Andrew Follett:
Media outlets were quick to wrongly blame hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, for a magnitude 5.6 earthquake in Oklahoma over the weekend.
Forbes, Newsweek, the Dallas Morning News and ABC News all pointed the finger at fracking. Bloomberg even wrote three separate articles blaming fracking.
“Experts have stated over and over again that the fracking is not the cause of earthquakes in Oklahoma. Wastewater disposal from day-to-day production — a completely separate process from fracking — is the likely cause,” Seth Whitehead, a researcher for the pro-industry group Energy In Depth, told The Daily Caller News Foundation. “Unfortunately, the false notion that fracking causes earthquakes prevails — and many media outlets’ coverage of the earthquake near Pawnee, Oklahoma, over Labor Day weekend is the prime example why. Many click-bait happy media outlets seemed more interested in getting the word ‘fracking’ in headlines than reporting the facts.”
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) states in the very first sentence of its list of earthquakes myths and misconceptions that “Fracking is NOT causing most of the induced earthquakes,” further clarifying that “Wastewater disposal is the primary cause of the recent increase in earthquakes in the central United States.” The “controversial method of hydraulic fracturing or fracking, even though that may be used in the drilling, is not physically causing the shakes,” USGS researcher William Ellsworth told The Associated Press.
“Its very aggravating when you read a story claiming the USGS has linked fracking directly to earthquakes,” Whitehead said. “Government research has shown that the exact opposite is true. The agency has done everything it can to clear up the media’s confusion. There’s no ambiguity at all as far as expert opinion goes. Expert after expert has weighed in on this issue and none of them say the quakes are caused by fracking.”
Almost every other academic concurs with the USGS and Whitehead. Stanford geophysicist Mark Zoback explains in a recent YouTube video, quite bluntly, that Oklahoma’s quakes are “… not caused by the hydraulic fracturing process at all.” Dr. Matthew Hornback, a professor of geophysics at Southern Methodist University,told lawmakers in May, “[w]e’re not talking at all about fracking. In fact, it’s been driving us crazy, frankly, that people keep using it in the press,” when asked if fracking causes significant earthquakes.
These academic assessments concur with reports by National Research Council, the USGS and several other university studies all concluding that fracking is not causing the quakes. Earthquakes in Oklahoma were actually down 52 percent this year compared to 2015, according to data from the Oklahoma Geological Survey.
Oklahoma felt 619 quakes from January through June of this year, but the vast majority of these were incredibly small. The average quake has about the same amount of energy as a gallon of milk falling off a kitchen counter.
Anything to stop american energy independence and good jobs, Fracking has its issues, injecting unclean water back into the ground, but so easily fixed by science.
In fact the undisclosed chemicals used to pry this energy from the ground may not be needed. Absolute pure water is actually an excellent degreaser. http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/the-purest-of-them-all/
http://www.econovainc.com/
Recover every drop of fracked oil ,remove heavy metals, desalinate, this is great science!
We conservatives must force technology onto the leftist science deniers and use our resources in a responsible steward based way, for the children.
It’s not the fracking, it’s something we do in connection with the fracking—which is to inject enormous quantities of flowback water produced by the fracking process into deep wells to dispose of it, because they contain brine, toxic metals, and radioactive contaminants, and there’s no other way to get rid of them. So, it’s not really the fracking at all. See?
What we need to do is get rid of the EPA, and then we wouldn’t even have these problems.
@Greg: Science and technology denier!
The water contamination problem isn’t a problem at all, by cleaning the water it could be used for irrigation after being recycled many times, no need to dispose of it under ground. Brine used in food preservation, or a 5 acre brine pool used as solar powered electricity could power up to 50 homes, unlike crappy solar panels that only work during the day or wind power killing birdies.
You did not bother reading the links, the science (which the left hates) is proven, clean energy production. Ability to clean ocean oil spills recovering the oil, even cleaning water for municipalities from highly polluted sources.
The liberals dont look for solutions just something to piss and moan about then regulate.
Hey those union coal miners gonna vote democrat this year lol. The regulators are dying old dinosaurs, try evolving out of control freakism and look for solutions, save and create jobs dont mash them with your regulation club cave man.
Here comes Hillary after the coal miners jobs! Raising taxes on the middle class.
@kitt, #3:
So why aren’t they always cleaning the water?
In fracking, “brine” does not refer only to water that is laced with the equivalent of table salt. Depending on the geology of the location, flowback water can and often does contain toxic heavy metals and radioactive substances that are washed up from deep geological strata, and there are very large quantities of it to deal with. Large scale water treatment to remove radioactive substances isn’t really feasible. Reverse osmosis can get rid of numerous radioactive substances, but it isn’t a large scale process, and it doesn’t get rid of all of them. If you do successfully turn the flowback into the equivalent of tap water, you then have the extracted contaminants in containment to think about. That’s why they use deep injection wells to get rid of the stuff. Where they use it, it’s the only disposal method they’ve figured out.
This isn’t a screed against fracking. It’s a realistic statement of one of the problems that’s associated with fracking. Pretending there are no such problems is deceptive. Fracking is causing earthquakes, because one of the processes frequently associated with it is causing earthquakes. I don’t believe the industry has suggested they are going to discontinue using that process. If they were to do so, then it could be honestly said that fracking doesn’t cause earthquakes.
@Greg: It can be cleaned denier, Brine is not table salt, but can be used in pools where the stratification and natural insulation causes temperatures to reach a near constant 200degrees F. even in winter climates. The left supresses this technology cause they are being greased by those that build low tech bullcrap panels with 30 year payback. Look again at the water cleaning link, the water when cleaned can be recycled back into the process rather than wasted. This is the type of technology that the government should be subsidizing not bird killing windmills and solar arrays that take up way too much land. Good paying union jobs. There is also plamsa technology that would solve the radioactivity issues but the liberals would rather very high energy costs freeze grandma on her fixed income, let her die of heatstroke cause she cant afford to turn on the air you bastids are evil really. Killing coal when there are technologies to burn it clean, unemploy those willing to work put them on welfare cure them of that evil pride.
@kitt: Arguing with Greg is like arguing with a child. Neither brain has developed beyond 2 years old.
@Randy: Just feeding the resident troll who knows maybe can get his two brain cells to spark
check this out http://www.osti.gov/…plasma-cleaning-contaminated-surfaces
True evolving science is our clean planet future and these liberals state that science on CO2 and global warming is solved,we know that isn’t how science works. The only solved science is liberals cant be cured.
All those idiots who oppose Fracking and drilling the Keep it in the ground jerks need to go live in a drafty dank cave or old half falling down home all winter long without heat and the cold winter winds chilling out these fools and this eco-crap and Go Green poppycock their so totaly ignorant of where everything they own comes from
@Spurwing Plover: It is amazing how clueless the anti fossil fuel goons are. They would be thrown back to a time that they couldnt tweet or post what a hard day they had splitting wood for fireplace. Spinning and weaving cloth, cant really give them a cast iron stove as coal was needed to cast it, in fact no cast iron at all, looks cool in the museum, living it is another issue. I give them a week maybe 2 and they would drown an baby seal in crude oil to have 1/2 of what we have got.
Hollywood wank Robert Redford opposes drilling for oil but narrated commercials for United Airlines he wants to block people from building around his NAPA Valley Vineyards but has build homes on his sundance valley area while doing commercials for THE WILDERNESS SOCIETY and just think of how much desert was ruined while him and Hanoi Jane were making their crappy movie THE ELECTRIC HORSEMAN
So, how we’re getting the oil could shut the oil supply off? It seems like one of those damned if you do, damned if you don’t scenarios. It probably isn’t helpful to just assume wastewater injection can have no serious consequences.
Quake Near Oklahoma Oil Hub Prompts Infrastructure Concerns