Why are drilling induced earthquakes acceptable while geothermal earthquakes aren’t?
Geothermal Project in California Is Shut Down
The objective is the same: Energy.
The company in charge of a California project to extract vast amounts of renewable energy from deep, hot bedrock has removed its drill rig and informed federal officials that the government project will be abandoned.
…the earth’s bedrock could be quickly tapped as a clean and almost limitless energy source.
The process is the same: Drilling and hydraulic fracturing.
The results of that review have not yet been announced, but the type of geothermal energy explored in Basel and at the Geysers requires fracturing the bedrock then circulating water through the cracks to produce steam. By its nature, fracturing creates earthquakes, though most of them are small.
The major differences that I see are:
- Geothermal energy creates no pollution while natural gas extraction generates massive amounts of toxic waste.
- The oil and gas industry spends billions greenwashing, propagandizing and lobbying.
The project’s apparent collapse comes a day after Swiss government officials permanently shut down a similar project in Basel, because of the damaging earthquakes it produced in 2006 and 2007.
Why is one kind of fracking earthquake acceptable while another kind is unacceptable?
What do you think?
Update: Central Oklahoma Earthquakes Examined
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Sharon Wilson is considered a leading citizen expert on the impacts of shale oil and gas extraction. She is the go-to person whether it’s top EPA officials from D.C., national and international news networks, or residents facing the shock of eminent domain and the devastating environmental effects of natural gas development in their backyards.
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good point!
Not that I'm a proponent of gas (I think you know that I'm not!), but maybe the fact that most of Cali is seismically active is a reason? Do they drill for anything else in Cali? Maybe they're scared that the little quakes could set off larger ones? I dunno.
Props to Cali for trying to harness clean energy. The only downside of the California Steam Fields is that they don't *produce* steam, water has to be pumped down there which raises the most important question: from where was this water to come? It's sad that they couldn't proceed. It'd be nice if they used the effluent from water treatment plants to be that much more green.
Is this the same plant that has been featured on Planet Green? I saw one on there a few weeks ago and it was really neat!
They have drilling induced earthquakes everywhere they use hydraulic fracturing. Industry tries to keep it all hushed up. There have been a bunch of recent earthquakes in OK but I bet you haven't heard a word about those, eh?
They had earthquakes in Switzerland from the geothermal fracking.
I love the thought of the geothermal energy because the supply is endless and it's clean but the water use and earthquakes would be a problem.
I just wonder why the geothermal quakes are bad enough to stop that research but the drilling quakes are no big deal.
Well, I know they have drilling induced quakes, but I'm talking about maybe a little one causing the San Andreas to slip and have another Loma Prieta or San Fransisco 1906. Eeeeek.
I didn't know there were earthquakes in OK, I'll be researching, lol. I know Iceland gets them a lot too, but the active portions of the country aren't populated, they're lucky like that.
Geothermal is awesome, but just like all other green technologies, it has drawbacks.
I don't think that Geothermal is worse than drilling … maybe it's geothermal actually has laws to adhere to and people to answer to, whereas O&G does not. Seems the most likely idea to me.
I just posted a link to the blog in OK with the earthquake information. Lots of shaking in OK.
I agree completely with your last paragraph. Something is stinky about the whole deal.