Many discoveries are accidental, such as Columbus
discovering the Americas. Seemingly bad occurrences can yield
great success.
Railroad tracks were originally laid on stone slabs. A
shortage of stone slabs threatened to delay completion of a rail
line. Someone had an idea. They could temporarily lay the rails
on logs. The use of logs was so successful that for nearly 200
years railroads were built on wooden ties. Many rail lines today
are still on wooden ties.
Hydraulic fracking of horizontally bored oil and gas wells
has greatly increased the recoverable oil and gas reserves of the
USA. The US may be able to produce most, or even all, of its
needed energy in the near future, if government allows it. The
next best alternative is still only speculation.
In spite of all the promise from fracking, worrywarts
fight to stop it in its tracks. Fracking uses high pressure fluid,
mostly water, to make small cracks in the oil or gas bearing
rock. The cracks allow the oil and gas to flow out.
Standard practice is to inject the used fracking fluids into
rock formations deep beneath the ground. Both fracking and
injection of fluids have been common practices in the oil
industry for over half a century. Secondary recovery operations
often inject water into the oil producing formations to flush out
more oil.
Now anti frackers claim that the injections into the layers
of rock are causing earthquakes. They don't explain why it took
them over half a century to figure this out.
Recently Ohio closed down an injection well because of
several small earth tremors in the area of the well. I expect that
the anti frackers and the Middle East oil sheiks are jumping for
joy.
I'm not ready to bet that water injection caused the small
quakes. Let's assume it did. What on earth should we do?
The water was injected near a fault line. Fault lines are
where the rock layers are broken. One side of the fault moves
causing an earthquake. The simple solution is to inject the waste
water far from fault lines.
The topic deserves more consideration. It takes a lot of
energy to make a fault line slip and cause an earthquake. Stress
along the fault line may build up for years, or even centuries,
before the earth moves. The more energy that builds up before
the quake, the greater the shake. Small quakes are all but
harmless. Powerful quakes are devastating.
There is no way possible that the injection of water into
the rock powered even a small quake. The most it could have
done was trigger the release of already pent up energy. If
injecting fluids can trigger small earthquakes, the injectors have
serendipitously discovered a safety valve for earthquakes.
Injecting fluid along fault lines to trigger small quakes
before the energy builds up enough to launch an earth buster
would be a way to prevent devastating earthquakes. If this will
actually work as a safety valve for earthquakes, it may be a
discovery even bigger than the oil and gas reserves unlocked by
fracking.
The likelihood that injecting fluids causes earthquakes is
still small. The main point is, don't abandon or cripple fracking
and all its promise out of overblown fears that it somehow
triggers earthquakes. If the fracking operations do prove to
trigger earthquakes, make the most of the discovery to limit and
control earthquakes.
* * * * *
* * * *
* * *
* *
*
Copyright 2012
Albert D. McCallum
18440 29-1/2 Mile Road
Springport, Michigan 49284
aldmccallum@gmail.com
discovering the Americas. Seemingly bad occurrences can yield
great success.
Railroad tracks were originally laid on stone slabs. A
shortage of stone slabs threatened to delay completion of a rail
line. Someone had an idea. They could temporarily lay the rails
on logs. The use of logs was so successful that for nearly 200
years railroads were built on wooden ties. Many rail lines today
are still on wooden ties.
Hydraulic fracking of horizontally bored oil and gas wells
has greatly increased the recoverable oil and gas reserves of the
USA. The US may be able to produce most, or even all, of its
needed energy in the near future, if government allows it. The
next best alternative is still only speculation.
In spite of all the promise from fracking, worrywarts
fight to stop it in its tracks. Fracking uses high pressure fluid,
mostly water, to make small cracks in the oil or gas bearing
rock. The cracks allow the oil and gas to flow out.
Standard practice is to inject the used fracking fluids into
rock formations deep beneath the ground. Both fracking and
injection of fluids have been common practices in the oil
industry for over half a century. Secondary recovery operations
often inject water into the oil producing formations to flush out
more oil.
Now anti frackers claim that the injections into the layers
of rock are causing earthquakes. They don't explain why it took
them over half a century to figure this out.
Recently Ohio closed down an injection well because of
several small earth tremors in the area of the well. I expect that
the anti frackers and the Middle East oil sheiks are jumping for
joy.
I'm not ready to bet that water injection caused the small
quakes. Let's assume it did. What on earth should we do?
The water was injected near a fault line. Fault lines are
where the rock layers are broken. One side of the fault moves
causing an earthquake. The simple solution is to inject the waste
water far from fault lines.
The topic deserves more consideration. It takes a lot of
energy to make a fault line slip and cause an earthquake. Stress
along the fault line may build up for years, or even centuries,
before the earth moves. The more energy that builds up before
the quake, the greater the shake. Small quakes are all but
harmless. Powerful quakes are devastating.
There is no way possible that the injection of water into
the rock powered even a small quake. The most it could have
done was trigger the release of already pent up energy. If
injecting fluids can trigger small earthquakes, the injectors have
serendipitously discovered a safety valve for earthquakes.
Injecting fluid along fault lines to trigger small quakes
before the energy builds up enough to launch an earth buster
would be a way to prevent devastating earthquakes. If this will
actually work as a safety valve for earthquakes, it may be a
discovery even bigger than the oil and gas reserves unlocked by
fracking.
The likelihood that injecting fluids causes earthquakes is
still small. The main point is, don't abandon or cripple fracking
and all its promise out of overblown fears that it somehow
triggers earthquakes. If the fracking operations do prove to
trigger earthquakes, make the most of the discovery to limit and
control earthquakes.
* * * * *
* * * *
* * *
* *
*
Copyright 2012
Albert D. McCallum
18440 29-1/2 Mile Road
Springport, Michigan 49284
aldmccallum@gmail.com
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