Green energy advocates in California and the U.S. are trying to throw a monkey wrench into the proliferation of fracking oil and gas by claiming it induces major earthquakes (see here, here, here and here).  However, data from a new university study indicates that about one-third of all human-caused large earthquakes are green related.

A 2013 survey titled, “Induced Seismicity and Hydraulic Fracturing for the Recovery of Hydrocarbons,” was conducted by  Richard Davies, Ph.D., of the University of Durham in the United Kingdom. As I noted in an article two days ago, it questions the contention by some environmentalists that fracking causes earthquakes.

The Durham University survey also found something else. There were 198 cases of human-caused earthquakes in the world in the last 84 years. Of those, 65.5 percent were related to industrial activities.

But, surprisingly, 34.5 percent of them were related to green energy projects and toxic waste laws. The green activities included: geothermal power plants, clean hydropower, water pressure from large reservoirs, seismic academic research, green water solution salt mining, and mandated disposal of fracking and oil drilling waste water in deep injection wells to comply with toxic waste disposal laws (see Table 1 below).

                                                    Table 1: Recapitulated Human-Caused Earthquake

              Data World Wide (1929 to 2013) Arrayed from Highest to Lowest Occurrence

The activities that were attributed to industrial-related causes of earthquakes were: mining, oil and gas extraction, secondary oil recovery, waste disposal, shale gas water disposal, and deep water injection of fracking wastewater.  Fracking amounted to only 0.5 percent of the 198 human-caused earthquake events since 1929.

Toxic waste water disposal laws are the culprit, not fracking

Won-Young Kim, a seismologist at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in Palisades, New York, states earthquakes are not directly related to fracturing of rock for oil or natural gas, but “are due to injection of waste fluid from fracking.”  To comply with toxic waste disposal laws in most states, fracking wastewater must be re-injected deep into the ground.

The two reported recently fracking earthquakes in Ohio and Oklahoma were both related to the deep injection of fracking wastewater. The quakes were misreported as caused by fracking (see note at bottom of linked article).

The Oklahoma incident was not included in the Durham University study.  Pumping wastewater back into the ground, not industrial chemicals, is what caused the earthquakes.

Reflecting the new consensus, in his Sept. 5 correction to his Sept. 2 article on the Ohio earthquake, prominent scientist and environmentalist Bill Chameides  wrote in a footnote, “Headline was changed to make clear that deep injection wells used to dispose of fracking fluids — not fracking — have been linked to the earthquakes.” (Emphasis in original.) The new headline reads, “Fracking Waste Wells Linked to Ohio Earthquakes.”

Can man-caused earthquakes be predicted?

The process of pumping fracking wastewater back into the ground is similar to the process that green geothermal power plants use to create steam to drive turbine to generate electricity. A study by UC Santa Cruz geologist Emily Brodsky found that the net volume of fluid extracted, then injected back into the ground, to run geothermal power plants was correlated with concurrent seismic events. Brodsky’s study indicated the overwhelming number of geothermal-triggered earthquakes were of a small magnitude.

The Durham University study found that only 23 of the 198 man-caused earthquakes exceeded 5.0 in magnitude.  None of the 5.0-plus magnitude quakes was related to fracking or water disposal.  Geologist D.L. Fread of the National Weather Service estimates earthquakes with a 5.0 magnitude or 2.0 g (gravity force) can initiate dam embankment failures resulting in catastrophic flooding, property damages and loss of life.

A double standard for green caused earthquakes?

Brodsky’s study may be able to predict earthquakes from geothermal and fracking water injections.  If so, would both be subject to legal clearances under the California Environmental Quality Act?  Would other green-related causes of earthquakes also be subject to environmental clearance?  Or would California continue to exert a double standard of ignoring environmental impacts caused by renewable energy projects while overkilling the regulation of environmental impacts of conventional power plants?

Paradoxically, CEQA originated out of the Friends of Mammoth vs. Board of Supervisors of Mono County court case that ended up with the state Supreme Court ruling that environmental regulation extended beyond public projects also to private projects.  Currently, regulation of environmental impacts is being applied to private energy projects, but not equally to private green energy projects that are subsidized by the public.

By extension, will potential negative environmental impacts from fracking end up having to go through the CEQA gauntlet, but not green energy projects and other green activities and policies that also cause earthquakes?

A new 2013 study conducted by the University of Durham in the United Kingdom dispels the widespread contention that fracking is a major threat to triggering large earthquakes in California and the U.S.  Fracking is the hydraulic fracturing of subsurface rock formations to extract oil and gas by various chemical methods used since 1947, as distinguished from using steam.

The study is titled, “Induced Seismicity and Hydraulic Fracturing for the Recovery of Hydrocarbons,” was conducted by  Richard Davies, PhD. It reported that, of 198 human-induced earthquakes since 1929, only one was indirectly related to oil and gas fracking itself.

The major cause of the fracking-related earthquakes, on the other hand, was not related to fracking operations, but the disposal of fracking and shale gas wastewater required by toxic waste disposal laws.

No fracking earthquakes in California in 66 years

Based on the Durham study and other online data sources, only 10 human-induced major earthquakes from all causes occurred in California over an 84-year time span concurrent with rapid industrialization (see table below).  None was from fracking per se.

           Human-Caused Earthquakes in California and Worldwide (1929 to 2013)

Four California man-made earthquakes were from subsurface water pressurization related to dams and reservoirs, three were from geothermal power plants, and three were from oil and gas extraction not related to fracking.

In addition to the Durham study, only three other fracking related earthquakes could be found in the world, one of which occurred in the U.S.  No fracking-related earthquakes are reported to have occurred in California.

The Durham University study considered an alleged fracking earthquake in Ohio in 2013 (up to 2.7 magnitude).  Omitted from the Durham University study was a quake in Oklahoma in 2011 (reported from 4.1 or 5.6 magnitude). Both the Ohio and Oklahoma earthquake swarms were caused by mandated deep reinjection of fracking wastewater into the ground to comply with state toxic waste disposal laws. Two other alleged fracking-related earthquakes occurred in Canada in 2009 and Great Britain in 2011.

Three fracking quakes worldwide out of 85 million earthquakes

To put this into greater perspective, the UC Berkeley Seismology Laboratory reports there were 558,434 total earthquakes greater than 1.0 from 1990 to 2011 in California alone.  Of earthquakes with a magnitude of 2.0 or larger, 25,383 were recorded and analyzed each year on average.  That reflects 2,115 earthquakes per month, 448 per week, and 70 per day in California.

About six to seven 5.0+ magnitude earthquakes occur each year on average in California.  Earthquakes of 5.0 in magnitude or with acceleration of 2 g’s (gravity force) are considered at the threshold at which damages to large lifeline infrastructure can occur.

There are about 1,300,000 earthquakes annually in the world over 2.0 in magnitude. Fracking technology began in 1947.  Of the 85,800,000 estimated earthquakes that have occurred worldwide since 1947, possibly only four have been confirmed as indirectly caused by disposal of wastewater from fracking.  Fracking has been unregulated in California for 60 years.

California recently passed Senate Bill 4 to regulate fracturing of subsurface rock formations by fracking or “acidization.” 

CA launches European-like earthquake prediction bureaucracy?

On Sept. 23, 2013, Gov. Jerry Brown signed into law Senate Bill 135 to build and operate in five years a statewide earthquake prediction system at a cost of $80 million. The impetus for this law was a 2013 study conducted by Caltech and the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology that found a statewide earthquake involving both Los Angeles and San Francisco metropolitan areas may be possible.

A recent study by UC Santa Cruz seismologist Emily Brodsky indicates that small, localized earthquakes from geothermal power plants, and possibly fracking, could be forecasted. But a 2012 study of the PXP Inglewood Oilfield using data from Caltech sensors found no seismic activity from fracking or fracking water disposal. Experts generally agree that there is little likelihood of dangerous earthquakes generated by fracking in the Monterey Shale Formation in California.

The California Office of Emergency Services, Caltech, California Geological Survey, University of California and U.S. Geological Survey already operate the California Integrated Seismic Network, which reportedly has earthquake early warning capabilities.

No appropriation from the California General Fund was authorized under SB135.  Instead, SB135 is looking for funding from the debt-plagued Federal government.  Revenues from oil and gas companies and geothermal power plant operators may be a likely target for funding the new system. To do that, fracking and geothermal related earthquakes may have to be sold to the public as a high risk.

On October 22, an Italian court convicted seven seismologists from its “Great Risks Commission” of manslaughter for providing “false assurances” of no earthquake risk involving the L’Aquila Earthquake that killed over 300 people.

This raises the question whether California’s earthquake forecast system would be prone to politicization, as with the model in Italy.

                  Human Induced Earthquakes in California (and other quakes)