Attempting to bring clarity to the nuclear problems facing Japan

Re: freaking fraking

To follow up on the veer, I just read reports that there have been some small temblors in OH associated with deep injection wells for fraking waste water.

I am still undecided about multiple small shakes being less desirable than one big one (later), but expect liability issues to answer that (i.e. no earthquake is acceptable when somebody can be sued for it).

The question I have is why discard the water? According to the industry line, this is 99% pure water, so OK it's not exactly drinking water, but Fraking consumes a lot of water, why not re-use it. There are businesses that filter or clean this water, supposedly waking it safe to release into waterways, but there have been recent complaints about contaminated water being discharged (in PA).

I am not a fan of deep injection of waste water, since water is a finite resource that we don't need to discard deep underground. If it costs the drillers a little more to hold and recycle it, that's life, it seems like the smarter use of all resources.

JR
 
Re: freaking fraking

Yeah, I heard those reports. I'm not a fan of fracking but what I heard from the geologist made me think "okay, prove to me the causality, not the coincidental."

In the mean time, the bigger question is "who guaranteed anyone an earthquake-free existence?"
 
Re: freaking fraking

Tim McCulloch said:
Yeah, I heard those reports. I'm not a fan of fracking but what I heard from the geologist made me think "okay, prove to me the causality, not the coincidental."

In the mean time, the bigger question is "who guaranteed anyone an earthquake-free existence?"
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I expect the lawyers will drive the earthquake debate, by chasing any deep pockets they can identify, but it seems unnecessary since they were apparently injecting waste water, that could be recycled (I ASSume).

AFAIK the tectonic stability is more of an issue around geothermal energy wells, since the injected water expands many times over when it turns into steam and is more disruptive. I expect deep injection wells are probably deep enough to experience elevated temperatures, but how deep matters. !0k' down is hot, 20k' down is boiling, and 30k' down is 400'F. My guess is these wells are closer to 10k' than 30k' so probably not making steam.

Not to raise commerce clause issues, but it appears the waste water that was causing these temblors in OH was from PA wells. Interesting times, but it's worth it to them and us all to make this work, while at the moment we have a surplus of NG, so this isn't urgent. However we can always use the jobs, and cheaper energy, IMO.

JR
 
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