GEOLOGISTS...your thoughts re Oklahoma earthquakes (link)
- Thread starter Michael.Felli
- Start date
It's been going on for years throughout the country where deep well injection is used for waste water disposal. Very high pressure positive displacement pumps through very thick walled pipe. When it finds a failure plane(fault line) it invades, usually with some displacement. Oh, I'm not a geologist but I have experience with deep well injection.
To be upfront, I'm not a geologist, so I'm sure my viewpoint is simplistic and probably inaccurate. That said, why are all these small earthquakes bad? The high pressure production water being pumped into these disposal wells exerts lots of force, but I assume this force is miniscule compared to the stresses already occurring underground. Maybe this water is hastening the release of these stresses, allowing the structure to settle into a more stable arrangement. What's the likelihood of these disposal wells causing a large, damaging quake?
I'm more worried about the product water itself. Is anyone monitoring or controlling what we are pumping into the ground? I know that many of the chemicals and solutions used in the fracking process are proprietary, are not divulged willingly, but are toxic. Who can say what effects this stuff will have?
***As an interesting sidenote, I've just noticed that I joined almost 14 years ago and have an astonishing148 posts. Better slow it down since I've far exceeded a rate of 10 posts per year.
I'm more worried about the product water itself. Is anyone monitoring or controlling what we are pumping into the ground? I know that many of the chemicals and solutions used in the fracking process are proprietary, are not divulged willingly, but are toxic. Who can say what effects this stuff will have?
***As an interesting sidenote, I've just noticed that I joined almost 14 years ago and have an astonishing148 posts. Better slow it down since I've far exceeded a rate of 10 posts per year.
Those mirror my thoughts as well. Do these minor, fairly harmless quakes stave off bigger ones? Not surprisingly, the industry is starting to argue this, but I wonder if there's a basis to this.
As for the wastewater, there clearly has to be strict controls on piping so that groundwater is not impacted - and heavy penalties if there are screw ups. The fracking itself happens way below where water is found - but the equipment conveying the fluids passes right through these levels. One thing not to be cavalier about is clean water.
These wells are thousands of feet deep and the water table is maybe a hundred feet down. What's going into the ground really isn't much of an issue. But when the stuff is sitting in a contianmaent pond on the surface and a tropical storm happens through, or a truck hauling it has an accident ... that's another matter.
