Crossposted with TheGreenGrok.
In recent years oil and gas production has been on the rise in the United States. So have minor earth shakes. Is there a link?
A new study (PDF) by the U.S. Geological Survey fingers increased energy production in the midcontinental United States1 for the recent uptick in magnitude 3 or higher2 earthquakes.
Just how much has seismicity increased? Here are the numbers of earthquakes of magnitude 3 or greater over the past few decades:
| 1970-2000: |
21 3 |
| 2001-2008: | 29 3 |
| 2009: | 50 |
| 2010: | 87 |
| 2011: | 134 |
Considered "minor," magnitude 3 quakes are rarely strong enough to do damage but typically large enough to be felt.
Interestingly, over the same period that the number of these types of quakes has been rising, the United States has seen a rather sizable increase in the extraction of oil and gas.
So is oil and gas production causing the uptick in the country's shaking? Could it be that the increase in earthquakes is specifically tied to the growing practice of using hydraulic fracturing (fracking) to release oil and gas from shale and other tight formations? And what about the high-pressure injection of wastewater from the production into geologic formations at a mile or more beneath the Earth's surface?
In a recently released abstract for an upcoming study, government scientists credit the seismicity to oil and gas activities: "While the seismicity rate changes described here are almost certainly manmade, it remains to be determined how they are related to either changes in extraction methodologies or the rate of oil and gas production.
In an article on the Interior Department's website, David J. Hayes, the department's deputy secretary, sounds a different cautionary note, writing:
The good news for now is that there's no evidence that either extraction or disposal activities have given rise to a major earthquake (with a magnitude of seven or above).4 Nevertheless, I wouldn't be surprised if there are folks in America's heartland who are wondering if the oil and gas companies are doing things right. Sleep tight.
"Is the Recent Increase in Felt Earthquakes in the Central U.S. Natural or Manmade?" - Interior Department article
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1 Midcontinent is defined here as 85 degrees to 108 degrees West, 25 degrees to 50 degrees North, or the area roughly bracketed from Ohio to Colorado and North Dakota to Texas.
2 The magnitude of an earthquake is a measure of its size based on the amplitude of the seismic wave it generates. Because the value is logarithmic, small differences in magnitude numbers are a lot bigger than they might look: "each whole number increase in magnitude represents a tenfold increase in measured amplitude." Earthquakes measuring 8 or above are considered "great" quakes; major quakes are in the 7 to 7.9 range; 6 to 6.9 quakes are considered "strong." (More here.)
3 The numbers here are an annual average.
4 One of the largest quakes to hit the U.S. midcontinent -- with a magnitude of 5.6 -- was excluded from the study. The USGS has indicated that it was natural, but it appears to still be under investigation.
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There is a 98% probability of such a quake within 3 years.
See www.aesopinstitute.org to understand why this is a mortal threat to hundreds of millions if not billions of people.
(SNIP)
For more than a decade the energy industry has steadfastly argued before courts, Congress and the public that the federal law protecting drinking water should not be applied to hydraulic fracturing, the industrial process that is essential to extracting the nation's vast natural gas reserves. In 2005 Congress, persuaded, passed a law prohibiting such regulation.
Three company spokesmen and a regulatory official said in separate interviews with ProPublica that as much as 85 percent of the fluids used during hydraulic fracturing is being left underground after wells are drilled in the Marcellus Shale, the massive gas deposit that stretches from New York to Tennessee.
That means that for each modern gas well drilled in the Marcellus and places like it, more than 3 million gallons of chemically tainted wastewater could be left in the ground forever. Drilling companies say that chemicals make up less than 1 percent of that fluid. But by volume, those chemicals alone still amount to 34,000 gallons in a typical well.
These disclosures raise new questions about why the Safe Drinking Water Act, the federal law that regulates fluids injected underground so they don't contaminate drinking water aquifers, should not apply to hydraulic fracturing, and whether the thinking behind Congress' 2005 vote to shield drilling from regulation is still valid.
http://www.earthworksaction.org/issues/detail/hydraulic_fracturing_101#CHEMICALS
Here is a report on the health effects of hydraulic fracturing
http://www.endocrinedisruption.com/files/Oct2011HERA10-48forweb3-3-11.pdf
There goes geothermal also!
Well there's always coal!
The next big energy wave is probably gas and coal. Oil is a long, long way from dying as well.
Solar is pretty spendy, and requires massive subsidies.
Trying to tag fracking with the "watch out for earthquakes" slander will only discredit it's opponents. Fracking is sweeping the country. 20 years from now the buildings will still be standing in Penn, OH, TX and N Dakota. The water will taste fine. The only sign of fracking will be in the bank account of it's citizens.
Not to mention the laundry list of chemicals pumped into the well along with said water.
Almost all of them are toxic to humans and can contaminate millions of gallons of drinking water. For example, a four million gallon fracturing operation would use from 80 to 330 tons of chemicals.
You can find that list here.
http://assets.bizjournals.com/cms_media/pittsburgh/datacenter/DEP_Frac_Chemical_List_6-30-10.pdf
Sure, the buildings may still be standing but everyone will be too sick to live in them.
Pretty nasty water runs off downstream from those courses as well, since they apply fertilizer and pesticides like it's nobodies business.
And thus is just golf. Agriculture (which in this country often means growing corn for fuel and cattle food) is 100X bigger than golf, and has the exact same issues.
Fracking will always be a small player in water usage and water quality issues. Granted, the green freaks will always play a spotlight on it, but this just plays into their "Chicken Little" lack of credibility.