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The Basement
Attempting to bring clarity to the nuclear problems facing Japan
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<blockquote data-quote="John Roberts" data-source="post: 42894" data-attributes="member: 126"><p>Re: Attempting to bring clarity to the nuclear problems facing Japan</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>That appears to be more of a regulatory business risk than justified public health concern. Most, not all fraking is being done down at depths much deeper than water tables, and fluids injected themselves are not toxic. The linkage being drawn by environmentalists, is hydrocarbons leaking and contaminating local wells and aquifers. That is already a naturally occurring phenomenon in regions where hydrocarbons are plentiful at shallower depths, (we've probably all heard stories of homeowners wells that catch on fire in PA or whatever), so this is not a clear straight-line cause and effect from fraking. The exception that doesn't justify this rule (IIRC) is in colorado where there is some fraking activity at shallow enough depths that it "could" be associated with groundwater contamination (maybe.. it's not so extremely unlikely in that region). </p><p></p><p>A more interesting (to me) concern is the connection between fraking and tectonic activity, and this seems like an interesting side effect of disturbing deep rock formations that requires some philosophical analysis, i.e. if fraking relieves stress from a tectonic plate interfaces with small movements (small earthquakes), is this not better than waiting for one big one later? Of course popular opinion, amplified by ambulance chasers who love to sue some deep pockets for earthquakes, is to postpone all tectonic events into someone else's future. A case where that had an immediate impact is (IIRC) in Switzerland, where deep rock drilling and water injection to extract "free" geothermal energy, was linked to local earthquake activity, in a region where the buildings are several centuries older than the California earthquake survivable building standards, so easily damaged, incurring huge costs that outweigh the benefit of relatively cheap energy. There are one or more geothermal plants in CA,, hmmmm, San Andreas fault, anyone? Again a bunch of small shakes is surely better than fewer big 'uns there too. </p><p></p><p>My judgement, which is just one man's (semi) informed opinion is that fracking is mostly harmless as long as practiced at depths well away from aquifers, and active tectonic activity especially around old-build construction (i.e. maybe don't frak around the coliseum in Rome or ruins in Greece). </p><p></p><p>Of course opinions very, so don't take my word for any of this, you can easily do your own research. Just don't take the environmentalist screed at face value without similar scrutiny. </p><p></p><p>JR</p><p></p><p>Note: not only are we finding new nat gas reserves we didn't know existed, we are also finding good old fashioned oil in places where the government hasn't suppressed drilling activity. They recently had to change the direction of an oil pipeline because we had so much oil in middle america (Cushing OK), and that was depressing local US oil prices (just there). By reversing the oil pipeline direction so we could pump it down to the gulf (where all the refineries are), the mid west drillers could get world market prices for their oil too. Getting oil to market is always a major concern. The Keystone pipeline proposed to carry Canadian oil down to our refiners seems like a no brainer, but apparently opinions vary about that too. Since that seems mostly political, I won't go there. I wish we had an easy way to burn our huge coal reserves cleanly (AFAIK that isn't very easy). We have a lot of coal that would nice to eventually use. While it seems US coal mining practices remain in the semi-dark ages too, this seems like a ripe application for robots (who don't need to breath). Of course coal mining in countries like China is far worse than here.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="John Roberts, post: 42894, member: 126"] Re: Attempting to bring clarity to the nuclear problems facing Japan That appears to be more of a regulatory business risk than justified public health concern. Most, not all fraking is being done down at depths much deeper than water tables, and fluids injected themselves are not toxic. The linkage being drawn by environmentalists, is hydrocarbons leaking and contaminating local wells and aquifers. That is already a naturally occurring phenomenon in regions where hydrocarbons are plentiful at shallower depths, (we've probably all heard stories of homeowners wells that catch on fire in PA or whatever), so this is not a clear straight-line cause and effect from fraking. The exception that doesn't justify this rule (IIRC) is in colorado where there is some fraking activity at shallow enough depths that it "could" be associated with groundwater contamination (maybe.. it's not so extremely unlikely in that region). A more interesting (to me) concern is the connection between fraking and tectonic activity, and this seems like an interesting side effect of disturbing deep rock formations that requires some philosophical analysis, i.e. if fraking relieves stress from a tectonic plate interfaces with small movements (small earthquakes), is this not better than waiting for one big one later? Of course popular opinion, amplified by ambulance chasers who love to sue some deep pockets for earthquakes, is to postpone all tectonic events into someone else's future. A case where that had an immediate impact is (IIRC) in Switzerland, where deep rock drilling and water injection to extract "free" geothermal energy, was linked to local earthquake activity, in a region where the buildings are several centuries older than the California earthquake survivable building standards, so easily damaged, incurring huge costs that outweigh the benefit of relatively cheap energy. There are one or more geothermal plants in CA,, hmmmm, San Andreas fault, anyone? Again a bunch of small shakes is surely better than fewer big 'uns there too. My judgement, which is just one man's (semi) informed opinion is that fracking is mostly harmless as long as practiced at depths well away from aquifers, and active tectonic activity especially around old-build construction (i.e. maybe don't frak around the coliseum in Rome or ruins in Greece). Of course opinions very, so don't take my word for any of this, you can easily do your own research. Just don't take the environmentalist screed at face value without similar scrutiny. JR Note: not only are we finding new nat gas reserves we didn't know existed, we are also finding good old fashioned oil in places where the government hasn't suppressed drilling activity. They recently had to change the direction of an oil pipeline because we had so much oil in middle america (Cushing OK), and that was depressing local US oil prices (just there). By reversing the oil pipeline direction so we could pump it down to the gulf (where all the refineries are), the mid west drillers could get world market prices for their oil too. Getting oil to market is always a major concern. The Keystone pipeline proposed to carry Canadian oil down to our refiners seems like a no brainer, but apparently opinions vary about that too. Since that seems mostly political, I won't go there. I wish we had an easy way to burn our huge coal reserves cleanly (AFAIK that isn't very easy). We have a lot of coal that would nice to eventually use. While it seems US coal mining practices remain in the semi-dark ages too, this seems like a ripe application for robots (who don't need to breath). Of course coal mining in countries like China is far worse than here. [/QUOTE]
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