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Arkansas Earthquakes Could Be Man-Made
oxide7 writes "The small earthquakes that struck north central Arkansas could be from a combination of natural and man-made activity. Some experts think that pumping water into the ground as part of the extraction process of natural gas could cause local seismic events."
Yep, in Switzerland, for example. Links: article, analysis
Calpine is actually paying people who live near The Geysers because it was decided in court that they are responsible for increased seismic activity in the area; it increased markedly and proportionally when they started pumping semi-treated sewage into the ground. They left off a special drilling project here after they caused a massive earthquake doing the same thing elsewhere.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
The theory that fracturing the local geology by pumping in a lubricant under extremely high pressure might cause some sub-surface movement certainly sounds preposterous to me...
Dams do this do, e.g. the Hoover Dam and the recent quake in China. Read more at "Top 5 Ways to Cause a Man-Made Earthquake": http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/06/top-5-ways-that/
Right. I mean, it's only Arkansas...
Sorry, it's a very boring day debugging someone else's application.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
The 4.7 and 4.3 were kind of freaky (4.7 especially, as evidenced by some ridiculous 911 calls from the neighboring city of Conway, ~13 miles south). Everything under 4 or so is just noise.
I just hope science proves it's these injection wells, so I have someone to sue when my house comes crashing down and I'm out the 10% deductible in my earthquake rider.
All that said, local opinion seems to be that tornadoes are scarier than earthquakes.
Magnitude 4 seismic events are of relatively little concern, in the scheme of things; but the water pollution that has resulted is more serious.
There is a more serious governance/philosophical issue at work, though. These sorts of energy extraction operations, whether they be hydrofracking gas, doing the assorted horrid things required to get tar sands and oil shales flowing, or mountaintop removal, all involve the extraction company imposing (often quite significant, sometimes fatal) externalities on the people in a broad swath around them. Generally, these externalities are not compensated. That's how pollution goes.
When a price needs to be paid, two things matter: "How big is it?" and "How will it be allocated?". At present, while the jury may still be out on the size of the bill, the method of allocation appears, at first approximation, to be "Suck it, peasants, costs will be imposed as is most profitable for your betters!".
Such a cost allocation scheme really ought to have no friends anywhere on the political spectrum. The reasons for liberal opposition should be so obvious as to no need mention. For conservatives or libertarians, such rampant imposition of externalities on other people's persons and properties should be recognized as making a mockery of man's right to person and property, and the state's legitimate role in preserving the same.
We must be careful that, in attempting to break our dependence on kleptocratic energy-despotic hellholes, we do not allow ourselves to become one...
Have Christopher Walken or Grace Jones been seen in the area? They are trying to create a monopoly on ... on ... ? What does Arkansas produce again?
The world is made by those who show up for the job.
Everyone knows that the government has developed several variations on Tesla's earthquake machines (HAARP, etc) and has been using them all over the world (Haiti, anyone?) to cause "natural" disasters. Sheesh!
For conservatives or libertarians, such rampant imposition of externalities on other people's persons and properties should be recognized as making a mockery of man's right to person and property, and the state's legitimate role in preserving the same.
There are two problems. One is that people in the aggregate is easily led, this hardly bears further discussion in the context of this conversation. The other is that the real voters, the people with money, are the ones who are imposing the externalities. It's all gravy to them. So long as the ability to make decisions is concentrated in these individuals the decisions can only be selfish.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
On the contrary, there is a large over-abundance of natural gas in the USA and depressed prices. What I've heard from an executive of a natural gas exploration company is that they are going after deposits where gas and oil can both be extracted by fracking, since the gas alone is not valuable enough to make it worthwhile,
We're not polluting the water; the water comes out of the ground as brine and is already "polluted". We're pumping it back in.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
If earthquakes and environmental damage are a small price, then what would be a big price?
Dependency on countries and regimes openly declaring the US as an enemy..everytime you fuel your car ..you are funding terrorism. Thats the BIG PRICE
Your analysis of why things turn out as they do is spot on.
I'm mostly just reacting to my frustration that "unlimited freedom to impose externalities on others" has been adopted as a so called "libertarian" position(conveniently, mostly by people who make money doing high-pollution things), when it is, in fact, about as "libertarian" as eliminating the regulations against burglary or assault.
Yeah, it is totally fair. If you refuse to sign the agreement, they pull some eminent domain garbage on you and then take your land legally.
"But this one goes to 11!"
People who live around natural gas wells are well compensated through royalties and lease agreements. Unlike some foreign nations where the natural resources belong to the government, ours still belong to the people (for now, at least). Nobody is forced to sign a gas/mineral lease.
That could be, and frequently is, inaccurate. For one thing, the people who own the mineral rights to a piece of property (and derive the benefits of extraction) can be entirely different people from the people who own the surface land. it could well be the case that owners of the surface are going to be reimbursed for actual damages caused by mineral development, but otherwise not be compensated for the development. Somewhat unintuitively, the owners of the mineral rights have the superior right under law. In other words, they get to do what they want/need to on the surface to develop the subsurface minerals, subject to ordinary government regulation.
I am not a lawyer.
According the the Department of State, the Following are the list of State Sponsored Terrorism Countries: (CUBA, IRAN, SUDAN, SYRIA). According to the US Energy Information Administration, the Following are the list of Top Countries the United States Imports Oil From In Order from Top Provider and the Rough % of US Import they account for: (CANADA ~22%, MEXICO ~12%, SAUDI ARABIA ~10%, NIGERIA ~10%, VENEZUELA ~8%, IRAQ ~3%, ANGOLA ~3%, BRAZIL ~3%, ALGERIA ~3%, COLOMBIA ~2%, ECUADOR ~2%, RUSSIA ~1.5%, KUWAIT ~1%, UNITED KINGDOM ~1%, ARGENTINA ~1%). This accounts for over 80% of our Oil Import and I don't see CUBA, IRAN, SUDAN or SYRIA on there. Ok, I'll Give you VENEZUELA, the government there hates the U.S. but they aren't on the State Sponsored Terrorism List "yet".
. I don't think you'll find a conservative around who doesn't wish that there were cheap, environmentally friendly sources of high-density portable energy available.
Then why are conservatives so against renewable sources and anything that helps to promote them (including cap and trade)? You don't get Mr. Fusion without trying and FUNDING something *new*.
Most of the argument against conservatives is that they see oil/coal/natural gas/nuclear as the *only* options available. You won't ever get the new technology if you don't spend money *now* to invest. Couple that with the fact that, at least for oil, we simply don't have anywhere near enough to even make a dent in our current needs.
Now take into account that even if we have lots of natural gas, Cheney and company completely exempted those companies from having to disclose what it is they are actually pumping into the ground to push out the gas. We literally have no idea what they are pumping into the ground to break up the rock formations that are near peoples wells. Funny how cracked rock tends to allow stuff to seep through. The videos of flaming faucets are hard to assume as just a freak coincidence.
Conservatives have a long long history of supporting the big established companies and taking those companies word for it when they say its 'safe'. Are Democrats somewhat accountable on these issues? Sure, but one party has clearly been the leader in terms of saying the energy companies know best so just let them do what they want.
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
Arkansas is the only US state with diamond mines.
Seriously, there's more energy in solar and wind than all the energy in all the coal and oil that has ever existed.
The part that will blow your mind is that solar energy *created* all that coal and oil. The problem is not the use of fossil fuels but in the volume we use in a short duration. Dumping millions of years of CO2 into the atmosphere in just a couple hundred years is going to have effects and likely not good ones.
Conversely to your statement, if we want to sustain our current energy needs, we *have* to go to renewable sources. The part that environmentalists got wrong a few decades ago was that burning wood was bad. It does require quite a bit of land, but in terms of global warming gases it effectively has zero effect. Particulates might be an issue but filters can handle that piece.
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
Saudi Arabia. I don't care what lists it is or isn't on, it's where Bin Laden's from, it's where most of the 9/11 hijackers are from, it's a theocratic monarchy that keeps it's citizens in line with a combination of the threat of violence and a welfare state built on everything that's left over of the oil money after they've taken their share. They have numerous ties to terrorism, numerous human rights abuses and are not someone we should be supporting.
No we don't disagree. The point being is that we're not increasing the cost simply to increase the cost. There are real and documented costs that will come to fruition if we *don't* get off of fossil fuels.
Those costs will dwarf any minor increase in energy prices today.
You can continue to pay subsidized (cheap) energy prices today and then in the future pay high prices because the fuel is running out (oil) AND pay through the nose for mass conversion of the energy economy in a short period.
OR
you can pay slightly higher prices now and amortize the cost of these changes over time.
Most people don't buy a house outright. They get a mortgage and spread out the cost over time. This the same thing.
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
...and as the rebuttal, you post a link from a pro-oil-and-gas drilling industry front group formed by the American Petroleum Institute, the Independent Petroleum Association of America (IPAA) and dozens of additional industry organizations specifically set up for the purpose of denouncing legislation proposed by a representative from Colorado to regulate underground hydraulic fracturing fluids? A group funded by the El Paso Corporation, XTO Energy, Occidental Petroleum, BP, Anadarko, Marathon, EnCana, Chevron, Talisman, Shell, API, the Independent Petroleum Association of America, Halliburton, Schlumberger and the Ohio Oil and Gas Association? A website registered by the PR firm Dittus Communications (now known as FD Americas Public Affairs) which boasts on its website that "energy clients have formed the backbone of FD Americas Public Affairs’ clientele for more than a decade."? With clients such as Alabama Power, American Energy Alliance, Center for Clean Air Policy, Consumer Energy Alliance, FutureGen, Georgia Power, Independent Petroleum Association of America, and the Institute for Energy Research?
And the phone number they have, (202) 346-8825, is the same phone number as the number for the previously mentioned Institute for Energy Research, an organization whose President (Robert L. Bradley) was formerly Director of Public Relations Policy at Enron and a former speechwriter for their old CEO Kenneth Lay... you mean THAT website?
I wonder why you posted anonymously...
Shiny. Let's be bad guys...
And there's that country that supplies them with military equipment and assistance.
I drank what? -- Socrates
No offense, pixelpusher220, but I don't know how to say this other than: You, and others like you, are ignorant. With you, things are always the fault of somebody else... the evil conservatives... or whomever happens to disagree with your politics. There are basic laws of economics involved with energy production. Laws. Like gravity... Congress could pass legislation all day long changing the law of gravitation, but you will note that it is a particularly stubborn physical law.
The reason oil, natural gas, coal, etc. are our chief means of energy production at this time is because... They are inexpensive relative to other means. Economics! You can subsidize other means of production until the cows come home and it's not going to make any difference in the long run. Ultimately, the free market WILL win. Period. No exceptions.
Do you have some philosophical belief that people should use a particular 'kind' of energy? Fine! I'm happy for you! It's your job to convince them, not force them. Go into the freaking lab yourself! Invent something that makes more economic sense than pumping free, usable, natural, made-by-the-Earth, just-sitting-there-waiting-for-us-to-use-it stuff out of the ground and you will have my complete attention. Until then, leave me the hell alone! Don't think that because you have some philosophical belief that you have the right to forcibly take my money, and others, and use it to invent your invention... or force us to abide by your belief! Use your own damn money or convince investors to invest!... But let people do it of their own free will!
And, get off my lawn!
a disappointing quarterly report
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
Uh, that "philosophy" is not something anyone espouses. It is something people DO, while saying something different. Libertarians reject government regulations, such as environmental regulations. Yet they claim to want government to protect their person and property, as that is the only fitting role for government, providing police and an army. Well, how do you protect people's health and property from negative externalities like pollution without environmental regulations? Do you see, libertarians CLAIM they want government to protect people from assault, but they don't. Pollution is assault. It harms health and property, yet libertarians do not want government to protect you from THAT kind of assault. They want to be free to assault you in any possible way, without interference. When libertarians claim government has a monopoly on violence, what they really means is, "I wish I could use violence to get my way."
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
The problem is that when everyone is trying to "prove" their side of a debate, and the truth be damned, it gets a little hard to separate the truth from the fluff.
Is Gasland accurate, or is it sensationalist hype to sell one side of the argument? Is the EPA really unbiased, or has lobbying put pressure on Congress to approve the fracking, and has Congress in turn put pressure on the EPA to minimize the potential danger? Who is funding the studies, and what pressure were the researchers under to prove one side of the argument?
I took a statistics course in the '90s in college, and my stats instructor had served as an "expert witness" in a number of court cases. As he explained it, he would be hired by one of the parties in a lawsuit, and they would invariably ask, "What do the statistics say about <some phenomenon>" and he would frankly reply, "What do you want them to say?" The point he was making is that by selecting your sample set appropriately, you can "prove" whatever point you want to prove.
MCSE? No, sir...I don't do Windows. Yes, I am an idealist. What's your point?
It doesn't matter where the oil comes from. If they export oil to anyone, and we buy oil from anyone, then we might as well be buying oil from them. That's how market forces work with a fungible commodity. We are increasing the funds to *all* oil exporting countries when we buy from Canada or Mexico. The only reason we choose those two for the top two is because they are close so the transport costs are a little lower. But the effect is the same.
Learn to love Alaska
Because it's easier to attack the messenger and not the message.
Now don't bother us with details, he's guilty, just look at the way he's dressed.