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Confirmed: Fracking Caused Ohio Earthquakes
The Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR) has confirmed that a series of earthquakes in the state were caused by injecting leftover fracking fluids, "brine," deep into wells.
ODNR stated today:
Geologists believe induced seismic activity is extremely rare, but it can occur with the confluence of a series of specific circumstances. After investigating all available geological formation and well activity data, ODNR regulators and geologists found a number of co-occurring circumstances strongly indicating the Youngstown area earthquakes were induced. Specifically, evidence gathered by state officials suggests fluid from the Northstar 1 disposal well [a deep injection well primarily used for oil and gas fluid waste disposal] intersected an unmapped fault in a near-failure state of stress causing movement along that fault.
A number of coincidental circumstances appear to make a compelling argument for the recent Youngstown-area seismic events to have been induced.
The ODNR report notes that in 2011, the Youngstown, Ohio area experienced 12 "low-level seismic events," and that the 2011 earthquakes were unique because of their proximity to a deep disposal well, known as Northstar 1, used to inject fracking fluids.
The report adds that "before 2011, [Ohio Seismic Network] had not recorded earthquake activity with epicenters located in the Youngstown area."
From April 26 to Dec. 15, 2011, state geologists and regulators investigated a possible link between the well injections and the earthquakes, but were unable to obtain enough necessary data.
In Dec. of 2011 equipment and assistance was provided by the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, and after obtaining more seismic data, the ODNR director stopped operations at the well.
Based on the data, the report states:
A number of coincidental circumstances appear to make a compelling argument for the recent Youngstown-area seismic events to have been induced.
Based on the new information, Ohio is not banning fracking, but has new regulations for fracking fluids disposal.
With more than 144,000 Class II wells injecting more than 2 billion gallons of leftover fracking fluids every day in the United States, according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and Ohio’s Class II disposal well regulations meeting or exceeding EPA regulations, questions linger about the potential for fracking-induced earthquakes elsewhere.
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This finding is relevant to geothermal energy development. My understanding is that "hot rock" geothermal wells are excavated using techniques similar to those used in fracking. (But I'd love to hear that I'm wrong about this, if someone out there has better information.) Geothermal isn't likely to be very popular in California if it causes earthquakes.
Fracking earthquakes are also relevant to the issue of methane leakage. Where it's been carefully measured, the CH4 leakage from fracking is large enough to badly skew the carbon footprint of natural gas from fracking - to the point where it's worse than coal. CH4 is 100 times more potent as a greenhouse gas than CO2 over a 20-year time span, so even small leaks can make a big difference. Regular earthquakes in close proximity to CH4 deposits obviously have disturbing implications for uncontrolled releases of CH4 into the atmosphere.
Overall, reading through that article you cited does NOT leave a good felling, at all! It seems to be yet another reckless scheme to extract energy by using somewhat extreme measures with likely unintended consequences and having the potential for making the situation worse than it is, while yielding profits to some, of course. The reason is forcing nature to yield more than what it would yield by any gentle means of extraction.
The heat flow rate from below is somewhat slow in many places, except in some geothermal "hot spots" where the heat flow rate is high. More than heat flow rate, it is the temperature that matters, if electricity generation is the objective. And the article you linked clearly talks about power generation. And that's going to rely on the conventional steam turbine - requiring lots of water to generate steam at a high enough temperature, and then needing more water to cool the "spent" steam to be put back into the cycle. The article admits that this would be a problem in many places.
I recommend checking out the book, "Sustainable Energy - without the hot air" by David MacKay. He describes the limitations of geothermal energy in an easy to understand language. One thing he says is instructive here:
>>A possible attitude to this problem is to treat geothermal heat the same way we currently treat fossil fuels: as a resource to be mined rather than collected sustainably. Living off geothermal heat in this way might be better for the planet than living unsustainably off fossil fuels; but perhaps it would only be another stop-gap giving us another 100 years of unsustainable living? In this book I’m most interested in sustainable energy, as the title hinted. Let’s do the sums."
And then he goes on to do some simple estimates. Of course he does not have the numbers for the USA, being based in Britain. But the important point is this particular observation:
>>"A possible attitude to this problem is to treat geothermal heat the same way we currently treat fossil fuels: as a resource to be mined rather than collected sustainably."<<
And that, IMO, has been at the root of all the problems we are facing now -- the mad rush to exploit anything that appears to be a "resource" with complete disregard for the rate at which something is exploited, and for the other consequences.
So, my own thinking about geothermal is that it may be best used as a "heating" source, where high temperatures are not needed as for power generation, and so drilling need not be too deep, and find ways to minimize the need for electricity -- to be produced by other means that do not require extreme tampering with nature. Exceptions could be those geothermal hot spots where heat is naturally available at high rates and at high temperatures.
That said, there are also reports of some "low temperature geothermal systems" for generating electricity - but even these need temperatures close to 100°C.
In any case, it is best to put massive energy conservation at the top of the list of "solutions" and seriously reduce demand for electricity. Heat can be supplied more easily and without involving extreme tampering with nature.
This is not quibbling over words. The mechanisms are different.
I'm sorry I did not see your comment earlier. This post is probably too late for anyone to notice it.
Terzaghis simple principle: effective stress = total stress - pore pressure.
But I suspect that the non damaging M=4.5 Youngstown event is about as large as such injections are going to produce in tectonically quiet eastern Ohio. But they better not try it in areas like the Wabash River Valley where a "big one" (M=7) may be due. At any rate, we have a lot bigger problems associated with poorly regulated shale-gas development than this.
Somehow.
"No matter how cynical you become, it's difficult to keep up."
Jane Wagner (writing for Lily Tomlin)
The reason winkies were invented: Poe's law strikes again!
The epidemic was (is?) inexcusable but not premeditated.
This is not as "extremely rare" as they want to tell you, it's been done before, and stopped before. It's just plain stupid to do it again and expect different results.
And let's not even get into how we're poisoning our water supplies all so the rich can get richer while stopping research into renewable, non petroleum based energy sources. For the Love of God, the SUN powers the entire SOLAR SYSTEM, why are we not smart enough to use THAT energy? How short sighted and foolish we are.
Many faults are not exposed at the surface. We don't know how many exist, but there are two ways to "find" them. One is to wait until one side slips across the other side, and causes an earthquake (whose location can be determined), and the other is to use "imaging" techniques like those used to find petroleum "traps."
Here in western Pennsylvania, the fracking well development process involves a lot of "backflow" containing mostly the original fracking fluids and lesser amounts of formation brine. For the first few years of the Marcellus Shale boom, these fluids were hauled and dumped at the nearest small-town sewage treatment plants along the Monongahela (Mon) River. The treatment plants were happy to accept this waste, because they collected fees for it. Of course, most of the nasty stuff in the well waste is unaffected by (or even damages) the treatment process. The result is that for a few years, the total dissolved solids (TDS) in our tap water spiked way above normally acceptable levels the summers of 2008 to 2010. The water tasted horrible and out toilet bowls became coated with mineral scale. Of course, the bigger worry is not the TDS, it is all the other frack chemicals that the water utility is not required (or even knows) to test for. Fortunately, even our corrupt DEP banned this practice, and with this ban, the "discovery" by Range Resources and Chesapeake (why did an Oklahoma oil company name themselves the enviro-fell-good name "Chesapeake"?) that re-use of the frack fluids was practical and even beneficial. Funny that they only discovered this when they were forced to. The TDS problem has since declined.,br>
Then, there was the sudden death of all fish in Dunkard Creek - a tributary of the Mon River. The cause was toxic "golden algae" which is associated with brackish waters and absolutely unheard-of outside of the deep south oil-field areas of Texas. The upstream source of the fish kill was the discharge from a worked-out Consol Coal mine, but this mine had been discharging into the creek for years without problem. There is now information, which the PA DEP seems to be covering up, that a frack waste hauler was dumping their waste into a well drilled into the mine (taking advantage of the well being drilled right on the WV-PA state line. The golden algae, of course, came from these reverse-carpetbagger waste hauling trucks from down there - along with their toxic cargo.,br>
But as far as the earthquake, the hypocenter was right under the well, although with magnitude of 4.5, there was no damage. So yes, the injection well caused it - but there are bigger things to worry about.