Google Funding the Next Big One? 295
wdavies writes "According to this New York Times article, Google is funding a controversial deep drill geothermal project north of San Francisco. Apparently the company, AltaRock, omitted to disclose that the same deep drilling caused a major quake in Basel, Switzerland when it was last used. Given the notorious geological instability of the Northern Californian coast, this strikes me as kind of dumb — and given the known likelihood of this technique producing earthquakes, somewhat EVIL."
Unfair Blame to Both Google And AltaRock (Score:5, Informative)
Also the article says it's "nearly the same" drilling technology as the one that caused the quake in Basel while the summary says it's the same. It seems it's not the same though. The article goes on to say:
Officials at AltaRock, with offices in Sausalito, Calif., and Seattle, insist that the company has learned the lessons of Basel and that its own studies indicate the project can be carried out safely. James T. Turner, AltaRock's senior vice president for operations, said the company had applied for roughly 20 patents on ways to improve the method.
I don't know about Basel but I'm certain these guys know they would face serious legal/criminal action if they didn't know for sure it was safe.
Under Pressure (Score:5, Informative)
It seems to me that the only thing a large drill may do is release the pressure that's building up. It's not going to "cause" an earthquake per se, it's going to release one before it happens natually, which will likely be less intense than if it had been allowed to build up pressure in the first place.
Drilling doesn't CAUSE quakes! (Score:5, Informative)
Plate tectonics causes quakes! Sometimes, however, drilling *releases* stress, triggering quakes that were already going to happen, the drilling just throws the straw on the camel's back, so to speak.
In fact, technologies like this could be useful in doing controlled release of earthquakes, such that you can pick the time it can occur so people are ready for it.
Re:Unfair Blame to Both Google And AltaRock (Score:5, Informative)
> I don't know about Basel but I'm certain these guys know they would face serious legal/criminal action if they didn't know for sure it was safe.
Why don't you read the article?
Alarmed, Mr. Häring and other company officials decided to release all pressure in the well to try to halt the fracturing. But as they stood a few miles from the drill site, giving the orders by speakerphone to workers atop the hole, a much bigger jolt shook the room.
"I think that was us," said one stunned official.
Analysis of seismic data proved him correct. The quake measured 3.4 -- modest in some parts of the world. But triggered quakes tend to be shallower than natural ones, and residents generally describe them as a single, explosive bang or jolt -- often out of proportion to the magnitude -- rather than a rumble.
Triggered quakes are also frequently accompanied by an "air shock," a loud tearing or roaring noise.
The noise "made me feel it was some sort of supersonic aircraft going overhead," said Heinrich Schwendener, who, as president of Geopower Basel, the consortium that includes Geothermal Explorers and the utility companies, was standing next to the borehole.
Re:Drilling doesn't CAUSE quakes! (Score:3, Informative)
In TFA, they say they add pressure to the system, what you are talking about could be valid if it wasn't for that fact. By artificially adding pressure, I would assume that they may cause something to move which would NEVER have moved otherwise.
Re:Caused a quake in Basel? (Score:3, Informative)
In TFA, they say artificially caused quakes are easy to identify:
Analysis of seismic data proved him correct. The quake measured 3.4 modest in some parts of the world. But triggered quakes tend to be shallower than natural ones, and residents generally describe them as a single, explosive bang or jolt often out of proportion to the magnitude rather than a rumble.
Triggered quakes are also frequently accompanied by an air shock, a loud tearing or roaring noise.
The noise made me feel it was some sort of supersonic aircraft going overhead, said Heinrich Schwendener, who, as president of Geopower Basel, the consortium that includes Geothermal Explorers and the utility companies, was standing next to the borehole.
It took me maybe half a minute to realize, hey, this is not a supersonic plane, this is my well, Mr. Schwendener said.
Re:3.4? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Unfair Blame to Both Google And AltaRock (Score:5, Informative)
And what am I going to do with this knowledge? I can't exactly refuse to pay taxes, nor in our convoluted sense of "freedom" elect any officials with real (positive) tax reforms. Sure, I could complain to congress, but honestly the entire internet has been complaining about many, many, many laws with little to no response about them (the DMCA, prohibition of certain drugs, copyright reform, etc).
Well... hold on here. when you say "the entire Internet has been complaining", you mean a couple-few hundred thousand people have been bitching about these things on blogs, twitter, email, useless "e-petitions", and in some cases mass form emails sent to congresscritters -- form letters indistinguishable from spam for all intents.
How many of "the entire Internet" have actually written a letter to their representative, or even know who their representatives are?
People do have power, but they have to use it. And sitting around complaining to others who already agree with them doesn't count.
Forget that! It's even better. (Score:1, Informative)
Crack In The World [imdb.com]... with physics that makes "Mission To Mars" look plausible. ^_^
Re:Unfair Blame to Both Google And AltaRock (Score:5, Informative)
Born and raised in California, earthquakes tend to be boring:
Magnitude 3.x is what the news programs talk about in between the weather and highway traffic.
4.x tends to be somebody says something fell over.
5.x is when you start to notice...
Loma Prieta was 6.9 and the epicenter about 60 miles from my home, about the same distance to the houses that collapsed and burned in San Francisco. It's not the distance but the local ground conditions that made the difference: the only thing that happened at my house was an empty soda can fell over. In the Marina District, the landfill (from the 1906 earthquake) turned to jello, something like that happened in Oakland to the freeway, and my house on a natural slope was fine.
Besides, there is no "if" about a coming large quake, only "when", and to a lesser extent where: most likely the northern end on the Hayward fault. Santa Rosa would be the San Andreas fault.
Re:Unfair Blame to Both Google And AltaRock (Score:5, Informative)
Do you have a link to back that claim? Earthquakes in the 1-4 range really are a natural daily occurrence all across CA and many other places in the world. Check out the USGS real-time map:
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/recenteqsus/ [usgs.gov]
Re:Unfair Blame to Both Google And AltaRock (Score:3, Informative)
Note - the $200 million is not for AltaRock, its the total investment in all Geothermal. Not clear that there is ANY US government money for them. It's an aside really, who's funding them, its more that they seemed to misrepresent the technique as being safe to Fed Agency overseeing it. To the comments below, about the tons of existing earthquakes, the thing to read/watch is the pop out explanation - the existing low-level geothermal ops are causing those quakes -- and the companies have admitted as much. The issue is what the are going to do has far more destructive power than the existing ops. I agree its not clear that it could really cause the next big one 8+ (given its distance from the San Andreas fault) but you really want to be responsible for even a 5 or 6 in that area. The main thing is that they lied though, and they should go thru another safety review and have someone on hand to shut them down if something looks wrong when they start.
FTA: "Even so, there is no shortage of money for testing the idea. Mr. Reicher has overseen a $6.25 million investment by Google in AltaRock, and with more than $200 million in new federal money for geothermal, the Energy Department has already approved financing for related projects in Idaho by the University of Utah; in Nevada by Ormat Technologies; and in California by Calpine, just a few miles from AltaRockâ(TM)s project."
Re:Unfair Blame to Both Google And AltaRock (Score:5, Informative)
The area does have quakes, BUT if you look at where they STARTED to cluster once drilling started it becomes really obvious that the drilling and water insertion causes additional (like a lot more) quakes. The geologists know this is the case. The issue at stake is what happens when you drill way deeper into the rocks below -- here's thge video from the times showing what happens.
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/06/23/us/Geothermal.html [nytimes.com]
Re:Unfair Blame to Both Google And AltaRock (Score:3, Informative)
Re:What scare-mongering stupidity! (Score:3, Informative)
What about lubricating a fault with water?
Which is exactly what caused the recent earthquake at l'Aquila (Italy), and several other instances, including a very big one in China. A dam gets built, the water pressure from the lake increases deep water infiltration. If there is a fault line alongside the valley (fairly common), the fault gets lubricated and lets it rip.
Re:Unfair Blame to Both Google And AltaRock (Score:3, Informative)
No, not 10. Two pts on the Richter magnitude scale is 1000x the energy, so one pt is sqrt(1000) = 31.6.
Re:Unfair Blame to Both Google And AltaRock (Score:5, Informative)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richter_magnitude_scale [wikipedia.org]
perhaps you were thinking of this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moment_magnitude_scale [wikipedia.org]
Re:Unfair Blame to Both Google And AltaRock (Score:3, Informative)
No, assert(0) is correct: the total energy of a quake varies as the 3/2 power of the seismic moment. Both the Richter and Moment magnitude scales are based around the base-10 logarithm of the seismic moment, but that isn't the same as the total released energy of the quake.
By the way, I noticed that this fact is mentioned in the second paragraph of the very link that you cited. Did you perhaps stop reading after the first? ;-)
Re:Heady questions (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Unfair Blame to Both Google And AltaRock (Score:2, Informative)
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/recenteqsus/Quakes/quakes_all.php [usgs.gov]