Geologists and politicians have been arguing for several years about whether hydraulic fracturing of shale to release natural gas can cause earthquakes. Finally, a comprehensive study released today by the National Research Council has settled the question: yes, fracking can. The number of earthquakes linked to fracking operations is very small, however; many more temblors are linked to conventional oil and natural gas extraction.

Furthermore, the greatest risk of earthquakes due to fracking does not come from drilling into deep shale or cracking it with pressurized water and chemicals. Rather, it comes from pumping the wastewater from those operations back down into deep sandstone or other formations for permanent disposal, instead of storing it in tanks or open ponds at the surface. In January, wastewater injection was blamed for earthquakes that had just occurred in Youngstown, Ohio, on Christmas Eve and again on New Year's Eve, measuring 2.7 and 4.0 on the Richter scale, respectively. Wastewater injection is also commonly used during conventional oil and gas production.

The National Research Council report, “Induced Seismicity Potential in Energy Technologies,” documents earthquakes associated with a full range of underground energy technologies. It does not determine any kind of “rate” at which they might occur, however. It associates a number of earthquakes with conventional oil and gas wells, more so when those wells are somewhat drained and are injected with water or gas to force out the remaining, hard-to-get fuel. The report also links earthquakes to geothermal energy (tapping into hot underground reservoirs of steam or water) and so-called enhanced geothermal (forcing water into hot underground rock, to turn it to steam). Two related technologies were investigated as well: wastewater injection, as noted, and carbon sequestration and storage. Only one sequestration project exists worldwide thus far, so data for the technique are meager. The report includes a map showing the sites of induced quakes (below).

Circles indicate the location of earthquakes that were caused or “likely related” to energy technologies. The larger the circle, the larger the quake. “Secondary recovery” means fluids injected underground to force oil or gas out of wells.  Credit: National Research Council

Overall, technologies that basically balance the amount of fluid removed or injected, such as conventional oil wells, induced fewer seismic events than those that involve net injection or extraction. “The two techniques with the largest imbalance are carbon sequestration and wastewater injection,” said Murray Hitzman, professor of economic geology at the Colorado School of Mines and chairman of the committee that wrote the report, at a press briefing today. The two techniques increase subsurface pressure across large areas, so there is a greater chance of running across a fault, which could lead to an earthquake, Hitzman said.

The report notes that enhanced geothermal might also create an imbalance. In recent years several worrisome earthquakes have been linked to geothermal operations, including a magnitude 3.4 temblor in Basel, Switzerland, and smaller quakes close to an operation known as The Geysers in Santa Rosa, Calif.

The committee work was motivated by federal and state agencies that regulate various aspects of underground injection work, which seem to have little standard data or analyses to draw from. Most troubling, the committee found, was that no set of industry “best practices” for minimizing the risk of earthquakes exists for any of the technologies, which in turn makes it difficult for regulators to establish sensible rules. The committee strongly recommends that energy companies work with the U.S. Department of Energy to establish such practices. It notes that best practices are important because all indications are that more and more underground extraction of energy will occur in the future.

10 Comments

1. 1. Paul Felix Schott 06:05 PM 6/15/12

   Hydraulic Fracturing a Danger to us All. Safe Drinking Water World Wide is Running OUT.
   
   Why would anyone think we have water to waste.
   
   Only the wicked in mind Leaders in this Nation and around the world would let anyone Pipe Pollution into the ground to get gas in return from the Ground. Most all scientist have know this for many years that this will end safe drinking water for all that are in the area of where they are fracturing, in which Millions of Gallons of Dangerous Poison Chemically Treated Water are forced underground to break up rock and free gas. We need regulations from GODLY People that will stop 10,000+ wells a year drilled using hydraulic fracturing to free and make the Dangerous Poison Chemicals underground into gas. The primarily affect will be unsafe drinking water and many will become sick. THE HEALTH OF MANY WILL DETERIORATE because of A Few Wicked Greedy Leaders. Those who have made these decisions do not know Jesus Christ. Soon He will say i know you not. They belong in jail soon it will be hell for them. What sick in mind would let or want anyone to put Dangerous Poison Chemicals underground or into the ground anywhere.
   
   The wicked are trying to sell and tell all if it is not near your home or land it is safe. This is the biggest ling of horse manure. Do they think most of We The People are that dumb or that most Americans lack any intelligence at all. What ever is put on or in the ground makes it way to our underground Aquifers, Rivers, Lakes and the Oceans. Every Scientist on Earth knows this and most all that have made it to eighth grade in school.
   
   So why would any Leader with a good healthy mind ever say or want this?
   
   Vote any wicked that has anything to do with this out of office they work for WE THE PEOPLE.
   
   United We Stand In GOD We Trust
   
   The Lord's Little Helper
   Paul Felix Schott
   
   P.S.
   Wicked Leaders telling their friends as long as you can cover it up and it will not get back to me it is ok with me. Are you sure we will not go to jail for making money by Polluting the ground and water. Of course not we make the laws to fit our needs not the health and welfare of others or as they used to say We The People. Its now the Wicked Leaders and rich Rule. Till our Lord GOD comes!
   
   Solar Energy the way to go.
   Many States Are and are Banning Fracking.

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2. 2. JamesDavis in reply to Paul Felix Schott 07:42 AM 6/16/12

   Do you actually think talking about God outside the church is helping, and has talking to God about this problem actually helped? There are none so blind as those who refuse to see. Look around you, Schott; is the increase of worldwide pollution tell you that God is listening to you or the polluters? Who do you think he is listening to? I can see that God is not listening to you, and I can see that he is listening more to the polluters. Rambling on about God makes you sound like a wimpy pathetic child whining about someone taking your toy, and it makes you sound like a schizophrenic wondering around in the wilderness talking to your self.
   
   Gather your congregation, pile them into those $100,000.00 diesel buses parked by your church and take them to your governor and protest with the threat of lethal force if they do not stop the destruction of this land, water, air, and health by fossil fuel. Convince your governor that we no longer need fossil fuel to power our light bulbs and power our autos. You will achieve a lot more that way than you will howling in the wilderness like some kind of lunatic.

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3. 3. Mannysan 01:18 PM 6/16/12

   If you think education is expensive, try stupidity or ignorance. The race for raw materials is not new, and vested interests have always come first. Many ignore that certain things are natural, and part of the earth's circle of life, while environmental abuse and damage (done by man), in the past century, have affected this planet far deeper than they can imagine. We're seeing the consequences.

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4. 4. bwana 05:04 PM 6/16/12

   Paul Felix Schott, I hope god works for you. I haven't found him/her to be all that effective since about the time of the ark...
   
   NIMBY (not in my backyard) is everyone's mantra, i.e.: I love driving my car, running my air conditioner, using vast quantities of electricity BUT let someone else have the associated environmental impact! Sorry, if you want all the benefits of modern society, you have to accept responsibility for the detriments as well... and fraking is one of these items. There is no such thing as a free lunch... every form of energy generation has its offsetting cons; some more than others.
   
   I have a gas well less than one half mile from my house. It was completed using fracture technology. It didn't result in an earthquake and to the best of my knowledge did not contaminate my ground water. I can accept this gas well because I want natural gas to heat my house in cold Canadian winters. I'm also open to a wind turbine or solar cells on my property because without energy my life would be considerably less livable.

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5. 5. Eco_steve 01:17 PM 6/17/12

   All this extra CO2 from burning Fracked gas will cause more global warming. Rising temperatures will force people to use more powerful air conditioning systems. Where will the extra energy to power them come from? Fracked gas?
   Yet another vicious circle...

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6. 6. JamesDavis in reply to Eco_steve 04:35 PM 6/17/12

   Yelp, that's right, and as soon as they get our asse* hooked on natural gas, they are going to skyrocket the price and walk off and leave the taxpayer with the clean up; just like coal, oil and nuclear has done.

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7. 7. VIP 09:48 PM 6/17/12

   It's like sneezing infects the rest of the world. We know the cause of shifts that cause earthquakes.

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8. 8. Joel454 12:04 AM 6/18/12

   When the USA stops exploration and development of energy for Environmental fear we simply get our energy from somewhere else where no one give a dam and destroy another country.

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9. 9. JustLiberty in reply to bwana 09:34 AM 6/19/12

   Maybe if anthropogenic global warming is a significant affect, you won't have to heat your home in Canada after a while. I live farther south and certainly appreciate the warmer weather these last few years...

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10. 10. WizeHowl 09:56 AM 6/22/12

    I am a bit surprised that Sci Am has stated "measuring 2.7 and 4.0 on the Richter scale" the Richter scale has not been used since the 70' today they use Moment Magnitude Scale or MMS which is is different from the Intensity of the Richter scale, it is based not on 10's but energy, damage and speed of the quake and is based roughly on 30's so that a 7 is 30 times worse than a 6, unlike with Richter a 7 was 10 times worse than a 6.

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