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I lost any faith in these companies doing any sort of sound geological work when a company disposing of fracking water placed their injection well near a fault

by ssharp 13y ago

I lost any faith in these companies doing any sort of sound geological work when a company disposing of fracking water placed their injection well near a fault and caused a rash of earthquakes in the area the well was built. I'm not inherently against the idea of increased natural gas production, including fracking, but the lack of effort put forth by the industry to recognize and mitigate the risks involved has completely turned me off the practice.

rayiner 13y ago
It costs money to recognize and mitigate the risks. Under the current legal regime, it costs very little money to let the negative effects happen because other people will bear the costs of those effects. I.e. it's totally rational for companies under the existing regime to fail to take adequate precautions.
- specialist 13y ago
  ... because other people will bear the costs of those effects. Yup. Environmental protection is an accounting problem. Convert those externalities into line items on a company's profit & loss statement, voila, no more exploitation.