

Re:Unfair Blame to Both Google And AltaRock

[texroot]

I don't know about Basel but I'm certain these guys know they would face serious legal/criminal action if they didn't know for sure it was safe.</quote>

You mean like the wall street investment bankers were deterred from taking undue risks and even committing fraud by these same considerations?

I don't think we should underestimate the likelihood of corporate officials being willing to take big risks when they see the possibility of company profits translating to big salaries and bonuses for themselves. I'm not saying that such projects shouldn't be undertaken. And I don't want regulatory and lawsuit-driven strangulation of any projects with possible environmental impact.

Still, relying on sane decision making by corporations is no substitute for appropriate oversight.

Re:Unfair Blame to Both Google And AltaRock

[assert(0)]

Energy is 10^(3/2) for +1, Richer or Moment magnitude. Displacement, or shaking amplitude, is 10 for +1.

Of course, the actual destructive power of a quake depends on lots of factors (total energy released, density and elasticity of the medium, other factors influencing S/P wave propagation, fault size, depth of epicentrum, human population density above epicentrum, landslides, tsunamis etc.).

Re:Unfair Blame to Both Google And AltaRock

[Doggabone]

"..many other places in the world. " I suspect Washington State qualifies as "other places in the world."

It's one of them - there is a world map, too. http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/recenteqsww/

Under Pressure

[Anonymous Coward]

It seems to me that the only thing a large drill may do is release the pressure that's building up. It's not going to "cause" an earthquake per se, it's going to release one before it happens natually, which will likely be less intense than if it had been allowed to build up pressure in the first place.

Re:Under Pressure

[ls671]

Hmm... they say they ADD pressure in order to fracture the hot rocks, this added pressure would never occur otherwise.

Re:Under Pressure

[Miros]

and, once those rocks are fractured, water is then supposed to be injected so that it can be turned into steam (the mode through which the power will actually be extracted) which I would imagine would increase the pressure. There is the section of the article where they describe a similar process taking place close to the surface in another part of the state where it has caused a significant increase in seismic activity, all of which is apparently close to the surface. the article suggests that more destructive seismic activity and larger quakes emerge from deeper faults.

Re:Under Pressure

[4D6963]

I believe it's not the same pressure. The pressure that builds up before an earthquake is I believe the pressure between the two sides of the fault that as they grind against each other. Adding pressure to fracture the rocks adds nothing to that, however fracture the rocks/turning the underground into a fractured muddy mess would make the other kind of pressure between the two sides of the fault get released earlier, so in a way you're helping triggering the earthquake, but because you lower the threshold by messing with the ground in the fault it means you're preventing the pressure from building up to much, meaning you trigger a less earthquake which helps you avoid the big one.

Re:Under Pressure

[Quantumstate]

I really hope you are joking with this. The amount of energy needed to even register on their instruments would be huge. The pressure they exert is completely irrelevant other than for the triggering effect that it would have.

Re:Under Pressure

[ls671]

I guess is pont is this :

Quakes occur when tectonic plates move. Say 2 tectonic plates moved and cause a quake. They moved when pressure build up to a point of X. It needed to reach X in order to move. The quake would not have occurred if it had only reached X- 0.0001.

Now it is hard to understand in detail ALL factors that cause the pressure to build up in the first place although some factors are pretty well understood. It is very possible that we could have pressure (or tension) building up to X-0.05 then go back by itself to, say, X - 4000 and that a quake will never occur.

In this perspective, it doesn't matter if the pressure we add is small relatively to the already existing pressure (or tension).

Other posters have mentioned interesting issues with man causing quakes to avoid the next big ones. Another poster has mentioned that this is in fact experimental R&D in order to acquire the technology to harness that energy. I kind of agree with this idea; if it blows, try later with new technology, if it works; profit !

Pretending that there is no risk and that damage that may occur would have occurred anyway seems a little bogus to me. There is always a risk in some venture of this is one of them for that one. Of course they are not going to go out saying; "Oh yes, by the way there is a little risk of earthquakes."

Re:Under Pressure

[Anonymous Coward]

As a person with a B.A. in Geology, and having studied in Southern California under professors working directly in the San Andreas Fault Zone (the University located IN said zone), I can say that this is correct. Plate Tectonics (along with other forces) causes the buildup of these earthquake-generating forces. Earthquakes are the resulting movement and release of those built-up forces.

Depending on the geology of the area (and I'm not that familiar with that geologic province, having concentrated my studies on the southern half of California), they could possibly widen of shift the San Andreas Fault Zone in that area, however that seems extremely unlikely.

I would also suggest that any earthquakes they are able to trigger would reduce local built-up pressure, and might be a possible benefit, assuming (as would be the case in SoCal) that the release of pressure from one part of the system does not transfer to increase pressure in another part of the system. We see this in SoCal all the time, as one earthquake places pressure on a different part of the complex system, triggering another earthquake a few years and a few hundred miles away.

With proper planning and research, this technology could set off earthquakes early, preventing damage, saving lives, and actually giving us the ability to have a time frame in which the earthquake will hit. This one one of the topics we were discussing 10 years ago. They would still need to drill deeper, however, to be effective.

Re:Under Pressure

[Chelloveck]

Unless they happen to drop some "red matter" down the hole. In that case, we are so screwed!

"the next big one"

[seifried]

Is going to happen sometime in the future regardless of what we do (baring some major advances in geological technology and the ability to control earth quakes which from a geek perspective would be pretty damn cool, but I'm not holding my breath).

Re:"the next big one"

[wooferhound]

Well , if a quake is produced Sooner than it would have occurred naturally, then the intensity won't as strong since stresses would be released before they could build up to be stronger.

Re:"the next big one"

[wellingj]

Que 70's chika-bow-wow

Re:"the next big one"

[Anonymous Coward]

Hasn't anyone seen Crack In The World their gonna kill us all

Re:"the next big one"

[TapeCutter]

The problem with this idea is that the richter scale is logrithmic, ie: a 6.0 quake is 1000 times as energetic as a 3.0 quake. You would need thousand(s) of small artificial quakes (in the right place) to have any hope of avoiding the build up of a single big one.

Re:"the next big one"

[sFurbo]

Yes, it is logarithmic, but in sensor output, so to get the energy, you need to take the 3/2th power, so a 6.0 is about 31.000 times more energetic then a 3.0

Re:"the next big one"

[Anonymous Coward]

Que?

Re:"the next big one"

[TapeCutter]

That makes sense. Thanks for clearing it up.

Re:"the next big one"

[avn]

*31,000 times more energetic*

Re:"the next big one"

[YourExperiment]

Manuel? Is that you?

Re:"the next big one"

[Anonymous Coward]

Then cue the spelling nazis. Oops, I guess that's me today.

Re:"the next big one"

[Anonymous Coward]

Let me beat the pedants and grammarians to the punchline:
The first reply will go:
s/Que/Queue/
Followed by:
s/Queue/Cue/
Followed by a long argument about whether the proper word to use in this context is "Cue" or "Queue" until someone finally googles it and links some English teacher's blog post about which is the proper word.

Re:"the next big one"

[atraintocry]

No, it's cue.

Drilling doesn't CAUSE quakes!

[An Ominous Cow Erred]

Plate tectonics causes quakes! Sometimes, however, drilling *releases* stress, triggering quakes that were already going to happen, the drilling just throws the straw on the camel's back, so to speak.

In fact, technologies like this could be useful in doing controlled release of earthquakes, such that you can pick the time it can occur so people are ready for it.

Re:Drilling doesn't CAUSE quakes!

[QuantumG]

Yes, I'm sure that is what it would be used for. Also, how do you do this from space? we need to be able to do it from space..

Re:Drilling doesn't CAUSE quakes!

[MichaelSmith]

Yes, I'm sure that is what it would be used for. Also, how do you do this from space? we need to be able to do it from space..

Why go to space? If you need to evacuate California couldn't you just send them to New Zealand for a month?

Re:Drilling doesn't CAUSE quakes!

[QuantumG]

woosh.

The conspiracy theorists say US spy satellites caused them earthquakes in China.

Re:Drilling doesn't CAUSE quakes!

[An Ominous Cow Erred]

NO!!! Then it will turn all the vegetarians into carnivores! T~T See? -> http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3123/2820401196_e75abeec6f.jpg

Re:Drilling doesn't CAUSE quakes!

[Anonymous Coward]

Meta-woosh.

New Zealand is known for its negative attitude toward Californians.

Re:Drilling doesn't CAUSE quakes!

[ls671]

In TFA, they say they add pressure to the system, what you are talking about could be valid if it wasn't for that fact. By artificially adding pressure, I would assume that they may cause something to move which would NEVER have moved otherwise.

Re:Drilling doesn't CAUSE quakes!

[Anonymous Coward]

we still dont have the technology to understand and control plate techtonics to the point where we can localize and limit the effects of drilling. Doing this so close to a densley populated area is madness It's like saying, "oh let's give you a little ebola virus so that you develop immunity to it" ya right!

Re:Drilling doesn't CAUSE quakes!

[MichaelSmith]

Meta-woosh.

New Zealand is known for its negative attitude toward Californians.

The sheer weight of them would cause earth quakes.

Re:Drilling doesn't CAUSE quakes!

[amRadioHed]

Yes the steam they are making is adding pressure, but the question is if we are capable of adding enough pressure to amount to more than the proverbial straw on a camel. That doesn't seem likely to me, although since they are using large amounts of heat energy already stored in the crust I suppose it is possible.

Re:Drilling doesn't CAUSE quakes!

[Miros]

yeah, i feel like the pressure is the point of the project and it's not the pressure added by injecting the water, but by the heat coming through the rock turning that water into steam. essentially creating a steam explosion several miles underground in under conditions that probably have more unknowns than knowns, all in an area with known levels of significant instability seems like a prospect deserving of extreme scrutiny.

Re:Drilling doesn't CAUSE quakes!

[Anonymous Coward]

This is only because kiwis are grown in California.

Re:Drilling doesn't CAUSE quakes!

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh you mean like a vaccine? Yeah crazy shit, it will never happen. I'm going back to burning my 3 1/2 barrels of petrol so i can cook some baby seals.

Re:Drilling doesn't CAUSE quakes!

[LowlyWorm]

Drilling may not cause quakes but is it wise to drill in an area prone to quakes? My point is this: How sustainable would the hole be? Google has a lot of brain power working for it but it seems to me if one wants a sustainable geothermal source of energy drilling in an earthquake prone area is not the way to go. Shifting tectonic plates may mean it would all have to be done again at a much greater expense when earthquakes do occur.

Re:Drilling doesn't CAUSE quakes!

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess the Boston area, thanks to the never-ending Big Dig project, will forever more be safe from natural earthquakes.

Re:Drilling doesn't CAUSE quakes!

[Rogerborg]

Pulling a trigger doesn't CAUSE people to get shot!

Making the bullet causes people to get shot! Sometimes, however, pulling the trigger *releases* the bullet.

Re:Drilling doesn't CAUSE quakes!

[Anonymous Coward]

we need to be able to do it from space..

Does "from quite high up in the atmosphere" count?

http://www.physorg.com/news163859251.html

(OK, so starting typhoons isn't easy either, but do I have to solve all the problems around here?)

Re:Drilling doesn't CAUSE quakes!

[Anonymous Coward]

So, just how the heck do you think we are going to gain the technology, and understanding, to control plate tectonics?

To gather experience, you will have to experiment. To conduct an experiment, you have to go to an area where you can test your theories, and learn from them. You go where the quakes happen naturally to conduct the experiments.

And, once you gain that understanding, what makes you think that we will have the resources to actually affect the tectonic plates in any way?

The possibility of pressure-relief by drilling sounds like a very useful path to explore. It would be wonderful to set off small quakes, instead of letting them fester until they naturally release, which we know is not what we want. If that turns out to be an effective method of relieving the tectonic pressure, and preventing bigger more-damaging earthquakes, people living in the area should be begging for it.

If the local population is worried about the small quakes being set off by the experiments, I have to ask them what the hell are they doing in an area where big quakes naturally occur? Where is the logic in choosing your home's location?

It's a lot like living below sea-level in a city that is close to the ocean, and worrying about flooding (recent example of New Orleans comes to mind). How smart is that?

Dumbasses.

Re:Drilling doesn't CAUSE quakes!

[Cross-Threaded]

Making the bullet causes people to get shot!

I can't tell if you are serious with your statement, or not. So, ignore me if you are trying to be funny.

Human interaction is the ONLY cause for a gunshot. It doesn't matter if it is an intentional act, or an accidental occurrence.

These incidents will ALWAYS have a root cause that can be traced back to a HUMAN BEING that was careless, or had bad intentions.

Don't blame the equipment, it is not capable of choosing how it is manipulated.

Do you blame the baseball bat someone clobbered you over the head with?

Re:Drilling doesn't CAUSE quakes!

[Anonymous Coward]

1) A bullet firing isn't inevitable.
2) Delaying the firing of a bullet doesn't increase its impact.
3) A gun can be pointed elsewhere.

Re:Drilling doesn't CAUSE quakes!

[steelfood]

You also have the point the gun at someone. It's hard to shoot someone when there's nobody else around, unless you're shooting yourself.

Re:Drilling doesn't CAUSE quakes!

[Anonymous Coward]

Ha! Best joke of this thread.

Caused a quake in Basel?

[rhook]

And just how do they know that the drilling caused the quake?

Re:Caused a quake in Basel?

[unfunk]

That's what I'm curious about;

"I think that was us," said one stunned official. Analysis of seismic data proved him correct. The quake measured 3.4 - modest in some parts of the world. But triggered quakes tend to be shallower than natural ones, and residents generally describe them as a single, explosive bang or jolt - often out of proportion to the magnitude - rather than a rumble.

Yup... that's some nice reasoning behind that claim. How about we see this seismic data that's mentioned but not linked to?

Re:Caused a quake in Basel?

[jayhawk88]

Well, they were drilling, and then there was an earthquake. So obviously the drilling caused the quake, right?

Re:Caused a quake in Basel?

[ls671]

In TFA, they say artificially caused quakes are easy to identify:

Analysis of seismic data proved him correct. The quake measured 3.4 modest in some parts of the world. But triggered quakes tend to be shallower than natural ones, and residents generally describe them as a single, explosive bang or jolt often out of proportion to the magnitude rather than a rumble.

Triggered quakes are also frequently accompanied by an air shock, a loud tearing or roaring noise.

The noise made me feel it was some sort of supersonic aircraft going overhead, said Heinrich Schwendener, who, as president of Geopower Basel, the consortium that includes Geothermal Explorers and the utility companies, was standing next to the borehole.

It took me maybe half a minute to realize, hey, this is not a supersonic plane, this is my well, Mr. Schwendener said.

Re:Caused a quake in Basel?

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh my god, you're on to something! I remember when we had an earthquake in the S.F. Bay Area when I was a child, while I watched my father on a step-ladder drilling a hole on a forced-air heating duct in our garage ceiling. Drills cause earthquakes! Ban drills, they're evil!

Probability

[Shatrat]

Probability of a major earthquake if google drills for power: 1

Probability of a major earthquake if google does not drill: 1

If there is a quake, at least it will release some tension now rather than a year from now when it will be greater.

Re:Probability

[Anonymous Coward]

so probability of earth being taken out by a large asteroid before next large quake = 0?

If they can trigger earthquakes...

[MichaelSmith]

It should be possible to avoid the Big One and instead have a lot of small quakes at predictable places and times.

Housing Crisis

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like a cheaper way to end the housing crisis in California.

Is Google EVIL now?

[iCodemonkey]

Does this mean google is now a super-evil corporation(TM). Will we have James Bond types trying to bring it down? (disclaimer: not enough sleep, lack of coffee and to much TV are my excuses)

Re:Is Google EVIL now?

[Anonymous Coward]

Depends. What is Google searching for?

Re:Is Google EVIL now?

[ColdWetDog]

Does this mean google is now a super-evil corporation(TM).

No, you all have it exactly backwards. Look at this - California is bankrupt, they're planning on paying creditors IOUs. No money. Nada. They've already asked the feds to help and Obama has said 'No'.

Google knows this and knows that the only other ways to get money out of the feds is either to wage war on them or have a (presumably) natural disaster. Wars take time and are all sorts of messy, not to mention ethically marginal. A natural disaster on the other hand - who can argue with an Act of God? This is just a small down payment to help rescue the entire fucking state from themselves.

Brilliant, I say. Absolutely brilliant.

Re:Is Google EVIL now?

[RationalRoot]

No, you all have it exactly backwards. Look at this - California is bankrupt, they're planning on paying creditors IOUs. No money. Nada. They've already asked the feds to help and Obama has said 'No'.

Don't you mean the USA is bankrupt ?

Re:Is Google EVIL now?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ooh! Ooh! Can it be alien life? I want it to be alien life.

Major Quake? You got to be kidding me

[Anonymous Coward]

The heaviest quake was a 3.4 on the richter scale. That's not major. California had one of this magnitude just this week.

Re:Major Quake? You got to be kidding me

[AaronW]

I don't really worry about earthquakes until they start getting above 5, and even then it's no biggie around here. We have those every few years around here and there's rarely much damage since most of the buildings are designed to withstand far greater earthquakes. A 3.6 is nothing around here, and most of us have already experienced a number of quakes larger than that. California has done a lot to retrofit and upgrade older buildings and infrastructure especially after the Northridge and Loma Prieta earthquakes. Where other areas of the world consider a 5.6 to be major we consider it fairly common and no big deal.

Omitted to disclose?

[Anonymous Coward]

"omitted to disclose" doesn't even make sense. It's either "omitted" or "did not disclose". What exactly are they trying to say?

Re:Omitted to disclose?

[ls671]

`has not agreed to voluntarily disclose by not providing the fact that a quake occurred in Switzerland."

There, fixed for you ;-))

3.4?

[macshit]

Apparently (it's hard to say for sure, since all the stories I found were kinda sensationalist) the project in Basel caused a magnitude 3.4 quake.

That's an extremely small earthquake.

Big trucks going a construction site also rumble and shake the ground when the go past. People bitch, but it's not considered a reason to stop construction projects (except perhaps in very exceptional circumstances).

Frankly the furor seems to be more the "OMG they're doing something we don't understand which doesn't involve overeating and reality television! Stop them!" sort than it does a well-grounded and considered opposition.

Re:3.4?

[linzeal]

It was a 3.4 earthquake in an area without significant fault lines. That is 'significant'.

Re:3.4?

[Anonymous Coward]

Simple Solution, turn it into a reality show. The sheeple will love it.

Re:3.4?

[e9th]

Without significant fault lines? This article seems to suggest otherwise.

Re:3.4?

[Raenar]

Simple Solution, turn it into a reality show. The sheeple will love it.

And get contestants to out-eat each other before the quake hits to see who wins.

Re:3.4?

[scubamage]

I think they're more worried about a massive series of quakes being set off, like the ones in China which they're pretty darn sure were caused by water pressing down at a newly built dam.

Re:3.4?

[Anonymous Coward]

Basel was nearly *destroyed* by a quake in 1356 (probably magnitude 6.2 to 6.5), see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1356_Basel_earthquake.

The main prob: Basel is an industrial center, especially chemistry and pharmacy, so *when* the next "big one" (even if "as low as" 6.5) hits they're going to have *massive* problems. It's said that Basel is in the Ttop10 list of cities most endangered by quakes. Even a "6-ish" quake would cause direct damages estimated in the region of 50 billion SFR. Possibly bursting dams in the region would cause additional damage.

Re:3.4?

[jrumney]

The fact that Switzerland is covered in mountain ranges seems to suggest otherwise too.

Re:3.4?

[darkmeridian]

If you read the article, the 3.4 magnitude earthquake was closer to the surface than normal earthquakes. The effect was correspondingly higher. For Pete's sake, there was a sonic-boom-like burst of wind that accompanied the earthquake.

Re:3.4?

[khallow]

I was thinking the same thing. A mountain exists because at some point something pushed it up. And there's been a lot of pushing in Switzerland. A quake doesn't in itself mean much. This fault could generate these things every few years or every few centuries. If there's a 3.4 quake on a fault line with a lot of pressure that hasn't sprung in centuries, then that's worse than something that generates quakes of this strength all the time.

Re:3.4?

[TheRaven64]

Not really. We get one about that magnitude in the UK every few years, and you'd be hard pressed to find any major fault lines around here. I was a few miles from the epicentre of one a few years ago, and only found out about it when I walked in on a discussion the next day with people asking each other if they felt the quake (answers ranging from 'no' to 'maybe').

Heady questions

[StreetStealth]

In fact, technologies like this could be useful in doing controlled release of earthquakes, such that you can pick the time it can occur so people are ready for it.

This is a really interesting idea, the kind of stuff that makes for thoughtful sci-fi and even more thought in real life. What if we could tell the Big One was coming in the next decade but had the technology to loose its destruction at a time of our choosing?

How would such a thing be done? How would you convince the populace and governing bodies that it was necessary? How could you make absolutely sure it was necessary?

How would insurers decide to react? Where would everyone go? What about those refuse to leave? Are there temporary measures that could improve structural stability for 24 hours? What about people who couldn't afford them?

What are the potentials for abuse? How would the specifics of the release be affected by politics? If there were a way to control where the greatest damage would occur, how would it be chosen? Who would choose? Would the people in the way have a say? What kind of legal liability would those involved at different levels have?

A controlled quake release could save thousands, even tens of thousands of lives. But once there's an element of human control to unexpected disaster, all bets are off as to how our civilization deals with the responsibility.

Re:Heady questions

[religious freak]

Yeah, anyone else kind of reminded of the Xindi? I can't wait until we can turn this into a weapon!

Re:Heady questions

[adolf]

You asked...

What if we could tell the Big One was coming in the next decade but had the technology to loose its destruction at a time of our choosing?

Then folks would be ready for it, just like OP said.

How would such a thing be done?

RTFA.

Where would everyone go?

Vacation.

What about those refuse to leave?

Give them video cameras, clean water, some canned goods, and a P38.

Are there temporary measures that could improve structural stability for 24 hours?

Yes. Tape the windows, close the doors. Remove things from shelves. And avoid doing this in dry season or rainy season, whichever is worse for the upper layers of the crust.

What about people who couldn't afford them?

Help them.

How would insurers decide to react?

They'd act like cowardly children with solid cherry desks, country club memberships, a trophy wife, and a new German car, just like they do any other time something expensive happens.

How would the specifics of the release be affected by politics?

Poorly. Just as every other case where a politician gets involved.

If there were a way to control where the greatest damage would occur, how would it be chosen?

Whatever's cheapest.

Who would choose?

Maps. And clinical, heartless engineers.

Would the people in the way have a say?

They had a say when they elected the government.

What kind of legal liability would those involved at different levels have?

Who cares? If we can print enough money to bail out the economy, we can print enough to cover everyone's ass in a man-made Teh Big One.

Re:Heady questions

[4D6963]

Give them video cameras, clean water, some canned goods, and a P38.

I'm confused, do you want to give them a WWII fighter aircraft or a WWII Nazi handgun?

Re:Heady questions

[Hack'n'Slash]

I'm guessing the handgun because A) It's more useful and B) It's the pistol in Wolfenstein 3D

Re:Heady questions

[y_axis]

He was referring to this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P-38_can_opener You may whoosh me as you see fit.

Re:Heady questions

[bill_kress]

Wow, the fact that there is even a question here is just bizarre to me.

Facts:
The earthquake IS going to happen.
The longer we wait before it happens the worse it gets.

So how is it in any way a good idea to wait?

kind of like the economy, Bush has been taking on buckets of debt while saying "not raising taxes". This is just beyond insane into evil (true evil, not the word that people keep trying to throw at google because of the hate they generate for trying to generally be a good company). The debts HAVE to be paid and the interest is just piling up.

Every time a law (or war) is proposed with a cost, every cent of the cost should be calculated and allocated as part of the proposal.

As for the topic under discussion, any belief that such an undertaking might cause a major earthquake in my time as opposed to a catastrophic one in my child's time is about the most short-sighted selfish view one could take. At least if we were to do something we knew might cause it, we could be SOMEWHAT prepared if we so chose to be.

Re:Heady questions

[adolf]

No whoosh needed.

You're exactly right, though my reference to the P38 was intentionally and selectively vague. I knew that those familiar with the can opener would understand plainly what I meant, and I hoped that a little discussion the matter would enlighten other people to this useful little tool better than I could in my simple dialogue.

I think my vagueness worked. Thanks for helping out.

Re:Heady questions

[jafac]

Yes; and say it's possible - that you can drill in spot X, to release fault stress.
Now you've allowed one edge of a tectonic plate to slip. What happens to the other edge, thousands of miles away, in another country, or under the ocean floor? What happens to all the adjacent plates?
It has been shown that from time to time, a "big one" in one area can trigger others, years later, halfway across the globe, as all the plates settle into a new arrangement. This is not an engineering exercise for the faint-hearted.

Bad Idea

[AndrewStephens]

The allure of limitless energy from beneath the surface of the earth is enticing, but we have such short memories. Do nobody behind this project remember the ill-fated British INFERNO project from the 70s?

Re:Bad Idea

[Zordak]

+1 Dr. Who

Re:Bad Idea

[AndrewStephens]

I can't believe a Dr Who reference on Slashdot only got a single reply. What is the world coming to?

Young people these days - no appreciation for the classics!

Re:Bad Idea

[Zordak]

Dang kids wouldn't know a Jon Pertwee or a Tom Baker if they beat 'em over the head with an impractically-long scarf. They think David Tennant is the only guy to ever fly a TARDIS.

What if it were Exxon?

[Miros]

I'm shocked at how good people feel about this, and how much license many of the commenters are willing to give to this venture even if it is known to possible trigger a significant seismic event. What if this were being funded by Exxon instead of KP + Google? I doubt people would be as dismissive of the risks involved. also, filing for patents on improving the process is the whole point of funding something like this, not building a single power station, but gaining the know-how and experience necessary to scale it and the IP protections necessary to prevent others firms from exploiting the knowledge gained. That's just _at best_ spin; because clearly, if something is patented it has to be safer.

Re:What if it were Exxon?

[Cross-Threaded]

I'm shocked at how good people feel about this, and how much license many of the commenters are willing to give to this venture even if it is known to possible trigger a significant seismic event.

Why are you shocked? I think it is a good thing when people are honestly attempting to find solutions to existing problems. If it is known to possibly trigger significant seismic events, then it is very likely that said event will be much less powerful than if it was simply left to happen on its own.

What if this were being funded by Exxon instead of KP + Google?

I'm sure that you would get a lot of poorly thought out resistance. OMG, Big Oil Sucks!

That's the way people are, and you can argue logically, screaming from the top of your soap box, and no matter what, people are still going to act on their feelings, rather than cold logic.

Personally, I don't care who is funding the project, as long as a company such as AltaRock, or Exxon, or some other company that has real-world experience in drilling is running the operation.

I doubt people would be as dismissive of the risks involved.

I doubt there is a single person on the planet who know what all of the real risks are, much less how to avoid them. But, if you aren't willing to take risks to try to find answers to the problems that need to be solved, you are not very likely to produce any real answers. You are not helping, you're just a drain on the system.

filing for patents on improving the process is the whole point of funding something like this, not building a single power station, but gaining the know-how and experience necessary to scale it and the IP protections necessary to prevent others firms from exploiting the knowledge gained

This is where I get so frustrated by our society. How did we ever let this patent/copyright/trademark/intellectual property crap get so out of control that it should even be a concern when trying to solve real-world problems that really will benefit everyone, when solved?

Re:What if it were Exxon?

[Miros]

Fair enough. I'm not anti-progressive, and I agree that risks should be taken, I was just taken aback by how cavalier everyone was about this particular project. Something that can potentially cause millions of dollars in damages (even based on the 3.4 quake resulting from the previous project) is a very high level of risk for any project to take place on public land. As long as there is sufficient oversight I really don't care; but people's tendency in these posts to dismiss risk as irrelevant really rubs me the wrong way.

Re:What if it were Exxon?

[Cross-Threaded]

I was just taken aback by how cavalier everyone was about this particular project

...people's tendency in these posts to dismiss risk as irrelevant really rubs me the wrong way.

Completely understandable position to take. Nothing wrong with a voice of caution.

B Movie

[haggus71]

This sounds like one of those really bad disaster movies of the 70's starring Charlton Heston. Oh wait... http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071455/

Re:B Movie

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, it's this plot: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090264/

Re:B Movie

[Anonymous Coward]

The closest match is Roger Zelazny's The Eve of RUMOKO, which hasn't been made into a movie.

Terminator

[basementman]

I think this is will be skynet's first strike against mankind.

Re:Terminator

[geekoid]

Does any human at Google actually remember making this decision, or was it all electronic?

Releasing pressure might be a good thing

[stox]

I would rather have a number of small quakes rather than one large one. If this results in pressure being gradually released from a fault zone, I would consider it an asset, not a liability.

Re:Releasing pressure might be a good thing

[Rockoon]

What if the large one isnt due for 150 years.. do you still feel the same?

Personally, I feel that people alive 150 years from now are imaginary people, and would thus gladly shove the big one at them instead of taking a bunch of smaller ones now.

Re:Releasing pressure might be a good thing

[Cross-Threaded]

Using the logic of your statement, the people that may exist in 10 minutes are just imaginary, too.

You could get hit by a bus tomorrow! Why plan for next week?

Do you have any plans for tonight, this weekend? If so, why did you bother making them? After all, it's just an imaginary event.

What about your ancestors? Did any of them give a hoot what was in store for their children, or their children's children? Don't you think they cared about what the future would look like for their descendants? (I'll give them a free pass on some of the environmental fuck-ups - the ones that they didn't understand the repercussions of, such as asbestos, ozone depletion, etc. just because those mistakes are found in any type of progress).

If your argument is that the future population is imaginary, and you shouldn't try to plan long-term for coming generations because it won't affect you, then I think your logic is somewhat flawed, and extremely self-centered.

I don't have kids, and I don't intend to have any. That doesn't mean that I'm not willing to do reasonable things towards the goal of giving your descendants a decent place to live.

Re:Releasing pressure might be a good thing

[Rockoon]

Using the logic...

It would have been nice if you had used my logic. You failed.

Re:Releasing pressure might be a good thing

[Cross-Threaded]

Okay, I failed to see your logic.

If your logic wasn't something along the lines of "Screw the world, as long as it doesn't affect me", then what was it?

Care to try again?

Re:Releasing pressure might be a good thing

[Rockoon]

People that dont exist are imaginary people.

I don't know whats so hard to understand about this concept. Actualy, I know for a fact that its not hard to understand. I also know that you are trying to find something extreme that your highly opinionated bullshit can sink its teeth into. You are free to do that, but as an attributing response to me, it just doesn't fly. Work with what I say, not what you imagined I had said, or else don't attribute to me.

Re:Releasing pressure might be a good thing

[Cross-Threaded]

Thank you for clearing that up. I regret that we are in a virtual pissing contest.

Yes, I am guilty of latching on to your initial statement, making extreme examples for illustrative purposes, and attacking your character as a result.

Uncool of me, so apologies for coming off extreme, attacking your character, and over-reacting to the message your post appeared to contain.

Looking the original statement that you made:

Personally, I feel that people alive 150 years from now are imaginary people, and would thus gladly shove the big one at them instead of taking a bunch of smaller ones now.

How do you read that statement and not come away with the implied message that it is perfectly acceptable to ingnore the future state of things, as long as we don't have any consequences we have to suffer, and who cares what consequences that someone else suffers as a result of our actions, or inactions?

If your statement should be interpreted differently, then I would be interested in reading a clarification of your statement.

I understand that you predicated this statement with a question of, "what if it was 150 years from now", but, the time frame is arbitrary. That is the reason for the ridiculous time frame I used in my response. The point being who knows what will happen at any point in the future, and why would you, or I, do anything, if we didn't care about the future?

The point I was trying to make (albeit poorly, too extreme, and made a king-size ass of myself in the process) was that if you change the time that the very destructive earthquake may happen to a time in the future within your potential life span - say 20 years from now, I would guess that the statement you made would no longer apply, and you would be much more interested in doing something to prevent it if you could, even though there would likely be plenty of people in the world that are currently imaginary by your definition.

The above content is not intended to attack your character, or insult your intelligence, so please don't take it as such. I will drop this discussion now, unless you seriously want to continue the discussion.

Re:Releasing pressure might be a good thing

[Rockoon]

How do you read that statement and not come away with the implied message that it is perfectly acceptable to ingnore the future state of things, as long as we don't have any consequences we have to suffer, and who cares what consequences that imaginary people suffers as a result of our actions, or inactions?

There, fixed that for you.

Re:Releasing pressure might be a good thing

[Cross-Threaded]

Sarcasm: ON
Thanks!
Sarcasm: OFF

just turn that frown upside down

[empraptor]

any crazy ideas on how to harness energy of triggered quakes? mine: carve a large pattern around the area to direct the quake at a giant pendulum which will then swing the gays straight... and the straights gay. for science!

Re:just turn that frown upside down

[TheRaven64]

Interesting idea. Harnessing energy from earthquakes isn't usually practical for the same reason that harnessing energy from lightning isn't; they deliver a lot of energy, infrequently. If you're triggering small earthquakes more often then it might be worth investigating. A seismograph is basically a device for harnessing energy from earthquakes to move a needle over some paper. You could scale it up to swing a much heavier weight and extract energy from it. I suspect that the fact that the quake is omnidirectional would make it difficult to collect more than a small amount of energy, unfortunately.

Re:just turn that frown upside down

[empraptor]

which is why you make an enormous fresnel zone plate, except instead of drawing it on glass you carve/drill it into the earth. what's the wavelength of an earthquake shockwave? i'm going to start digging.

Their Fatal Mistake

[rally2xs]

was drilling in La La Land. They should have drilled in Montana, the Dakotas, anywhere where people are semi-reasonable about things. This project will be stopped, bet on it. It will join the power line that was stopped from connecting a large solar farm to San Diego, the LNG seaports that were stopped from being built anywhere along the left coast and wound up in Mexico, the area where they refused to build powerplants for about 10 years and not only caused themselves rolling blackouts but made their competitive position in the electricity market so weak that Enron could easiy butt-F them, as well as their being one of 5 states with diesel fuel standards so stringent that it is impossible for anyone to import or build a diesel car clean enough to be sold there, and on and on. California as a political entity is non-viable, it's just taking a while to totally collapse...

Re:Their Fatal Mistake

[evilviper]

They should have drilled in Montana, the Dakotas, anywhere where people are semi-reasonable about things.

"Semi-reasonable"? Do you have any idea just how many gigantic hellish toxic waste pits there are in Montana? Say it with me: "Superfund Site"

the area where they refused to build powerplants for about 10 years and not only caused themselves rolling blackouts

What's this... The area with the most polluted air in the US has some slightly tough regulations, making it hard to build more coal power plants? The devil you say! Clearly, they should just bend over, and start sucking up whatever amount of soot the multinational corporations feel like putting out...

California as a political entity is non-viable, it's just taking a while to totally collapse...

You know, you only serve to make yourself look like a nutjob completely detached from reality when you spout off nonsense.

Would any right-wing nutjobs care to explain why it is that the most environmentally stringent cities and states just HAPPEN to be the most prosperous? Crazy, isn't it? Clearly proof that any environmental regulation is untenable. All these areas with pollution controls are clearly going to collapse, just a few thousand years from now. Just you wait! I'll be proven right! Now if you'll excuse me, I think my left lung just collapsed again...

Re:Their Fatal Mistake

[Anonymous Coward]

Listen, I'm a left-wing nutjob, but even I'll admit that the California political system is completely fucked and counterproductive to lots of progress.

Re:Their Fatal Mistake

[bky1701]

What's this... The area with the most polluted air in the US has some slightly tough regulations, making it hard to build more coal power plants? The devil you say! Clearly, they should just bend over, and start sucking up whatever amount of soot the multinational corporations feel like putting out...

...and no power is an acceptable alternative? They could have built any number of other forms of plants - including nuclear. But...

OMG NUCLEAR! You want to build a BOMB in my state! How dare you. Not in my county, we'll fight this to the supreme court!

California is not sustainable, because they look only to the short term, and have short memories.

Re:Their Fatal Mistake

[MadKeithV]

Well I think....
Wait, what did you just say, I can't remember.

Re:Their Fatal Mistake

[khallow]

You know, you only serve to make yourself look like a nutjob completely detached from reality when you spout off nonsense.

It's not worth his time to bother to help you pull your head out of your ass. Sure he might look to you like he's a nutjob, but you demonstrate that you have little clue or perception in the matter. For example, Montana most likely has a lot less superfund sites than California because they have less population and less industry (oh look, Montana has 8 Superfund sites as compared to California's 90 Superfund sites). You said some nonsense, something about air pollution and coal burning plants. My guess is that California could always require, just as the rest of the US, the coal burning plant fit scrubbers and other pollution control devices. Then you wouldn't have to worry about air pollution (it'd be well below other California sources like backyard grills and gas powered leaf blowers).

Would any right-wing nutjobs care to explain why it is that the most environmentally stringent cities and states just HAPPEN to be the most prosperous?

It's just California that happens to have this remarkable property of environmental hysteria adjacent to prosperity. And they're well on their way to killing the golden goose.

Re:Their Fatal Mistake

[Anonymous Coward]

California as a political entity is non-viable, it's just taking a while to totally collapse...

You know, you only serve to make yourself look like a nutjob completely detached from reality when you spout off nonsense.

So he'd be indistinguishable a native of the Bay area?

Re:Their Fatal Mistake

[vajrabum]

Oh you mean the rolling blackouts that were caused by the crooks at ENRON and their unindicted co-conspirators at the other major power generators up and down the coast in order to jack up rates? The ones who've had not one problem providing California with power regardless of the weather since they've gotten long term contracts at extortionate prices for power since then. The same ones that Gov Shwarzenegger promised to go after during his first campaign and then quietly settle the lawsuits with after his first election. You either don't live in California, or you've been sleeping. Let's not talk ideology, let's talk history and science. Much more productive and useful unless you happen to run a power company with generators in California or own stock in one.

Re:Their Fatal Mistake

[Anonymous Coward]

Montana maybe, Dakotas however lack any real geothermal sources, being tectonically, well, inert. You'd do best in areas like California, Oregon, Washington, Alaska, Wyoming, which known tectonic activity that you can tap into. In the end, geothermal power requires, well, massive heat blooms to tap into. I might also add, there has been a fully functional geothermal power station operating for over a century. Even the United States has had a fully functional powerplant since the 1960's. Iceland is almost all geothermal power.

Re:Their Fatal Mistake

[dfghjk]

"Would any right-wing nutjobs care to explain why it is that the most environmentally stringent cities and states just HAPPEN to be the most prosperous?"

Perhaps because prosperity isn't just a function of politics and environmental policy? Could it be a function of California's natural resources?

Re:Their Fatal Mistake

[geekoid]

"not only caused themselves rolling blackouts"
No, it was all BS created by Enron, there was no need for those rolling blackouts.

"import or build a diesel car clean enough to be sold there"
Not true, there are several but they feel the market for them is'nt big enough. I think the manufacturer are wrong about that, but that's a different discussion.

"This project will be stopped"
And it should be, the steam they will be releasing will be filled with arsenic. Look into that lake.
OTOH, maybe they ahve away to contain the arsenic.

While I do agree that the NIMBY and what I like to call the "Neo-Greens" are causing problems.

I remember when being 'green' was about balance and going forward smartly. I also remember when Green peace was for nuclear power.
Sadly they lost there way around the beginning of the 80's.

". It will join the power line that was stopped from connecting a large solar farm to San Diego,"
Do you have a link?

Re:Their Fatal Mistake

[geekoid]

"making it hard to build more coal power plants? The devil you say!"
It's more then that, doing ANY power plant brings out the ignorant fools in droves.

It took the Governor to force the go ahead for a Solar Thermal plant. The SINGLE cleanest form of energy. All because of a mouse.

Now, I don't think any company should go forth spewing toxic crap and killing everything it its path, but people do need a more balanced approach.

"...just HAPPEN to be the most prosperous? "
umm, how are you defining that? right now California is broke.

Re:Their Fatal Mistake

[geekoid]

When you mention Nuclear, people remember all those people that died due to 3 mile island..wait, no one died due to 3 mile island. over 50 people ahve dies since then to support the coal power plant they need becasue they wouldn't open the other towers.

California is improving.

Re:Their Fatal Mistake

[geekoid]

"...the coal burning plant fit scrubbers and other pollution control devices"
Considered a little joke by people who actually work in the industry.

"gas powered leaf blowers"
which should be outlawed.

Theya re starting to see the light in the way of solar thermal. That could power the state. AS well as IFRs.

Re:Their Fatal Mistake

[steelfood]

California: the state where everybody is trying to stand on clouds.

Re:Their Fatal Mistake

[evilviper]

..and no power is an acceptable alternative?

No ADDITIONAL power plants is considered the least destructive option, yes.

The state of CA has been very aggressive in energy conservation, and ever increasing energy efficiency, which can potentially stave off the power crunch for several more years.

The state has also been heavily subsidizing renewables, like solar and wind, so there has been new capacity, but it hasn't been rolled out on a large scale just yet.

OMG NUCLEAR! You want to build a BOMB in my state! How dare you.

Yeah, as opposed to the other 49 states, which are building nukes left and right? Pure red herring.

California is not sustainable, because they look only to the short term, and have short memories.

...and haven't been sustainable for over a century now... Strange that.

Re:Their Fatal Mistake

[rally2xs]

"It will join the power line that was stopped from connecting a large solar farm to San Diego," "Do you have a link?" http://greenwombat.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2008/11/03/big-solar-project-short-circuited/

Google being "evil"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Steve, is that you?

Forget that! It's even better.

[Anonymous Coward]

Crack In The World... with physics that makes "Mission To Mars" look plausible. ^_^

Quick!

[kheldan]

Someone check to see if Google has been buying up useless desert land in Arizona and Nevada!

What scare-mongering stupidity!

[Archeopteryx]

"Caused?"

I defy you to prove that.

The forces involved in an earthquake are so far beyond what man can control or cause that it is not even funny.

Re:What scare-mongering stupidity!

[MichaelSmith]

The forces involved in an earthquake are so far beyond what man can control or cause that it is not even funny.

What about lubricating a fault with water?

Re:What scare-mongering stupidity!

[wdavies]

We don't have to, the other companies admit as such. Start drilling, and quakes start happening, stop it and the quakes stop. The Basel engineer knew he was at fault and wasn't scared to admit it, which I think is awesome. As for proving it, I dunno, leave that to any geologists.

Re:What scare-mongering stupidity!

[chimpo13]

Hey, that's not funny!

Re:What scare-mongering stupidity!

[MichaelSmith]

Hey, that's not funny!

Other types of lubricant are way too expensive.

Re:What scare-mongering stupidity!

[dargaud]

What about lubricating a fault with water?

Which is exactly what caused the recent earthquake at l'Aquila (Italy), and several other instances, including a very big one in China. A dam gets built, the water pressure from the lake increases deep water infiltration. If there is a fault line alongside the valley (fairly common), the fault gets lubricated and lets it rip.

Re:What scare-mongering stupidity!

[jurgen]

I don't know about that. Man is exceptionally good at least at producing if not controlling destructive forces. According to Wikipedia ("Megaton"), the 1960 Chilean earthquake (the largest ever recorded) released energies equivalent to 60,000 Gigatons of TNT. That was a 9.5, but since 2 steps on the logarithmic Richter scale are equivalent to a factor of 1000 in energy released, that means a 7.5 quake is only about 60 Gigatons equivalent, which is rather less than the destructive power of the world's nuclear arsenal. Just the US alone has nearly 10,000 nuclear weapons (fas.org), a good portion of which are 30 Megaton equivalents.

So the nuclear weapons we already have are plenty to cause the forces released by a big earthquake, although not for the very biggest earthquakes. But the difference is only a factor of a few hundred, surely we could build a couple of million big bombs if really wanted to... ;-)

Re:What scare-mongering stupidity!

[Anonymous Coward]

oh please, everyone knows water is an absolutely horrible lubricant.

a proper lubricant is based on silicone

Re:What scare-mongering stupidity!

[Anonymous Coward]

The forces involved in an earthquake are so far beyond what man can control or cause that it is not even funny.

What about lubricating a fault with water?

That's still not very funny.

Now, if you used a large amount of "personal lubricant", that might be.

Anonymous Coward

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, lighten up. Everyone's sick of waiting.

It's pure genius...

[Onyma]

It's not evil at all. They are secretly buying up land in Nevada and Arizona and hoping that the entire state of California will drop into the ocean. Then they will own the western coast, build a new silicon valley, and set up massive off-shore server farms driven by wave power. From there it's a small leap to world dominance! Evil? I think not... just Genius! Just don't tell Superman or he'll spin the earth backwards until the Internet is back to Mosaic and Excite.

Geothermal energy

[Meor]

Geothermal energy is bar-none, the cleanest, cheapest energy there is. We should be tapping Yellowstone for energy.

Re:Geothermal energy

[d4nowar]

And just think of all of the meat we can harvest!

Punquake

[Tablizer]

"Today, Google made Earth-shattering news when..."

No, but...

[WindBourne]

injecting high pressure water CAN trigger them. And make them much worse. And yes, this is about injecting water to be heated. With that said, I suspect that they have done their homework and figured things out. The venture in EU was a disaster, because the company did not do their homework and literally hit a known fault.

Americans They no Nuts, They Crazy

[cubicle]

If something sound dangerous this sure is it. The best way to acquire more energy is use less of it. Playing with the forces of nature is dangerous. If it caused problems in one place it will cause problems in California. I doubt it will cause the big one, but I can see it causing small shock waves that will be disruptive, destructive, and ultimately cost more resources and energy than it replaces. I also worry for the people who would be working there if a geothermal event were to occur such as a small volcano would they be able to escape before it killed them

Meh,Google is already past evil with GoogleUpdater

[Technomancer]

This thing is probably worse than some rootkits.

Evil?

[Anonymous Coward]

Who cares about an earthquake? Some little Eichmanns might get hurt. The atmosphere won't be harmed at all. Nothing evil about it.

Think Green!

If they don't stop this drilling...

[Svartormr]

...they'll unlease an inferno!

Re:If they don't stop this drilling...

[DigitalSorceress]

Came here for the Dr. Who (Pertwee) reference... leaving satisfied.

On a serious note, I hope they manage to make it work. It would be really nice to think that we're working on as many different possible (green or at least greener than coal and oil) solutions to our energy needs as possible.

That's a good point...

[tlambert]

That's a good point...

"essentially creating a steam explosion several miles underground in under conditions that probably have more unknowns than knowns, all in an area with known levels of significant instability seems like a prospect deserving of extreme scrutiny."

Let's try the experiment and scrutinize the results.

-- Terry

new shoreline property

[Anonymous Coward]

ARIZONA BAY!!!! SWEET!!

Hooglu

[realnrh]

Google is combining forces with Hulu. "An evil plot to destroy the world. Enjoy!" Google rationalizes their participation on the grounds that there's too much information in the world to efficiently search, so by eliminating one rich source of data (California), they can reduce the amount of information they need to index and thus keep their search results more relevant, which they consider a good thing.

NIMBY

[Fuzquat]

NIMBY NIMBY NIMBY NIMBY! We like green power, just not in our back yard...

Don't worry, nothing bad will happen from it...

[dvh.tosomja]

Cause we will be screwed by LHC loooonnnggg before

No problem. Superman will solve that!

[Anonymous Coward]

He can't walk, but he can fly

s/sensationalist drivel/actual info/g , please

[vic-traill]

Steven E. Koonin, the under secretary for science at the Energy Department, said the earthquake issue was new to him, but added, "We're committed to doing things in a factual and rigorous way, and if there is a problem, we will attend to it."

I have zero understanding of the technology being used here, nor of what might constitute rigorous risk identification, monitoring and response. The article doesn't help much in that it appears to focuses on the polar - people who assert little or manageable risk(s) and on the other end those who think just about anything (bad) could happen.

At the risk of trivializing something complex that I know jack shit about, I'll note I can't tell whether Mr. Koonin's comment is indicative of solid forethought and comprehensive contingency planning or a talking point meant to reassure listeners with no actual content behind it. An informative article might have detailed some of the problems that have been considered and the monitor/identify/respond/mitigate work that should now stand behind those scenarios.

I despise this sort of sensational drivel that whips people up while giving them near zero content to build some understanding on which to stand. It leaves you wondering whether you should a) have faith that people putting millions of dollars into a complex project using a less than mature technology do indeed have a clue and are professionals who do their homework (c.f. this example that was supposed to create a black hole and suck the Earth into it but didn't (yet anyway) ) or b) be convinced that greedy money-grubbing fsckheads with no ethics and bereft of a single ounce of humanity are at it again.

Seems to me that the people who insure these sorts of projects are likely thinking about this sort of shit a lot. Sure enough, using a tool available even to journalists , it turns out that "As no standards have been established for this kind of insurance yet, the co-operation between project developer and insurer is of major importance. The clear definition of scenarios, best- and worst-cases, measures and procedures is crucial in order to produce a reliable and transparent policy. Both the stimulation concept and the layout of the test program for the certification of results should be specified in advance and form part of the insurance policy" [link left as an exercise for the interested reader].

How about some follow-up by The Gray Lady on what this actually means?

I'll admit being long-winded here, but I honestly have no intent to troll. That this article is accepted for print at a international newspaper of record is just beyond me. Where the hell is the science? Where is the investigative reporting?

Prior art!

[tmk]

The Big One sponsored by mysterious billionaires? http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090264/

Dharma

[Obel]

I'm sure the Dharma Initiative did something like this in the 70's.. Didn't it set off a nuke or something?

We need neo

[frednofr]

The Machines who control the Matrix have started drilling. We are doomed.

to quake or not to quake

[l3v1]

Thing is, there's high probability that a 3.x earthwuake will happen in the drilling area around the time of the drilling, whether they drill or not, and most certainly people wouldn't even notice. Unless, of course, seismologists will especially listen to that moment and say the drilling caused the quakes, which they won't be able to prove, since such quakes are so common it's not even news.

Fear of quakes should not justify dropping the idea of using drilled geotermics, it's stupid.

Unless you ask common people for advice :P :D: It's terrifying [...] What's happening to all these rocks that they're busting into a million pieces?

Re:to quake or not to quake

[maxume]

Maybe they could compare a period from before the drilling to a similar length of time during the drilling and compare the frequency, magnitude and locations of the quakes?

Might get them a little further than taking it one quake at a time.

None of this means I think that a few quakes are reason not to try to build the power plant. They need to be a little cautious that they don't start generating a large number of huge quakes, but that doesn't seem very likely to me.

Evil bit

[isorox]

Yes, google is now evil, they're finding projects that use RFC 3514 -- the Evil Bit.

Well, the evil drill bit anyway.

Fantastic Graphics! 60,000 times our energy use!

[wisebabo]

If you want to see some really great informative graphics look at the what is presented along with the article: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/06/23/us/Geothermal.html
I'm amazed to see such well presented, interesting and informative 3D and 2D graphics in a "mainstream" (non-technical) periodical. Take a look!
Anyway, back to the topic. The article also said that advanced geothermal power could produce "as much as 60,000 TIMES the nationâ(TM)s annual energy usage!" (Emphasis mine).
Doesn't anyone else find this utterly remarkable? Again, (looking at the spiffy graphics) the power looks widely dispersed GEOgraphically (ha ha) and other than these minor (and yes 3-4 magnitude is minor) quake issues shouldn't be a problem. This could EASILY and COMPLETELY solve our energy problems? Repeat: 60,000 TIMES! (not 60,000 percent which also wouldn't be bad). Even if only 1% of that amount was economically recoverable that's still 600 TIMES! So what am I missing here? (Sorry about the hyperventilating, lots of coffee).

Whats the big deal????

[Big Hairy Ian]

I mean in California who's going to notice another earth quake?

Just because the technique causes tremors doesn't mean it's going to cause the next big one they get quakes all the time in CA anything this technique causes probably wont even interrupt dinner

This just smacks of more tabloid science like all that bull about the LHC

if they do evil....

[robinvanleeuwen]

Well heck, i have to admit that if they cause the next big one, and it is as big as the headline said... At least they do evil in a really grand way, not the sloppy: 'oh we forgot to fix critical bug x last year....' , but destroy one of worlds biggest cities to shut out some minor competition... well got my respect :-)

007

[Atreide]

doesn't it look like some old James Bond movie ?

Re:007

[Anonymous Meoward]

Yep: "View to a Kill". With Christopher Walken as the baddie and Grace Jones as the hot evil sidekick.
I'm old. Fuck.

Re:007

[Anonymous Coward]

Grace Jones? Hot? I always thought she looked rather man-ish, and her perpetual angry scowl didn't do much to help that. Wait a minute - man-faced, angry, ball-busting black woman... Is she in any way related to Michelle Obama?

Read what you're replying to

[Anonymous Coward]

The 3.4 they had in Basel looks to be just another daily occurrence in those parts.
 

Did you not bother to even look at the post you're replying to? There's a little detail about the epicenter being considerably shallower than "natural" quakes and much more energy being transferred to the surface.

RE: "EVIL"

[seekret]

I don't see how funding this research would be considered "evil". From the article it seems that the company has learned from the past mistakes and are at doing things differently, as long as the earthquakes are minimal and harmless the benefits will be worth it. Now if there was a good chance that it would be a disaster then sure I'd say it was not the brightest move for Google or anyone else to pitch in on the project, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

Support election system reform

[danaris]

As for voting, in America if it isn't a republican or democrat you are out of luck.

And this will remain the case as long as we have a single-vote, winner-take-all system. WIth something more like approval voting, people would be able to vote Libertarian and still vote for a candidate who has a chance of winning...which means that a Libertarian candidate might actually stand a chance of winning.

So support election system reform if you want to really make your voice heard.

Dan Aris

Re:Support election system reform

[nomadic]

What if I think the Libertarian Party fields lousy candidates who would do far worse a job than more Republicans or Democrats? Shouldn't I then want the all-or-nothing kind of voting?

Re:Support election system reform

[danaris]

What if I think the Libertarian Party fields lousy candidates who would do far worse a job than more Republicans or Democrats? Shouldn't I then want the all-or-nothing kind of voting?

If you really believe that the country is better off having no practical choice other than Republicans and Democrats for the foreseeable future, then yes, you should oppose alternative election systems.

Dan Aris

Re:Support election system reform

[nomadic]

Ok, I will.

Evil? That's not a bug, that's a feature.

[turing_m]

Some say the end is near.
Some say we'll see armageddon soon.
I certainly hope we will.
I sure could use a vacation from this

Bullshit three ring circus sideshow of
Freaks...

now where have I seen this before...?

[Anonymous Coward]

ah yeas - http://www.jamesbondwiki.com/page/Max+Zorin

step 1: cause a quake in California
step 2: ????
step 3: PROFIT!!

Drilling for Geothermal is nothing new guys!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

May I remind you that Iceland has been doing that for a while.
Japan also started with no eQuake ;)
Has for Basel, Geothermal Explorer Ltd. are still in business and still drilling in Basel... The NYT is not well known for it's scientific rigorousness.

you might enjoy this paper Characterisation of the Basel 1 enhanced geothermal system

It tells you everything about the process what actually happened (i.e. they followed a plan which included microseismic maximum threshold), thta the drilling by itself has absolutely nothing to do with the mini-eQuake (ML of 3.4 was the maximum reached and it's pretty minor. There are probably 50,000+ eQuake like that every year on the planet) and this 2006 geothermal well has been successfully stimulated, is active and still used as a test plot...

Absolutely Impossilbe

[patiodragon]

"...if they didn't know for sure it was safe"

There is no way they can know the complete soil mechanics in 3D in a deep drilling process. It's not like predicting the path of a billiard ball or something. Unless... of course! They're going to use Google Earth(TM) to map it out!

This isn't right, damn it

[rubicelli]

I saw the movie twice; the giant drilling rig goes in right next to the Golden Gate Bridge.

Who cares? FUCK CALIFORNIA!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Your shitty, overpriced state is bankrupt, and you're dragging the rest of us down with you. Even now, that dick Henry Waxman wants to increase the price of energy for every household by $3800 per year according to the CBO. You think the rest of us can't see carbon trading for the shell game that it is? Get a clue: buying indulgences doesn't actually reduce pollution. It just passes the buck on to the customer, a.k.a. the middle class.

Why is your fucking state broke? You live in a virtual gold mine of talent and natural resources, yet your leaders can't accomplish the most basic executive function of creating and sticking to a budget. Are you all idiots? People are feeling overtaxed and fleeing for states with friendlier tax codes and more fiscal restraint like Texas, yet still the only solution your leaders can come up with is to raise taxes, and finally, FINALLY to cut some entitlements. God forbid some fat welfare mammy with 4 kids and no job doesn't get her free money! I'm tired of your state shitting on the rest of us. You got yourself into this mess, now you dig yourself out. Stop robbing the taxpayers in the other 49 states.

Oil well drilling is safe, so why geothermal?

[cenc]

We have been running oil well drills in to the earth, and sucking out all the juice, water, geothermal, whatever for years. No one has questioned seriously if oil well drilling causes earth quakes. Now that we are drilling for geothermal there is this totally myth being pushed all over that geothermal causes earthquakes.

It just so happens that the best geothermal locations also happen to be near the most active seismic locations. Stands to reason that once in a while when drilling there are going to be earthquakes in the area, not that geothermal causes earthquakes.

How is this science, or even logical?

GET A CLUE PEOPLE!!!

Re:Oil well drilling is safe, so why geothermal?

[demonbug]

In fact, hydrofracturing has been used in oil, natural gas, and even water production wells for may years. Ooh looky, wikipeida even has an entry on it!

Basically, this whole story is a lot of controversy over an effect that is known. Yes, hydrofracturing and introducing fluid in an area already seismically active is likely to trigger seismic events - but the size of these events is limited by the amount of accumulated strain in the bedrock, and will most likely be similar to the naturally-occurring events (or smaller).

Re:Fantastic Graphics! 60,000 times our energy use

[maxume]

The hot dry rock technology is still being developed. The injection wells mentioned in the graphic (at the Geysers) are injecting to enhance the existing aquifer, rather than creating the fractures needed to heat the water.

1 2 3 4 - Profit!

[StCredZero]

1 - Write a story involving Google
2 - Find a way to include the word EVIL
3 - Blog it, post it, spam it, be sure to put up Google Adwords advertising
4 - Profit!

In the final analysis

[vandelais]

I think it will be evident that the benefits VASTLY OUTWEIGH the risks. California has to start producing more of its own power sometime.

Only releasing quakes waiting to happen

[Herby Sagues]

Not that I like Google a bit, but this is all a red herring. Drilling does not cause quakes. It just advances the occurrence of quakes waiting to happen, reducing their potential strenght. It is not a coincidence that the quake in Basil occurred in the same place as a devastating quake 650 years before. Drilling released part of the accumulated energy since, in the form of a smaller quake. If the energy had not been released, in a few hundred years another devastating quake might have taken place. And even if the drills in northern CA cause another quake, it is exactly the same thing: a quake in the area is bound to happen, releasing the energy early will simply reduce the energy of the quake. A hundred minor quakes are much better than a single big one. Just as with forest fires, we will learn that with time.

Less risky than war

[cryfreedomlove]

There is risk to funding this drilling. There is greater risk of global instability if we remain addicted to foreign oil consumption and greenhouse gas emitting energy sources. The path we are on today creates endless war in the middle east, getting chummy with tyrants, and global warming.

Re:Less risky than war

[geekoid]

"There is greater risk of global instability if we remain addicted to foreign oil consumption and greenhouse gas emitting energy sources.

Except we can do that WITHOUT geo thermal.

This may or may be not dangerous but...

[mr exploiter]

the traditional carbon and oil energy sources that this would replace are known to be dangerous. As long as the state is correctly regulating this I think it's GOOD, not EVIL.

Cause and effect

[rkeene517]

The articles seem to state specifically that the drilling in Europe caused the earthquake. Almost without a doubt that is just a conjecture. The problem in California is that if the drilling takes a year or two, there is bound to be some kind of quake, and the drilling will get the blame. On the other hand, the value of deep well geothermal is so great that it would be worth a minor quake to get it.

drilling...

[annex1]

"Yours is a drill that will pierce the heavens!" "Who the Hell do you think we are?" Can't hear about drilling without thinking about Gurren Lagann. ;)

"Somewhat" evil?

[Radical Moderate]

No Grasshopper, this is James-Bond-villain evil. Not just any Bond villain, Christopher-Walken's-worst-performance-ever evil! I love Walken, but the evil in this plot really made me hate him. Or maybe it was just the sucky script. Roger Moore didn't help much either.

Drilling into a Volcano

[Anonymous Coward]

I wouldn't worry too much about the effect of a small hole on such a large system, last night a deep drill into the active volcano Krafla (last eruption was in 1984) froze up at 2104 meters when the drill got stuck in molten rock. If nothing happens when you drill into a magma chamber of an active volcano then I don't worry about what happens when you drill miles and miles away from a fault-line.

meh

[recharged95]

it's a Big One in N. California. Just northern California, not the freaking country.

.

Don't worry the internet will still be running, just when one does happen in NoCal, the data will just go through a pipe in Ft. Meade Md.

Way too much like that Bond movie.

[Animats]

This is way too much like that dumb Bond movie. First, they get their own NASA airfield for their own private jet. Then they base a Zeppelin there, cruising over the Golden Gate Bridge, no less. Now, a geothermal drilling project? They're definitely on script.

Who plays Grace Jones?

Arizona Bay?

[Mikash33]

I've a suggestion to keep you all occupied, California. Learn to swim.

Reminds me of a movie

[werfu]

This remind me a old movie with Luke Perry. A military funded project aiming to drill down earth crust to harvest energy disturb the north america continental plate and it start to move down under the pacific plate. All kind of stuff happens then. They end up going drilling under the crust to place nukes to "replace" the crust. This movie was realy bad. It's sad, Luke Perry was nice in Beverly Hills lol.

Ala Superman: The Movie

[Anonymous Coward]

The plan is to cause a catastrophic rift that would sever California from the rest of North America. The resulting island would then be completely annexed by Google, forming the country of "Google" which would remain in beta for several years.

Solution to Housing and Budget Problems

[Anonymous Coward]

Ha! You Californians are on to our plan!!! We were going to solve the housing problem and state budget problems all at once, by having your idiotic, morally and financially bankrupt state fall harmlessly into the sea.

It would be worth it alone to get rid of the cast of The Hills.

Consider California a failed experiment and move on!

You are all missing the point

[roguegramma]

You are all missing the point:

There still would have been an earthquake if they didn't drill, it just would happen later when enough energy has built up, so the earthquake would be even larger. The energy builds up because the continental plates move against each other and some parts get stuck.

Just like that James Bond movie.

[thecaem]

With Christopher Walken-A View to a Kill

Wrong location, try Redmond?

[dwheeler]

Wouldn't it make more sense for Google to fund a drilling site near Redmond, Washington :-) ?

Arizona Bay...

[elgeebar]

I've just made the real estate investment of your dreams ;)

genecavanaugh@gmail.com

[patents]

Yeah, and if a fly lands on a 747 it will go down in flames! Where do people come up with these stories?

!!! WoOoOoOoOoW !!!

[Anonymous Coward]

They WANT the small quakes to happen, they are hoping to use this to relieve the pressure over the main fault !!!!!!

When it's working 1000 3.4 mag. farts a day !

I hope all that shaking and banging doesn't get the Devil all pissed off !!!!!!