Hydraulic Fracturing on EARTH Magazine

Water use soared as workers flocked to North Dakota's oilfields

Tue, 20 Sep 2016 15:13:27 -0400

Pump trucks transport water from Lake Sakakawea in North Dakota's Bakken region to oil well production sites. Credit: Rob Horner.

Amid North Dakota’s oil boom, about 24,000 temporary oilfield workers moved to Williams County — in the state’s Bakken oil shale region — between 2010 and 2012, almost doubling the area’s population. In a new study, researchers found that those workers have been responsible for the region’s skyrocketing water use almost as much as hydraulic fracturing by the oil industry itself.

Ground-shaking research: How humans trigger earthquakes

Fri, 03 Apr 2015 11:03:06 -0400

A number of earthquakes occurred during the 1930s while Lake Mead was being impounded behind Hoover Dam (shown here in May 1935), including a magnitude-5 event in 1939. Filling reservoirs is one of the ways humans can trigger earthquakes. Credit: U.S. Bureau of Reclamation.awes

In the pre-dawn hours of Aug. 6, 2007, six miners were laboring 450 meters underground, excavating coal from the Crandall Canyon Mine in the mountainous terrain of central Utah’s Wasatch Plateau. Suddenly, pillars supporting the mine roof ruptured, causing a major collapse over an area of 200,000 square meters and trapping the men underground.

Human-induced earthquakes shake less

Thu, 21 Aug 2014 12:16:09 -0400

Occurrences of earthquakes in the Central and Eastern United States have increased since 2009 — a phenomenon that many scientists attribute to the growing use of hydraulic fracturing for fossil fuel extraction. Most agree that it’s not the fracturing itself, but the reinjection of wastewater into wells for containment beneath the surface that tends to induce seismic activity. Now, new research looking at the effects of induced seismic activity suggests that human-made earthquakes and naturally occurring tectonic earthquakes are felt differently at the surface.

Comment: Energy 360: Let science speak, not agendas

Mon, 04 Aug 2014 09:13:51 -0400

Credit: ©shutterstock.com/MilaSupinskaya.

Ideally, science is objective and without bias. But realistically, some bias, in the form of predetermined inclination, is unavoidable. Unfortunately, science can be used naïvely, without understanding its limitations, or shrewdly, to manipulate an issue. Such use of science by nonscientists, often to gain political advantage, is worrisome. More troubling is when scientists themselves become activists. There are times when scientists feel morally or ethically obligated to speak out, and they are, of course, free to do so. But without proper context, disclosure of bias and potential conflicts of interest, the risk is great that politicians, the media and the public will have trouble distinguishing where scientific objectivity stops and activism begins. Thus, transparency is essential.

Mix of acid mine drainage and fracking fluid a recipe for remediation?

Wed, 14 May 2014 10:40:43 -0400

In the Appalachian Basin, “there are hundreds of points where acid mine drainage is discharged to streams. … It’s a nuisance that affects the environment,” says Avner Vengosh, a geochemist at Duke University and a co-author of the new study, published in Environmental Science & Technology. Similarly, flowback water from shale gas operations is bad news if it’s discharged into the environment without being adequately treated, he says, because, after being injected deep underground, it returns to the surface loaded with radium, barium, strontium and other dissolved elements, which can accumulate in stream sediments.

Bare Earth Elements: GSA highlights, days 2 and 3

Wed, 07 Nov 2012 22:16:32 -0500

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — EARTH’s Tim Oleson is in Charlotte, N.C., this week for the Geological Society of America’s (GSA) annual conference. He is blogging about interesting talks and activities he’s attended, so keep checking back to get the scoop. Read his first report from the conference here. You can also follow the action by following @earthmagazine on Twitter.

Managing the seismic risk posed by wastewater disposal

Tue, 17 Apr 2012 13:34:06 -0400

Shale gas and tight oil are produced in the Bakken Formation in North Dakota. Statoil

From an earthquake perspective, 2011 was a remarkable year. While the devastation accompanying the magnitude-9.0 Tohoku earthquake that occurred off the coast of Japan on March 11 still captures attention worldwide, the relatively stable interior of the U.S. was struck by a somewhat surprising number of small-to-moderate earthquakes that were widely felt. Most of these were natural events, the types of earthquakes that occur from time to time in all intraplate regions. For example, the magnitude 5.8 that occurred in central Virginia on Aug. 23 was felt throughout the northeast, damaged the Washington Monument, and caused the temporary shutdown of a nuclear power plant. This earthquake occurred in the Central Virginia Seismic Zone, an area known to produce relatively frequent small earthquakes.

Highlights of 2011: Energy and economics 2011-2012

Thu, 05 Jan 2012 06:41:58 -0500

A vertical drilling rig in Pennsylvania extracts natural gas from the Marcellus Shale. Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection

Some people say fracking, or hydraulic fracturing, is the mother of all evils whereas others say it's a necessary part of our energy salvation. Callan Bentley, 2011

Long-term fiscal plans need to consider energy possibilities

In 2012, we should contemplate how much the period from 2002 to 2011 looked like 1973 to 1982. The earlier period, just a few decades ago, was marked by energy crises (instigated by global geopolitics). The U.S. had just ended a war that it couldn’t win; high energy prices threatened our ability to repay debts; the gold standard was abandoned, and the savings and loan crisis ended in many bank failures. Starting in the 1970s, we banded together and the energy crises brought about advances in energy efficiency, renewable technologies and the exploration for new oil and gas resources.