Google Funding the Next Big One? 295
Posted
by
samzenpus
from the mole-men-approved dept.
from the mole-men-approved dept.
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."
"the next big one" (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Unfair Blame to Both Google And AltaRock (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes, Google's given these guys $6.5 million. But the United States federal government has given them $200 million--especially the Department of Energy. If you're a United States citizen, you should be aware that you are also funding "the next big one."
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).
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.
All releasing pressure does is make the next earthquake less powerful. Really, if you cause an earthquake in this way, you are simply accelerating a natural process, however this is A) predictable and B) will create less damage, compared to the natural quake.
Heady questions (Score:5, Interesting)
This is a really interesting idea, the kind of stuff that makes for thoughtful sci-fi and even more thought in real life. What if we could tell the Big One was coming in the next decade but had the technology to loose its destruction at a time of our choosing?
How would such a thing be done? How would you convince the populace and governing bodies that it was necessary? How could you make absolutely sure it was necessary?
How would insurers decide to react? Where would everyone go? What about those refuse to leave? Are there temporary measures that could improve structural stability for 24 hours? What about people who couldn't afford them?
What are the potentials for abuse? How would the specifics of the release be affected by politics? If there were a way to control where the greatest damage would occur, how would it be chosen? Who would choose? Would the people in the way have a say? What kind of legal liability would those involved at different levels have?
A controlled quake release could save thousands, even tens of thousands of lives. But once there's an element of human control to unexpected disaster, all bets are off as to how our civilization deals with the responsibility.
Re:Unfair Blame to Both Google And AltaRock (Score:5, Interesting)
Forgot to add ... why aren't they drilling in some desert area... some abandoned nuclear test site? Sure, the power transmission losses will be larger, but so will the safety (especially compared to SF)
First of all it's "north of San Fransisco" and by North they mean it's actually North of Santa Rosa. And it looks to be about 20 miles north of that up near Clear Lake. And if you go to their project site [altarockenergy.com] and look at the map at the bottom, you'll notice in the past week there's been 3.0 or larger earth quakes in that region. The 3.4 they had in Basel looks to be just another daily occurrence in those parts.
If you look where they're drilling, there's not a whole lot of homes around there. I'm not sure what the radius of destruction is from the epicenter for a "big one" but I don't think it's massive enough to hit a lot way out there. I could be wrong. But you know, I bet if they see a 3.4 like Basel, they shut it down if the government doesn't first. I do like the interactive map on their site so you can see the earthquakes relative to their drilling.
Who knows? They could have determined that unstable areas are safer for drilling since the region around you is having 3.0+ earthquakes all the time? Not like you're going to screw anything up if the plates are shifting constantly anyway, right?
Also, the government funded stuff is all over the place (Utah included) so don't worry, they want this energy source available to all and non centralized. I'm not sure what your motivation is here or why the summary labeled this as pure evil Personally, I'm interested in what this could do for non-polluting energy. I think in order to get the drilling permits and convince backers it was safe enough for America you would have to show a lot of proof. But I'm not a seismologist. Looks worth a shot to me though.
Lastly people take risks in the name of discovery and production. It happens every time a human leaves Earth's gravitational pull, it happened in the early days of a lot of technology until it was perfected. I'm not arguing we should risk human lives, I'm just pointing out that we might be blowing a risk out of proportion that, since non of us are seismologists, none of us really understand. Is it like drilling a pinhole through a one inch slab of marble or drilling the pinhole through one millimeter thick pie crust? I highly doubt they'd be wasting their time if they didn't know the ground would remain stable long enough for their tunnel to remain intact. It looks like they're taking precautions and claim to have refined the process to make it safer at least.
Their Fatal Mistake (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:3.4? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Unfair Blame to Both Google And AltaRock (Score:5, Interesting)
First of all it's "north of San Fransisco" and by North they mean it's actually North of Santa Rosa. And it looks to be about 20 miles north of that up near Clear Lake. And if you go to their project site and look at the map at the bottom, you'll notice in the past week there's been 3.0 or larger earth quakes in that region. The 3.4 they had in Basel looks to be just another daily occurrence in those parts.
I live in the region we're discussing, which is the most geothermally active spot in the inhabited world. We have a superfund site down the road where they buried the arsenic pressure-washed off of the turbine blades. The geothermal power site itself is storing Arsenic and other major toxics in open concrete pits near the generators. When the pits fill up, they are covered over with concrete, and the walls raised so that they can put more toxics in.
Assuming they'll be accessing the same system of vents, the water that they are pumping into the ground and heating it will probably be contaminated with the same stuff that comes OUT of the steam vents which run Calpine Geothermal Power, thus creating another serious environmental catastrophe. We were starting to have cows born with two heads and shit like that; they ended up digging up [most of] the Arsenic-contaminated soil and containing it on the same site with a rubber liner.
Most so-called "green power" is anything but.
I highly doubt they'd be wasting their time if they didn't know the ground would remain stable long enough for their tunnel to remain intact. It looks like they're taking precautions and claim to have refined the process to make it safer at least.
That depends. Have they been paid yet?