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When you inject cold water into hot brittle rock, fracturing can occur. You'll notice western Oklahoma is now replete with earthquakes, when they were never th
by mchannon 9y ago
When you inject cold water into hot brittle rock, fracturing can occur.
You'll notice western Oklahoma is now replete with earthquakes, when they were never there before. From fracturing.
I liken this idea to defusing a bomb with a circular saw- sure, you might chip away at the explosives, reducing the yield when it goes off, but you also might short the detonator out and trigger an eruption.
Luckily, looks like the economics of this are prohibitive and likely to stay that way.
- elihu 9y agoIn the BBC article, they talk about tunneling under the magma pocket and cooling it from the underside, which is supposedly a lot less risky.
- hueving 9y agoYou're two analogies are fracking and a circular saw to a bomb. Is there really any justification for the comparison?
- ewhanley 9y agoThe earthquakes in OK aren’t a direct result of fracing. With a few rare exceptions, oil & gas fracs are accomplished through hydraulic force rather than thermal effects. The induced seismicity in OK is a product of water disposal wells which can raise pore pressure causing faults to slip. The microseismic events that occur during the actual fracing process can only be measured with highly sensitive geophones.
- gnaritas 9y agoEven if they're an indirect result, they're a result of it.