hydraulic fracturing?

[ez bake]

I don't have a dog in this Chinese Restaurant, but whatever the facts are from scientists, some of them have been pocketing money from Oil Companies, which suggests that dishonesty has possibly been running a muck.

http://digg.com/newsbar/topnews/natural_gas_fracking_industry_may_be_paying_off_scientists

(queue the "we can't trust your liberal media source" in 3... 2... 1...)

 

[Shadowrider]

http://www.epa.gov/hydraulicfracturing/

Providing Regulatory Clarity and Protections against Known Risks

Although the national study should enhance our scientific knowledge, some concerns associated with overall natural gas and shale gas extraction, including hydraulic fracturing, are already well known. These operations can result in a number of potential impacts to the environment, including:

Stress on surface water and ground water supplies from the withdrawal of large volumes of water used in drilling and hydraulic fracturing;

Contamination of underground sources of drinking water and surface waters resulting from spills, faulty well construction, or by other means;

Adverse impacts from discharges into surface waters or from disposal into underground injection wells; and

Air pollution resulting from the release of volatile organic compounds, hazardous air pollutants, and greenhouse gases.

From your link, albeit edited to provide clarity:

EPA is applying it's jackboots to the throats of the states and oil companies to help ensure that natural gas extraction does not come because the libtard tree huggers might cry. We use the the excuse of "at the expense of public health and the environment" to sound all educated and stuff. That way the sheep buy it.

It's been a common practice since the '50s and now all of the sudden it's an issue? I'll start listening when someone shows me ONE SINGLE well that has been positively shown to have contaminated somebody's water. Just one! I think it would be pretty easy to find one with tens of thousands to pick from.

 

[HiredHand]

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/04/us/04natgas.html?pagewanted=all

Still, the documented E.P.A. case, which has gone largely unnoticed for decades, includes evidence that many industry representatives were aware of it and also fought the agency’s attempts to include other cases in the final study.

The report is not recent — it was published in 1987, and the contamination was discovered in 1984. Drilling technology and safeguards in well design have improved significantly since then. Nevertheless, the report does contradict what has emerged as a kind of mantra in the industry and in the government.

The report concluded that hydraulic fracturing fluids or gel used by the Kaiser Exploration and Mining Company contaminated a well roughly 600 feet away on the property of James Parsons in Jackson County, W.Va., referring to it as “Mr. Parson’s water well.”

“When fracturing the Kaiser gas well on Mr. James Parson’s property, fractures were created allowing migration of fracture fluid from the gas well to Mr. Parson’s water well,” according to the agency’s summary of the case. “This fracture fluid, along with natural gas was present in Mr. Parson’s water, rendering it unusable.”

Asked about the cause of the incident, Mr. Wohlschlegel emphasized that the important factor was that the driller and the regulator had not known about the nearby aquifer. But in comments submitted to the E.P.A. at the time about the report, the petroleum institute acknowledged that this was indeed a case of drinking water contamination from fracking.


“The damage here,” the institute wrote, referring to Mr. Parsons’ contaminated water well, “results from an accident or malfunction of the fracturing process.”

Mr. Wohlschlegel cautioned however that the comments provided at the time by the institute were not based on its own research and therefore it cannot be sure that other factors did not play a role.

In their report, E.P.A. officials also wrote that Mr. Parsons’ case was highlighted as an “illustrative” example of the hazards created by this type of drilling, and that legal settlements and nondisclosure agreements prevented access to scientific documentation of other incidents.

 

[Shadowrider]

I don't have a dog in this Chinese Restaurant, but whatever the facts are from scientists, some of them have been pocketing money from Oil Companies, which suggests that dishonesty has possibly been running a muck.

http://digg.com/newsbar/topnews/natural_gas_fracking_industry_may_be_paying_off_scientists

(queue the "we can't trust your liberal media source" in 3... 2... 1...)

This article is a perfect example of the hypocrisy and proves that silly season is in full swing.

Chase got his petroleum engineering PhD from Penn State. In 2009

the revelation that the professor pocketed hundreds of thousands of dollars from a Texas natural gas developer.

That's quite a revelation right there! Where is he supposed to work after spending thousands on a PhD in Petroleum freaking Engineering?
Someone needs to inform that author that scientists often work for universities and those same universities partner with all kinds of industries. But I guess it's alright if scientists cook their books for the .gov isn't it? I'm sure that not one of them has ever done that.

 

[Shadowrider]

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/04/us/04natgas.html?pagewanted=all

Still, the documented E.P.A. case, which has gone largely unnoticed for decades, includes evidence that many industry representatives were aware of it and also fought the agency’s attempts to include other cases in the final study.

The report is not recent - it was published in 1987, and the contamination was discovered in 1984. Drilling technology and safeguards in well design have improved significantly since then. Nevertheless, the report does contradict what has emerged as a kind of mantra in the industry and in the government.

.....snipped

There's a reason for that. It's because it's over 20 years old. Even the libtard treehuggers don't want to rely on that. The knowledge, techniques, materials, seismic surveying, drilling methods and on and on and on are just light years ahead of what was going on back then and most of it doesn't even apply.

 

[Hobbes]

Two-year survey comparing earthquake activity and injection-well locations in the Barnett Shale, Texas


Abstract

Between November 2009 and September 2011, temporary seismographs deployed under the EarthScope USArray program were situated on a 70-km grid covering the Barnett Shale in Texas, recording data that allowed sensing and locating regional earthquakes with magnitudes 1.5 and larger.

I analyzed these data and located 67 earthquakes, more than eight times as many as reported by the National Earthquake Information Center.
All 24 of the most reliably located epicenters occurred in eight groups within 3.2 km of one or more injection wells.
These included wells near Dallas–Fort Worth and Cleburne, Texas, where earthquakes near injection wells were reported by the media in 2008 and 2009, as well as wells in six other locations, including several where no earthquakes have been reported previously.

This suggests injection-triggered earthquakes are more common than is generally recognized. All the wells nearest to the earthquake groups reported
maximum monthly injection rates exceeding 150,000 barrels of water per month (24,000 m3/mo) since October 2006.

However, while 9 of 27 such wells in Johnson County were near earthquakes, elsewhere no earthquakes occurred near wells with similar injection rates.
A plausible hypothesis to explain these observations is that injection only triggers earthquakes if injected fluids reach and relieve friction on a suitably oriented, nearby fault that is experiencing regional tectonic stress.
Testing this hypothesis would require identifying geographic regions where there is interpreted subsurface structure information available to determine whether there are faults near seismically active and seismically quiescent injection wells.

Cliff Frohlich
Institute for Geophysics, Jackson School of Geosciences, University of Texas at Austin, 10100 Burnet Road (R2200), Austin, TX 78758-4445

http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2012/07/30/1207728109.abstract

 

[EFsDad]

Two-year survey comparing earthquake activity and injection-well locations in the Barnett Shale, Texas


Abstract

Between November 2009 and September 2011, temporary seismographs deployed under the EarthScope USArray program were situated on a 70-km grid covering the Barnett Shale in Texas, recording data that allowed sensing and locating regional earthquakes with magnitudes 1.5 and larger.

I analyzed these data and located 67 earthquakes, more than eight times as many as reported by the National Earthquake Information Center.
All 24 of the most reliably located epicenters occurred in eight groups within 3.2 km of one or more injection wells.
These included wells near Dallas–Fort Worth and Cleburne, Texas, where earthquakes near injection wells were reported by the media in 2008 and 2009, as well as wells in six other locations, including several where no earthquakes have been reported previously.

This suggests injection-triggered earthquakes are more common than is generally recognized. All the wells nearest to the earthquake groups reported
maximum monthly injection rates exceeding 150,000 barrels of water per month (24,000 m3/mo) since October 2006.

However, while 9 of 27 such wells in Johnson County were near earthquakes, elsewhere no earthquakes occurred near wells with similar injection rates.
A plausible hypothesis to explain these observations is that injection only triggers earthquakes if injected fluids reach and relieve friction on a suitably oriented, nearby fault that is experiencing regional tectonic stress.
Testing this hypothesis would require identifying geographic regions where there is interpreted subsurface structure information available to determine whether there are faults near seismically active and seismically quiescent injection wells.

Cliff Frohlich
Institute for Geophysics, Jackson School of Geosciences, University of Texas at Austin, 10100 Burnet Road (R2200), Austin, TX 78758-4445

http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2012/07/30/1207728109.abstract

What, earthquakes happen where the ground is shifting? What about man made earthquakes as seen in Superman (the 1978 version) from nuclear reactions? Are the white sands shifting???

What is wrong with earthquakes in the first place on a level below 4 or 5 magnitude?

 

[Hobbes]

What is wrong with earthquakes in the first place on a level below 4 or 5 magnitude?

I like earthquakes too.

 

[EFsDad]

I like earthquakes too.

What about Pitbulls that ride bikes and are against gay marrige?

 

[okietool]

Two-year survey comparing earthquake activity and injection-well locations in the Barnett Shale, Texas


Abstract

Between November 2009 and September 2011, temporary seismographs deployed under the EarthScope USArray program were situated on a 70-km grid covering the Barnett Shale in Texas, recording data that allowed sensing and locating regional earthquakes with magnitudes 1.5 and larger.

I analyzed these data and located 67 earthquakes, more than eight times as many as reported by the National Earthquake Information Center.
All 24 of the most reliably located epicenters occurred in eight groups within 3.2 km of one or more injection wells.
These included wells near Dallas–Fort Worth and Cleburne, Texas, where earthquakes near injection wells were reported by the media in 2008 and 2009, as well as wells in six other locations, including several where no earthquakes have been reported previously.

This suggests injection-triggered earthquakes are more common than is generally recognized. All the wells nearest to the earthquake groups reported
maximum monthly injection rates exceeding 150,000 barrels of water per month (24,000 m3/mo) since October 2006.

However, while 9 of 27 such wells in Johnson County were near earthquakes, elsewhere no earthquakes occurred near wells with similar injection rates.
A plausible hypothesis to explain these observations is that injection only triggers earthquakes if injected fluids reach and relieve friction on a suitably oriented, nearby fault that is experiencing regional tectonic stress.
Testing this hypothesis would require identifying geographic regions where there is interpreted subsurface structure information available to determine whether there are faults near seismically active and seismically quiescent injection wells.

Cliff Frohlich
Institute for Geophysics, Jackson School of Geosciences, University of Texas at Austin, 10100 Burnet Road (R2200), Austin, TX 78758-4445

http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2012/07/30/1207728109.abstract

Injection & fracturing are similar, but, not the same thing.

Injection wells are normally putting water or salt water in the edges of a field to force liquid hydrocarbons to the producing wells, this is usually done with long term equipment installations and at low pressures (relatively low). This occurs over months , weeks or even years. To me it would be considered a process.

Fracturing is pumping at higher pressures than the pore pressures of formations to actually "fracture' the formation and allow the propant to hold the formation layers apart to allow hydrocarbons, both liquid and gas, to pass in to the well bore. To me this is more of a treatment. Meaning it is not a continuous long term operation. It is also done with portable equipment that generally works at high pressures.

Now if you were to tell me either of these operations was causing earthquakes, I would say "Ok."