By Sharon Wilson, organizer for EARTHWORKS’ Oil and Gas Accountability Project
If you’ve been following this blog for very long, you know how I love industry’s own literature for disclosing how destructive their processes are. But, before we get to that, can we pause for a common sense moment?
I’m not a scientist and I don’t like playing scientist but sometimes I have to employ common sense and fourth grade science until the scientists catch up. So let’s talk about fracking earthquakes: These diagrams were drawn by a petroleum engineer. They show how fracking causes earthquakes but they don’t tell nearly the whole story.
Some people are highly invested in blaming the earthquakes on injection/disposal wells. At all costs, industry wants to point to anything but fracking as the cause. I don’t think it’s as simple as injection/disposal wells versus fracking because everything is connected. I would also caution you against too eagerly pointing to injection wells as the only cause unless you want a whole new marketing scheme from industry to convince us how useful drilling waste is. The fact is shale gas extraction produces massive amounts of toxic waste and it’s got to go somewhere.
What follows is some common sense that may not be perfectly scientifically accurate but just like the early posts about the hydrologic cycle, I’m circling around it.
Read More: FLOWBACK—How the Texas Natural Gas Boom Affects Health and Safety
When Adam was about 8 years old, I put him on a little league team. Since we home schooled, he was always eager to share what he learned with his teammates. Our lesson for the day was how air has mass and weight. When he excitedly shared his discovery that air does indeed have mass and weight, they all laughed at him including the adult coaches. So, some people lack knowledge of even basic elementary science.
Methane/natural gas has mass and weight. So does condensate and all the water and fluids they are withdrawing. When you pull that mass out, it creates a void. What do you suppose happens when you have a void under the earth down somewhere in the strata? They do put fluids back in but it doesn’t always equal out and it’s not always in the same areas. When they extract mass the ground will sink a little…or a lot. When they inject mass the ground will rise a little…or a lot.
Read the complete post on Wilson’s Bluedaze Drilling Reform site.
