It’s not a good idea to frack your mother. Unpleasant consequences could follow.
Yesterday a dear reader reminded me that not everyone is on Twitter and Facebook, which is where I put a lot of the fracking news these days. Here is a compilation of the latest fracking news so those not on Twitter and Facebook will know how we are fracking our mother.
Frackquakes!
Industry, their PR guys and the SMU scientists HATE it when we use the term frackquake. I can remember how they HATEd when we used the term fracking. But we were persistent, we put a k in fracking and it stuck. Now they, too, say fracking and they even spell it with a k.
Industry and their PR guys say it’s not fracking but the disposal of the waste from fracking that causes the earthquakes. Gun nuts say it’s not the guns that kill people, it’s the bullets. Ahm, frackquakes!
This evening there was a M4.0 frackquake in Venus and Mansfield. Event Page . That follows the SMU seicntist’s statement Monday at the frackquake hearing that frackquakes in this area are trending up in magnitude.
It’s a 4-hour hearing but well worth the time, especially to see how Phil King is disrespectful toward his constituents. But they keep reelecting him so I guess they like it.
M4.0 is the magic number at which even the naysayers admit that structural damage can occur.
Don’t eat fish with tumors.
A smallmouth bass was caught in the Susquehanna River in Pennsylvania that had a huge cancerous tumor on its mouth. See a video on CNN.
What else has been in the Susquehanna River?
- Drilling waste that XTO Energy a subsidiary of Exxon Mobil spilled there.
- Drilling waste intentionally discharged.
- Fish with abnormal black splotches.
- Runoff from drilling waste.
From the Department of DUH:
…people should avoid eating “fish that have visible signs of sores and lesions.” CNN
Never trust frackers.
Denmark learned this the hard way and the frackers may not get to resume fracking there.
Denmark has suspended the first exploratory drilling for shale gas which lasted only one day after it discovered that French gas-giant Total, in charge of the project, had used “unauthorized” chemicals. RT
The United States can’t seem to figure it out.
Our bi-monthly oil train explosion & other explosions.
The six tank cars that exploded into flames were a model slated to be phased out or retrofitted by 2020 under a federal rule announced last week.
It’s the fifth fiery accident since February involving that type of tank car, and industry critics responded to the latest with calls for them to be taken off the tracks immediately to prevent further fires. ABC News
Oil & gas well tanks explode from lightning too.
A Denton gas wells exploded tonight when struck with lightning. Photo from resident that was uploaded to DFW Scanner. From the location, it could be one of Range Resources’ wells at/near the airport. I have lots of blog posts about lightning striking wells.
Updates on the lightning strike HERE.
Fracking our food.
21 million gallons of oil field wastewater is sold DAILY to farmers to irrigate food crops in Kern County California.
Until now, government authorities have only required limited testing of recycled irrigation water, checking for naturally occurring toxins such as salts and arsenic, using decades-old monitoring standards. They haven’t screened for the range of chemicals used in modern oil production. LA Times
I took a FLIR video of wastewater pits when I was in Kern County. I had to wear a respirator. This is what they are putting on our food.
Don’t frack your mother.
Dear President Obama:
Sharon Wilson – Ft. Worth, Texas from Oceans 8 Films on Vimeo.
About Sharon Wilson
Sharon Wilson is considered a leading citizen expert on the impacts of shale oil and gas extraction. She is the go-to person whether it’s top EPA officials from D.C., national and international news networks, or residents facing the shock of eminent domain and the devastating environmental effects of natural gas development in their backyards.
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Wow, lots of crash-boom-bang!
“M4.0 is the magic number at which even the naysayers admit that structural damage can occur.”
It may even be lower than that.
“One of Canada’s foremost experts on earthquake hazards recently told an audience of Calgary engineers that earthquakes triggered by hydraulic fracturing can exceed ‘what the natural hazard was in the first place’ and pose risks to infrastructure only built to withstand natural earthquake hazards.
As well, earthquakes induced by fracking can produce more damaging ground motion at lower magnitudes than natural quakes due to their shallowness, said Gail Atkinson, the NSERC/TransAlta/Nanometrics Industrial Research Chair in Hazards from Induced Seismicity at Ontario’s Western University.
Natural earthquakes have an average depth of 10 kilometres, whereas industry-made tremors are much shallower and closer to the ground surface where people can feel them more strongly.
Natural earthquakes typically cause structural damage in buildings at a magnitude of 5.0, Atkinson said. But earthquakes triggered by fracking could possibly cause damaging ground motions at magnitudes as low as 3.5 to 4.0, due to their shallowness.
… Atkinson made her presentation to the Canadian Society of Exploration Geophysicists in downtown Calgary on Jan. 29.
A 2012 publication of the organization recognized three years ago that hydraulic fracturing can activate faults and cause significant felt earthquakes with powerful ground motions.
‘From the perspective of fault activation, often this is an undesirable consequence of hydraulic stimulation if these faults provide pathways for fluid to escape formation,’ said the article. ‘Again, being able to position these faults with respect to the reservoir stimulation is of prime concern. Finally, if these events are generating ground motions large enough to be felt on surface, then there needs to be an assessment of the seismic hazard on site to answer questions about where shaking may be most intense and to what standards equipment needs to be built to withstand such motion.’
A recent talk by Usman Ahmed, the vice president of Baker Hughes, a major fracking company, highlighted the chaotic and non-linear nature of cracking shale rocks which are already under high stress.
Ahmed said that 70 per cent of unconventional wells in the U.S., even with fracking, do not meet their production targets; that 60 per cent of all fracture stages are ineffective; and that 73 per cent of operators say they do not know enough about the subsurface, let alone where the faults are.
He ended his talk by asking that the industry ‘avoid faults and geohazards.'”
http://thetyee.ca/News/2015/02/02/Fracking-Quakes-Study-Required/
Of course it’s lower. People in frackquake zones have plenty of damage to their homes. But 4.0 is the magic number at which the fracking mafia can no longer ignore and deny.
I agree Sharon, but according to Texas experts, it would appear some folks might just be more “sensitive.” And others might just be oblivious, or maybe they’re at the mall, so probably won’t be “bothered” by the big, big ones.
I wonder who’s going to decide who gets what magnitude, and the damages that go with it? I hope whoever it is will face criminal charges and a conviction, for putting people’s lives at risk.
“Policy issues and possible regulation? If regulations are needed…
Regulations should account for population and development.
An M4.5 in an urban area could cause serious damage; An M6.0 in some rural areas bothers almost no one.
In some regions people aren’t bothered much by quakes; In other regions people are very sensitive about them.
Silver bullet = A simple result about injection-induced earthquakes that would make it straightforward to manage injection and avoid hazard.
Silver bullet not yet found… Silver bullet may not be found..”
http://www.ieaghg.org/docs/General_Docs/Summer_School_2014/5__Induced_EQ_UTsummerSchJuly2014-JEO-CFSEC.pdf
Texas is not looking for a silver bullet unless it’s one with my name on it. 😉
Hey now, that’s enough of that talk! If it weren’t for you (and a few other people I know) industry wouldn’t have such a big, greasy PR department. You’re a job creator you are!
On another note, the Alberta petro-government (for the 1 percent) of 44+ years, is no more! Decimated!
You would have loved it, “silver bullets” flying everywhere.
Never thought I’d see it in my lifetime, and if it can happen here, it can happen anywhere!