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Energy Production Causes Big US Earthquakes

Posted by Soulskill on from the please-don't-break-the-planet dept.

ananyo writes "Natural-gas extraction, geothermal-energy production and other activities that inject fluid underground have caused numerous earthquakes in the United States, scientists have reported in a trio of papers in Science (abstracts here, here and here). Most of these quakes have been small, but some have exceeded magnitude 5.0. They include a magnitude-5.6 event that hit Oklahoma on 6 November 2011, damaging 14 homes and injuring two people."

3 of 211 comments (clear)

  1. But ... But ... But ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Time and time again on Slashdot, we've had extraction engineers that work on this say it's completely safe and anyone who says otherwise is fear mongering!

    Clearly these ivory tower scientists are just confused old men because the natural gas companies have absolutely no motive to try to silence this kind of stuff ;-)

    1. Re:But ... But ... But ... by Sesostris+III · · Score: 5, Insightful

      So, the position has shifted from "extraction doesn't cause earthquakes" to "OK, extraction causes earthquakes but these are good earthquakes"!

      --
      You never know what is enough unless you know what is more than enough. - Blake
    2. Re:But ... But ... But ... by idontgno · · Score: 5, Insightful

      "I'm sorry I burned down your house, but the underbrush and dead trees were building up, so it's all for the better that I was playing with these matches and burned some of it off before it built up and caused a REAL fire. You know, the kind that would have burned down your neighborhood instead of just your house. Hey, put down that gun!"

      --
      Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.