Fracking is Good For You and It Is Perfectly Safe

Better a lot of little ones than a big one....up to 4 or 5 is barely even noticeable....

That's about a 6.5...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthquake

When you oil the bearings, stuff moves easier.

It'll take some time, but eventually they'll recover from the devastation.

But what happens to the 50 meter diameter 3 story open roof floating pan fuel / oil tank when that chair was knocked over?

I saw the damage to an underground fuel tank in Turkey from an Earthquake. It leaked for 3 years before they finally 'discovered' the leak and fixed it.

Drew K

Nobody seems to care that an area that has been geologically stable for centuries has now become a swarming cauldron of earthquakes.

All because of fracking.

I knew what the reaction would be when I posted this.

I don't mind.

Before I open my gob, can you clarify for a Brit; Oil is fracked from shale beds. As part of that, contaminated water is pumped back underground (into conveneint fracture areas). At the same time, oil produced from fracking is stashed in strategic, and purpose built areas underground in the same area.???? All this in one area.

Lacking more info, this confuses me. Before I opine more, is that the essential fact ?

Chemically treated water is pumped into the shale beds under thousands of PSI and the shale fractures.

This can take 5-8 MILLION gallons of water per well.

All of the water is unusable forever and some is mixed with oil and this water is then pumped back into the ground into waste water wells. That's when the earthquakes begin.

The oil is transported to tank farms or refineries and the natural gas is burned off as waste. The gas is worth billions of US dollars, but there is no infrastructure to transport or store it.

The oil leases are written so that the wells must be "brought in" quickly or big oil has to spend more money for lease extensions.

Oklahoma Grapples With Earthquake Spike-And Evidence

From 1978 to 2008, Oklahoma experienced an average of one earthquake a year of magnitude 3 and higher, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. As of last week, the state experienced 258 earthquakes in that range, almost twice as many as California.

Thanks, Lyn, but I was trying to ask about the geographics/geology. I'm vaguelly familiar with the basics of fracking.

In the case under discussion, is oil extraction/storage/contaminated water disposal all in the same place? It's perfectly possible for to do such, but utilizing naturally fracked zones to dump water sounds iffy. As somebody (sorry, I forget who) mentioned, lubing the bearings does not sound good.

Why is it that water used in fracking can not be re-used for the same ? De-sludge it and then use it again ?

Not sure of the specifics of locations of fracking and waste injection, but the oil is not stored underground AFAIK in Oklahoma.

Since the waste water is trucked to the disposal site, I'd guess it as close to the wells as practical.

Never heard an explanation of why the water can't be reused.

All I know is fracking causes earthquakes.

Cleaning and desalination of the water would be expensive. They pump it down inactive wells to boost production and dispose of it. Other companies also pump waste water down to the deep briny water. I know power plants can get permits to do so and some other factories.

Drew K

My Brother-In-Law works for McPhearson Oil in Bakersfield, CA. He said that the water is filtered out and purified before returning it back to the ground.

Thanks (to Lyn as well), but I am getting more and more confused. All respect to your BIL, but I'm wondering what filtered and purified means. Is it drinkablke ? I suspect that either/and the questions are not being asked/answered by thos in that industry.

When he was making his point that it was to the point of being environmentally safe.

Got it - thanks. My knowledge groweth .

Perhaps, to the extent that it might not produce a 5 million gallon pool of hazardous waste. (Referred to in the USA as a "Superfund" Site)

But the fact that this water is causing thousands of here to fore unseen earthquakes still seems to trouble me and many others.

It is an interesting thing to think about. What is causing the the quakes? Is it the fracturing process or the loss of the oil saturated in the rock?

Oil has been extracted for decades and I have not heard of quakes before. So either they went un-reported or the quakes are new.

If they are caused by the fracturing of the rock then my thoughts are there is lateral tensions in the bedrock that are being relieved in the locations of fracking causing stress concentrations elsewhere that are relieved through the quakes.

These quakes are small and mostly harmless so perhaps this strategy can work for regions where quakes are more damaging? I know there has been talk of causing quakes to relieve underground stresses in the past.

Drew K

Apparently we had 36 earthquakes here in Nottingham UK in 50 days. I can't say I noticed them, I still had to stir my own bloody mary's.

No tsunami warnings were put in place (I didn't know we had a tsunami warning system.)

There, don't you feel safer now?