Earthquakes That May Be Related To Fracking Close Ohio Oil Well 299
Frosty P writes "State leaders have ordered that four fluid-injection wells ('fracking') in eastern Ohio will be indefinitely prohibited from opening in the aftermath of heightened seismic activity in the area, an official said. A 4.0-magnitude quake struck Saturday afternoon near several wells that use 'fracking' to release oil deposits. It was the 11th in a series of minor earthquakes in the area."
This seems... (Score:3, Informative)
Maybe so, if you never had to take physics. (Score:4, Insightful)
"Common sense" in your case, apparently means "hysteria over things I don't understand, but still don't like."
Re:This seems... (Score:5, Interesting)
Yeah, but can you prove that the small fraking-caused quakes didn't release stress that would have caused a much more dangerous larger magnitude quake?
Re:This seems... (Score:4, Interesting)
Yeah, but can you prove that the small fraking-caused quakes didn't release stress that would have caused a much more dangerous larger magnitude quake?
This kind of nonsense is why people don't take environmentalists seriously.
It's completely impossible to prove that we're not somehow influencing larger quakes because we can't possibly get a baseline for the typical magnitude of larger quakes. And even if we could somehow get that, they vary in intensity by orders of magnitude, and the big ones are decades apart.
These types of arguments are intended to throw up one roadblock after another to extracting energy. The motivations of the originators of these arguments aren't care for the earth, but a loathing of humanity and prosperity.
Re: (Score:3)
We also know that fracking poisons the water by dumping 254 chemicals into the ground that find their way to the water table.
Wow... That's a lot of chemicals. Can you name them all? :D
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
Can you prove that the small fracking quakes didn't focus the strain that would be spread over hundreds of miles such that there will now be a major quake that wouldn't have happened before?
Re:This seems... (Score:4, Interesting)
Yeah, but can you prove that the small fraking-caused quakes didn't release stress that would have caused a much more dangerous larger magnitude quake?
That is a potentially valid response to someone who wants to use the cost of the quake damage as the absolute measure of liability.
The other significant question is whether the small scale quakes are indicative of changes we are making to the Earth's crust which we do not fully understand. Six months ago there were a lot of scientists in the industry saying that fracking had no relationship with quakes. Then they said yes, but they're tiny, almost imperceptible, like under 3.0. Now it's 4.0, but maybe it's a good thing.
It seems pretty apparent that the answers are not yet in, and there are a lot of industry scientists that have been arriving at estimates that are on the low side of subsequent data, which happens to be the same side the private profit motive.
Just canaries in a coal mine, of course -- correlation does not imply causation any more than a dead canary implies toxic atmosphere.
Re:This seems... (Score:5, Informative)
Ohio is on many small faults, the largest of which is the New Madrid fault. There are a few dozen significant earthquakes each year, the vast majority of which cannot be felt.
Despite what you "would think", data is easy to find [state.oh.us].
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
New Madrid is NOT a small fault. It's a huge fault.
One of the biggest earthquakes ever recorded in North America occurred on that fault.
Re: (Score:2)
New Madrid is also primarily under Missouri. Its effects in Ohio consist of influencing other faults and (in the 1812 earthquake you mentioned) causing residents in a town to leave their homes. For comparison, note that California has had significant earthquakes roughly every year along the San Andreas fault. What's actually in Ohio [wlwt.com] is far smaller and even less active than the main New Madrid area.
Re:This seems... (Score:5, Informative)
I would modestly propose Nationalization of the Federal Reserve, as they seem to keep turning up at the various crime scenes.
Re:This seems... (Score:4, Insightful)
How about stopping some of the idiotic spending that we're doing? God forbid we show a little fiscal responsibility instead of being fleeced fro more money...
Re:This seems... (Score:4, Interesting)
I pay in the neighborhood of 27% of my salary each year in taxes. If I sell a few stocks that I made some money on, add to that the capital gains taxes and I'm closing in on 30%. I think I pay enough in taxes thank you very much.
Re:This seems... (Score:4, Insightful)
I call bullshit. Long term cap gains taxes are 15%.
That's what we call a "first world problem". (Score:4, Interesting)
I've got caviar stuck in my braces! [first-world-problems.com]
I really don't understand why someone like yourself - a person who lives in splendor undreamt of by most humans who ever lived - is unwilling to contribute to your community's well-being when that community is clearly in need.
Now, if you said "I don't think I should pay more taxes than people with ten times my wealth" I'd totally agree with you. But that's not what you said.
If you said "I don't want to pay for invading other countries and subsidizing rich bankster's lifestyles" I could understand that too. But you didn't say that either.
As I see it, you're wealthy enough to own stock, but you don't want to pay for the system that makes your wealth possible. Somebody's got to pay for it, but you want it to be someone else. You have enormous wealth and enjoy many privileges, yet you honestly think you're being oppressed. You personify our economic problem; you're barely one step above a welfare queen.
Re: (Score:2)
And umm. How are high taxes and high benefits working there in Europe?
Re:This seems... (Score:4, Insightful)
And umm. How are high taxes and high benefits working there in Europe?
Awesome actually:
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/10/its-not-about-welfare-states/
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/05/no-its-not-the-welfare-state/
The countries with some of the highest taxes and best benefits (Sweden, Finland, Denmark) have some of the best finances.
And how have the low taxes and austerity helped Ireland and the UK? Are they bouncing back economically? (Ireland has a ~15% unemployment rate.) How has austerity helped the US "recover"?
The problem is that US spending on "useless" things like wars. While it does help people and companies manufacturing bombs and bullets, the general population isn't helped. Building and repairing bridges, sewers, paving roads, etc., would all employee people domestically and provide infrastructure for economic future activity once the economy recovers.
So yes, the books must be balanced (which is what Keynesians were saying from 2002-2006), but right now you want spending to kickstart the economy. The last stimulus package was too small (as Krugman for one predicted), and so the 'recovery' only was partial. If there was (say) another 2-3 quarters of stimulus spending we'd probably be in a much more cheery place.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem is that US spending on "useless" things like wars.
I wouldn't call them useless. The politicians and their corporate buddies turn a tidy profit.
Re: (Score:3)
How has austerity helped the US "recover"?
What US had austerity? In the US of A, spending has gone up year-over-year for the last three years at least. And I believe that is true of UK as well. In practice, austerity means "a slowdown in the increase of spending." That's not really austerity by anyone's definition but a politician.
krugman.blogs.........krugman.blogs...........(as Krugman for one predicted)
Reading Krugman is fine, I do it, but you might want to diversify your economic information pool. Not every economist is Krguman, and not every economist agrees with him; in fact, sometimes he comes across as partisan rat
Re:This seems... (Score:4, Informative)
Um, no. Completely excise defense spending, but leave the taxes from it in, and we are still running a deficit, especially with all the new spending instituted by Obama.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Not sure which invasion you mean, unless you mean the one that was stopped in Austria a few centuries ago.
For The Netherlands, which is not completely representative of Europe but still close, the number of immigrants from Muslim countries has declined by 60% since 2003. Most migration nowadays is from new EU countries such as Romania and Bulgaria.
The banking cartels aren't destroying Germany, they're part of the state structure.
What *is* happening is that social gains are under assault. But not due to any
Re: (Score:3)
Besides, the Muslims that work pay taxes like everybody else. The ones that don't work don't get pensions either. So what's the problem?
Re: (Score:3)
Work or not, you'll still get government money in Europe. My wife teaches kids from neighborhoods where it has beeen 3 generations since anyone held a job. Sure, you'll be poor but the poor in Europe living off of government handouts still lord it over their cousins in N Africa when they go back to visit every summer. It makes trying to teach them the value of a work ethic difficult. The ones that have the ambition to work are great kids, but the system is not rewarding the right values.
Re:This seems... (Score:4, Informative)
And in some US states (California for example), a family spends 20% of its income on insurance premiums and out-of-pocket expenses [Source: "Family health care premiums exceed 20% of income", San Francisco Chronicle November 11, 2011]. Between 2003 and 2010, premiums and out-of-pocket expenses for employees has risen by 63% [Source:C. Schoen, A.-K. Fryer, S. R. Collins, and D. C. Radley, State Trends in Premiums and Deductibles, 2003–2010: The Need for Action to Address Rising Costs, The Commonwealth Fund, November 2011].
Basically, we were on track (pre Obama-care) to spending 50% of our incomes on health care by 2025 or so. Given the cautious, incremental nature of Obama-care, it would be remarkable if it managed to cut that rate of cost growth in half, but even then it would be pointed to as a miserable failure. If it is stripped of its individual mandate, then Obama-care is likely to have no effect at all. The prospect for robust employment recovery in this situation is bleak, since the marginal cost of hiring an employee is high and riding.
So basically, the health care cost crisis has us over a barrel, and Europe is spread-eagled by the sovereign debt crisis. We'll recover, but we aren't going to see the kind of economic growth we took for granted in the second half of the 20th C, because the solutions to our respective crises are politically unpopular.
Re: (Score:2)
The education system in California is highly funded.
The per student spending is high. The problem is that we can not fire bad teachers and too much of the money is spent on "Administration".
Re: (Score:3)
Honestly? Because that $1,800 / year will never make it so far as to pay off the deficit. They'll institute the new tax, like they always do, then something else of political importance will capture the populace's attention, and a decision will be made to divert the funds to deal with this new problem. Some people will cry out, like they always do, that the funds are being diverted, that these funds are not being used for the stated purpose that they were collected, and other people will say that the immedi
Re: (Score:2)
you mean the debt that has been created to save irresponsible bankers ?
Re:This seems... (Score:4, Insightful)
the debt that was created to help irresponsible citizens and the made worse by saving irresponsible bankers. Who in turn gave that money to irresponsible politicians so that they can afford to be voted back in by irresponsible citizens.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I do not give a shit if it is causing Magnitude 4 earthquakes.
4s are nothing. If it was causing 5.5s or 6s I would worry, but 4s?
I'll take 3 4s a day for cheaper gas.
Anti-fracking goal (Score:3, Interesting)
(1) to identify features in this area's geology that appear contributive to the earthquakes. To wit:
"Dr. Won-Young Kim, one of the Columbia University experts asked by the state to examine possible connections between fracking and seismic activity, said that a problem could arise if fluid moves through the ground and affects 'a weak fault, waiting to be triggered.'"
(2) start fear-mongering re "weak fault[s], waiting to be triggered" a la doomsday flicks, since obviously carcinogens leeching to the water supply aren't sufficiently frightening; maybe sudden catastrophe is more convincing than a slow wasting.
Re:Anti-fracking goal (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Anti-fracking goal (Score:4, Insightful)
Fear mongering is never a positive behavior. Shame on you.
You're just as bad as the people who do it all the time. You think if you scare people to agree with you, it's ok. That is an awful way to be.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Not so much a hoax as an example of pandering to hysteria.
The wells haven't been opened yet so unless the earth can be frightened into producing an earthquake at the prospect of a fluid injection well the wells could hardly have had anything to do with the earthquake.
So yeah, it is a fragile and precarious victory since it's based fear-mongering. But then if you don't have the science on your side what are the alternatives to whipping up fear?
Re: (Score:2)
Regardless of the origin, they only reached a 4.0-magnitude earthquake, and in Ohio. I would just up the building code to ensure buildings can withstand, to be on the safe side, 5.0-magnitude earthquakes and let them continue once all old and new buildings are up to the new standards. It might even boost employment...
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Anti-fracking goal (Score:4)
You mean that your houses can't withstand a 5.0 magnitude quake? We don't even wake up here in Mexico City unless the quake is 6.5 or higher, and the last time we had a major quake (7.8), no one was injured and no buildings were damaged. http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0124/p07s02-woam.html [csmonitor.com]
But you americans have this strange tendency to build your homes out of wood and cardboard, for some weird reason...
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
If I were a public official I'd take a look at the quality of the evidence, which is either execrable or nonexistent, balance that against losses that would be incurred and form a conclusion on that basis. If I were irresponsible I'd give into the temptation to appear terribly concerned with public safety when I have no reasonable basis for the concern but have something to gain by pandering to and inflaming public fears.
Re: (Score:3)
You understand the concern is that the other wells, which did open, and ran their fluid into the ground, might have caused the earthquakes, right? That the concern is that using more wells to push even more fluid might make an area which doesn't normally get a lot of earthquakes, but which has gotten a lot of earthquakes since the fraking started, get even more/worse earthquakes?
Re:weak faults (Score:2)
aren't weak faults the cracks which duct the cocktail into the water table?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
"Dr. Won-Young Kim... said that a problem could arise if fluid moves through the ground and affects a weak fault, waiting to be triggered."
An accurate quote from the article, good start.
...fear-mongering re "weak fault[s], waiting to be triggered" a la doomsday flicks
A baseless assertion twisting an informed statement of fact into something it's not. Fail.
Re: (Score:3)
The problem with your idea is that drilling appears to have caused earthquakes before, and the idea that it will happen again therefore has merit. They closed a drilling project near The Geysers here in northern California due to quake activity. And Calpine Geothermal has paid millions in claims to area residents as seismic activity has been tightly correlated to their pumping of semi-treated sewage into the ground.
It's too bad you're a shill or a troll, because you could use this power for good.
Re: (Score:2)
They still drill in The Geysers because the resulting quakes are predictably minor and the geothermal energy harvested is much more economically important than cracked foundations, paying millions in claims or not.
The problem I see here is that the Ohio quakes are in a known quake zone that has produced larger ones historically. It might be more logical to assume that the prior quakes somehow caused humans to drill the later wells.
Re:Anti-fracking goal (Score:5, Informative)
They still drill in The Geysers because the resulting quakes are predictably minor and the geothermal energy harvested is much more economically important than cracked foundations, paying millions in claims or not.
Actually, it isn't. The generation facility at The Geysers has never been profitable. It has always been under production and over budget. It must be seen as a failure on all levels. We don't even have reliable power in Middletown, for fuck's sake, let alone the rest of the county.
Re: (Score:3)
Profitable enough, or they'd close it.
Sadly, all the best geothermal potential is is places so desolate that anyone proposing developing it is virtually always blocked by the "you'll ruin the wilderness ambiance/desecrate the spirit/affect the traditional cattle range/startle the endangered jackrabbit subspecies" arguments. I've heard an environmentalist whine just because they couldn't block clean energy from being generated on military reservations closed to the public, as this might compete with their p
Re: (Score:3)
Profitable enough, or they'd close it.
profitable enough with subsidies, and to halliburton, which makes the turbines! but on its own merits, the geothermal site at The Geysers is a failure. I can go on about it for ages. Superfund site, etc etc. There's nothing inherently "green" about geothermal.
Re:Anti-fracking goal (Score:5, Informative)
Having an opinion doesn't make one a shill or a troll, especially when there's as much evidence supporting his opinion as your own. The problem is there's absurdly little research from both the pro- and anti-fracking camps. On the one hand, Ohio's seismic activity has increased lately. On the other hand, it has been very inactive since the 1930's, and still remains relatively stable today. Then, of course, there's the possibility (mentioned many times already in this discussion) that releasing pressure could reduce the risk of a larger earthquake.
Comparing Ohio's seismic activity to California is ridiculous. In Ohio, the last big earthquake in 1937 toppled a few weak chimneys. In California, an equivalent earthquake (magnitude 5.4) happened in July of 2010. The faults in Ohio, even when active, pale in comparison to California's eternal fear of the next "big one".
There's no consensus among relevant experts about fracking's effects, but there's plenty of people willing to protest vehemently one way or the other. GP is right to call this out as fear-mongering.
Re: (Score:3)
, especially when there's as much evidence supporting his opinion as your own.
There's no consensus among relevant experts about fracking's effects,
There's a problem with using this type of logic:
The industry is spending plenty of money on studies that will concluding nothing but positive things about fracking.
Everyone with an agenda has done their best to copy the Tobacco Industry model of manipulation, deceit, confusion, and obfuscation.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The fracking debate currently has little to do with logic. There's precious little actual evidence of causing harm (or evidence of causing no harm), and the regulators know this. That's why they resist making regulations, even though it's pissing off the general public who just want to see anything happen. Meanwhile, the industry just continues operating as normal. So far, the vast majority of studies (from both sides) conclude nothing one way or the other. Those that do (again, in both directions) are dee
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
"since obviously carcinogens leeching to the water supply aren't sufficiently frightening"
The way people spill ordinary (and carcinogenic) gasoline at a typical gas station suggests to me that most people aren't overly concerned about such things.
Yes, dripping or drizzling gas at the pump is exactly the same as (from the article) 1000 operational fracking wells.
Frack the Big One! (Score:5, Interesting)
Won't be long now till someone discovers that fracking might help turning the Big One pending into several minor quakes, and starts selling this idea.
Re: (Score:2)
Well there is your plot for 24 hours. Terrorists fracking the San Antonios fault.
Re: (Score:2)
Have you not seen A View to a Kill?
Fracking vs Saltwater Disposal (Score:5, Informative)
The media keeps mixing and confusing fracking with saltwater disposal wells. (remember how much they confuse hackers and crackers)
Fracking is a one time process for increasing porosity of a formation immediately around the well at the time of completion.
A saltwater disposal well is normally a well(oil or gas) that has played out and is used to return unwanted saltwater back where it came from.
Fracking only affects an area within a few hundred feet of the well.
Re: (Score:2)
Can't you just dump salt water in the ocean?
Re: (Score:2)
Can't you just dump salt water in the ocean?
I just love the coastline along eastern Ohio!
Re: (Score:3)
Can't you just dump salt water in the ocean?
I just love the coastline along eastern Ohio!
Patience, grasshopper.
Re: (Score:2)
However, there is a positive side effect of pumping it down a well--it can help maintain the pressure in the reservoir, which keeps production levels from falling too quickly.
Re:Fracking vs Saltwater Disposal (Score:4, Informative)
you can't pump it into just any formation.
formations that contain fresh water or may migrate to such a formation are deemed off limits.
even drilling through a freshwater formation is strickly controlled and requires additional layers of surface casing(pipe within pipe and concrete).
why is it (Score:5, Insightful)
And ppl do not understand why I WANT us to continue drilling all over USA. I figure that once Americans start to get earthquakes, polluted waters esp. in our aquifiers, and see the repercussions of this 'clean' source of jobs, then MAYBE, JUST MAYBE, we will finally figure out that we need to change our policy. And I can not think of anything that would be better then to get the west off imported energy (other than to add that we quit importing bad goods and food from china).
Re: (Score:3)
And ppl do not understand why I WANT us to continue drilling all over USA.
I suspect its more likely that people don't care.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
And ppl do not understand why I WANT us to continue drilling all over USA. I figure that once Americans start to get earthquakes, polluted waters esp. in our aquifiers, and see the repercussions of this 'clean' source of jobs, then MAYBE, JUST MAYBE, we will finally figure out that we need to change our policy. And I can not think of anything that would be better then to get the west off imported energy (other than to add that we quit importing bad goods and food from china).
I can. It's the reason that every country with half a brain and a little foresight would want to import all oil:
1. Import all oil, pay increasing prices (it's worth it)
2. Use/maintain local refinement infrastructure
3. Drain world of said oil (this is actually going to take a long time, long after everyone currently alive is dead)
4. Tap local wells, sell oil to foreign entities at insane prices
5. Hope alternative fuels haven't become viable
In essence: use everyone else's before using your own.
What th
Don't understand why this is a problem (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3)
the earthquake aspect seems like a non-issue to me as long as they're small.
Don't think of them as harmless reductions of existing stress. Think of them as tectonic canaries in a coal mine saying, "You're twiddling with the Earth's crust on a scale that we do not yet fully understand."
Re: (Score:2)
Houses and tectonic plates are different.
For one thing houses don't have magma currents under them that ADD stress.
Re: (Score:3)
For one thing houses don't have magma currents under them
That would be a kick-ass house. I'd put in a glass floor.
Fracking Probably Had Nothing to Do With It (Score:5, Informative)
The article itself notes that earthquakes have occurred in that part of Ohio for nearly two centuries, and its size was well beyond the quite small theoretical maximum that could be induced by fracking [nature.com]. Extensive studies [house.gov] of fracking have shown no evidence of the contamination scare stories environmentalists have been pushing.
The people opposing fracking are the same people opposed to all uses of oil and as power sources.
Re:Fracking Probably Had Nothing to Do With It (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm not sure about the effect of fracking on seismic activity, but I think correlation is all we will have to infer causation as we cannot directly monitor the changes in strain which lead to seismic conditions. I would expect that the USGS would have the data for the areas where wells have been drilled, and that a study could be done to determine the probabalistic model variation, but I have not heard of such a study.
As for contamination, are the fracking fluids spiked with dye trace to be able to determine if suspected contamination occurs (and there always is some suspicion, even if there is no actual)? I don't know anything about the regulations on fracking, so I don't know if such a tracer is required. They are used quite frequently in groundwater migration applications.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
No, a properly cased well cannot, as I understand it, be isoated from the surrounding soil/rock. The whole idea is to create fractures which allow the natural gas to escape and be pumped off. Unless there's some magical 1:1 recovery ratio of the fracking fluid, there's no way to prevent the fluid from entering the ground. Now, whether there is any realistic chance for the contaminants to end up in the aquifers is en entirely different question.
I don't know how easy it is to mark dyes to a specific well.
Re:Fracking Probably Had Nothing to Do With It (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh, I should say that there is seismic activity everywhere in the US. The predictions for probable magnitudes shift slightly over time. They are contained in the NEHRP recommended provisions for seismic regulations for building design. The isolines just shifted a bit 6 years ago in southern Virginia, for example, putting several counties into a lower seismic hazard zone.
The question is not, "is fracking causing seismic events" but rather, "is fracking causing a statistically significant increase in frequency or magnitude of events relative to the current baseline." That may seem nuanced, but it is the correct way to approach the issue.
Re: (Score:2)
Another key point: If you stop fracking, and are wrong about it being a problem, it's relatively easy to start it up again. If you don't stop fracking, and are wrong about it not being a problem, the effect could be turning large areas of northeast Ohio into a disaster area (cue the jokes about how it already is one).
Re: (Score:2)
There are very good reasons to be opposed to oil as a power source. If we don't control CO2 levels we're going to bake.
Re: (Score:2)
Man-made earthquakes: New energy source? (Score:5, Funny)
FTFA:
Then on Saturday, a magnitude 4.0 earthquake struck that released at least 40 times more energy than any of the previous 10 or more tremors that had rattled the region in 2011.
So all we need to do is to learn how to turn earthquake energy into electric power. Pumping fracking juice into the earth to purposely cause earthquakes could solve all our energy problems.
We've been doing it wrong all along: we've been pumping stuff out for energy, instead of pumping it in.
It might kinda suck for folks who live along fault lines, but with energy, you always have a "not in my backyard" crowd to deal with.
Re: (Score:2)
Even if you could somehow solve the formidable technical challenges, environmentalism would prevent any such large-scale engineering project.
Fracking fracking! (Score:4, Funny)
I'm sorry, I know there's loads of serious comments that are worthier than this, but my inner Battlestar Galactica makes an entirely different subject out of that title. That's a fracking close Ohio oil well!
Consider this post the steam vent for everyone else who needs to get it out of their system.
Re: (Score:2)
It substitutes for a four-letter word, so it's actually "frak" in BSG.
If so, better to trigger them predictably.. (Score:2)
It would be revolutionary if you could trigger earthquakes. And if you can intentionally have smaller ones vs bigger ones even better. If it's true then we serious need Ohio to continue and seriously study the phenomenon. To where your fracking where there are no oil wells just to see if you can get results. This would save lives.
And it's a hard argument to say that pumping water at relatively low pressures and total energies (compared to what exists already) is actually causing earthquakes. That would be a
Related Story (Score:2)
Republican Politicians in Ohio are wondering where fossil fuels come from in the first place as the 6000 years since the flood clearly hasn't been long enough for them to form from natural processes.
Re: (Score:2)
Obviously, God put them there for us to use, just like God put all the dinosaur fossils there to test our faith.
Youngstown (Score:4, Informative)
To those saying that earthquakes here are common, I live in Youngstown, and we have never had a locally originated seismic event. But as of March, we've had 11 quakes with epicenters near the well that has been shut down.
Alas. (Score:3, Funny)
Alas.
Re: (Score:3)
The oil industry has been fracking for years, in areas that are geologically suitable. They are running out of those areas however, and are moving into less suitable areas.
Re: (Score:2)
I live in PA about three hours from this place. Different geology in both places. This region has been drilled repeatedly in the past for less deep deposits of natural gas, it has been swiss cheesed by traditional mining, it sits on/near a weakened portion of the North American Plate that was buckled. Squeeze a flat sheet of cardboard box till buckles, that is what caused the Appalachian Mountains.
Not to mention the region this drilling is occurring in is still recovering geologically from the last ice a
Re: (Score:3)
Anyone have that graph handy?
Thankfully real scientists know theres no correlation between pirates and global warming, just as real scientists know the correlation here is plausable enough to warrant being careful.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
My parents had "free gas", because the oil well in the front 40 (acres) was a constant, if slow, producer of both oil and gas.
Eastern Ohio has had oil wells for at least the last century. They are typically slow producers, but the crude they produce is relatively highly prized because its impurities are less nasty than others. I don't know the terminology very well, but I recall that there was a lot of paraffin and other "nice" stuff in Ohio oil.
Throughout my childhood and youth, arriving home after a long
Re: (Score:2)
Ohio was once a major location of oil drilling, including the original home of a little company called Standard Oil [wikipedia.org]. According to the Ohio Oil and Gas Association [ooga.org], they currently are pumping out something like 14,000 barrels a day.
Re: (Score:2)
Sorry, the east coast of the US isn't geographically stable. You have to go to the Michigan Basin or Canadian Shield to find big areas that are.
That's why the oil and gas is there, faults and deformation form traps for it.
Your potential grief bond proposal is interesting from a legal standpoint. How much potential grief is someone causing me by blocking someone else drilling for energy I might use? Should they have to post a bond with their legal attempts to someone from drilling for that reason, too?
I f
Re: (Score:2)
I'm guessing that the study of the quakelets in the area will result in permission to go ahead and keep going at it. This is a temporary condition. In my opinion, when something happens that was not forecast, then it's a good time to check things out before going whole-hog.
I also lived in an area where there's well activity, and in fact my parents' well was fracked sometime in the late '70's.
Our well water SUCKED SHIT afterward. We had to give up on the well water entirely, and were very fortunate to have a
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Fluid pore pressure at faults is known to change their ability to slip. I think the question is, do small changes cause the asperities - the "stuck" areas of a fault - to change probabilities of slipping by much.
And how much depends on small changes in initial conditions. The butterfly effect means your pissing in the hurricane does change the direction of them next year.