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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."

10 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.
    3. Re:But ... But ... But ... by lgw · · Score: 5, Informative

      No amount of frakking nor drilling adds any energy to the system. All the energy in the system was put there by geology, and all of that energy will be released via some earthquake. You might change the timing (or location), but you'll have no effect on the total energy released over time.

      Though if we knew a whole lot more about this, it's interesting to contemplate deliberately triggering earthquakes in the least damaging places and times to shed that energy safely, but somehow I doubt such a plan would end well in practice.

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
    4. Re:But ... But ... But ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      Agreed. The problem here is Earth itself. The sooner we do away with it, the better! Think of the children and all that.

    5. Re:But ... But ... But ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Where have I heard that? "The earth isn't warming" to "Ok it's warming but that's a good thing" or "Evolution doesn't happen" to "Ok micro-evolution happens".

      My real concern is that I find myself with less and less of an open mind listening to some people. And it doesn't really matter whether it's left or right, but there are a lot of people who simply refuse to ever be wrong about anything. So they keep changing their argument rather that accepting the flaws in the world-view. I find they are often wrong a lot. If you tell me you are 100% certain about something, I'm likely to doubt you. Simply because people who assert certainty tend not to know much. Ignorance breeds certainty and knowledge breeds doubt.

      I got called a coward the other day for not making an argument about something because I didn't know enough about it. I guess I'm different in that I don't confuse my opinions for facts. Actually, I don't even believe in the concept of facts as an absolute. There are merely observations, the perception of those observations and theories about those observations. Facts are for children.

    6. Re:But ... But ... But ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      The Deathstar did not put any extra energy into Alderan. All it did was destabelize the crust, and cause a reaction at the planet's core. So, it's not the empire's fault it exploded.

    7. Re:But ... But ... But ... by BasilBrush · · Score: 5, Funny

      No amount of frakking nor drilling adds any energy to the system. All the energy in the system was put there by geology, and all of that energy will be released via some earthquake. You might change the timing (or location), but you'll have no effect on the total energy released over time.

      Removing random bricks from a building adds no energy to the system either. And after all, the building can't last forever, right? So you might as well remove bricks so the building falls down gradually and save a disaster. Heck, if you plan it just right, you could plan to take just the right bricks out so that the building falls down in a controlled manner.

      People say that removing bricks from buildings make them fall down. But they are fools. It's gravity acting on the potential energy put there by construction that makes the buildings fall down, so clearly there's nothing wrong with removing bricks.

  2. Re:is this really a bad thing? by australopithecus · · Score: 5, Interesting
    from the USGS Earthquake Fact & Fiction page:

    ------

    You can prevent large earthquakes by making lots of small ones, or by "lubricating" the fault with water.
    FICTION:     Seismologists have observed that for every magnitude 6 earthquake there are about 10 of magnitude 5, 100 of magnitude 4, 1,000 of magnitude 3, and so forth as the events get smaller and smaller. This sounds like a lot of small earthquakes, but there are never enough small ones to eliminate the occasional large event. It would take 32 magnitude 5's, 1000 magnitude 4's, OR 32,000 magnitude 3's to equal the energy of one magnitude 6 event. So, even though we always record many more small events than large ones, there are far too few to eliminate the need for the occasional large earthquake. As for "lubricating" faults with water or some other substance, if anything, this would have the opposite effect. Injecting high- pressure fluids deep into the ground is known to be able to trigger earthquakes—to cause them to occur sooner than would have been the case without the injection. This would be a dangerous pursuit in any populated area, as one might trigger a damaging earthquake.

  3. Not according to Oklahoma by T.E.D. · · Score: 5, Funny

    The University of Oklahoma (home of one of the top Petroleum Engineering departments in the country, and recipient of much oil money), geology department has released statements disagreeing. Why aren't you reporting the "controversy" rather than the science? How incredibly biased!

    In fact, just a few months ago, one their Geological researchers released a peer reviewed study that showed ... let's see here ... uh... that fracking is causing earthquakes.

    Damn. Wait! I know there's a controversy to report here somewhere. Lemme look....ah, here it is:

    Oklahoma’s official seismologist — the Geological Survey’s Austin Holland — is skeptical of the link between injection wells an earthquakes, a view shared by the Corporation Commission and the Oklahoma Independent Petroleum Association, a trade group that lobbies for the interests of oil and gas producers. More data is needed, Holland says.

    See, this is actually a controversy! You just have to go to sources that aren't as familiar with the actual data, and/or are in the pockets of the folks doing the fracking. Why isn't this controversy being fairly reported?