Predicting seismic activity at fracking sites to prevent earthquakes

by University of Bristol

Aerial view of the hydraulic fracturing rig at Cuadrilla’s Preston New Road site. Credit: Matthew Hampson, Cuadrilla Resources Ltd

Scientists from the University of Bristol have found a more effective way to predict seismic activity at hydraulic fracturing sites, ensuring that potential earthquake activity remains within safe levels.

Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, is a technique designed to recover gas and oil from shale rock by drilling down into the earth and injecting a mixture of water and sand at high-pressure, creating fractures that allow the gas or oil to flow out.

Like many other industries, such as coal mining, hydro-electricity and geothermal energy, fracking has in some cases been known to cause earthquakes.

In 2011 test operations near Blackpool had to be suspended after tremors of 1.5 and 2.2 magnitude were detected.

Investigations carried out after this concluded that it was highly probable that the drilling had caused the tremors and new 'traffic light' regulations were introduced at fracking sites across the country.

If earthquake magnitudes are below a certain level, then the injection can proceed as normal. If the earthquakes exceed a certain amber light magnitude, then the operator must proceed with caution by, for example, reducing the injection rate, pressure or volume. If the magnitude exceeds the red light magnitude, then the injection must pause.

Currently, there is little scientific basis for how the amber and red-light thresholds should be decided.

Lead author, Dr. James Verdon from the University's School of Earth Sciences, said: "Many industries can create induced earthquakes, including both longstanding ones like coal mining and hydroelectricity, and newer ones like geothermal and hydraulic fracturing for shale gas.

"Our goal is to manage induced seismicity, ensuring that these industries conduct their activities in a safe manner, without posing a risk to nearby buildings and infrastructure."

The Bristol-led research, published today in the journal Seismological Research Letters,shows that using microseismic data to make forecasts about expected seismicity can provide a far more effective approach than the simple traffic light scheme (TLS) system which is currently used.

Dr. Verdon added: "The TLS is a retroactive method. This means that the red-light threshold must be set far below the actual level we need to avoid, otherwise the operator would only stop after larger earthquakes have occurred.

"This is a problem because on the one hand operators may be required to stop their work even though everything is actually at a safe level. However, on the other hand if they set the red-light level too high then they may allow damaging events to occur.

"Our work is about developing and testing a model that can take the observations we have at an early stage in the operation and make predictions that are robust and accurate about what will happen as the injection proceeds, thus allowing an operator to make decisions while ensuring that any earthquakes remain within a safe level."

All subsurface industries (for example, oil production, mining and geothermal) produce very small magnitude "microseismic events"—these are far too small to be detected even by sensitive instruments at the surface.

Instead, recording instruments called geophones are installed in monitoring boreholes that are within a few 100 meters of the injection point.

This allows them to pick up the pops and cracks of the rock as the fluid is injected. To give an idea of scale, a typical microseismic event might consist of a fracture the size of a dinner plate moving by less than a millimeter.

Dr. Verdon said: "These microseismic events can give us clues about whether the injection might be about to reactivate a larger fault and give us larger events, and it can give us clues as to what magnitude that event might be.

"So, our aim is to use the microseismic data, which is far too small to be felt by people at the surface and make models and predictions of whether the injection might be about to give us a larger event, and therefore should be stopped."

The team developed a statistical model that takes the small-magnitude microseismic data and makes predictions about what magnitude the tremors might reach as injection continues.

Previously they tested their approach using past data from older sites. However, in this case they were analyzing live data from the Preston New Road site in Lancashire, and providing the operator, Cuadrilla, with their results, which they used to inform real-time decisions about how to proceed.

Dr. Verdon said: "Importantly, our modeling approach was successful—the magnitudes that actually occurred were in line with the magnitudes that we predicted from our model. This gives us confidence that our approach is robust and can be used for decision making at future injection sites.

"This approach has implications not only for today's shale gas industry, but for future industries like geothermal energy and carbon capture and storage that are being planned in the UK.

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Explore further

Man-made earthquake risk reduced if fracking is 895m from faults

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More information: Huw Clarke, et al. Real-Time Imaging, Forecasting, and Management of Human-Induced Seismicity at Preston New Road, Lancashire, England. Seismological Research Letters, 19.06.2019.

Journal information: Seismological Research Letters 

Provided by University of Bristol 

Net Zero Natural Gas Plant -- The Game Changer  (NOT SO FAST) 

The process involves burning fossil fuel with oxygen instead of air to generate electricity without emitting any carbon dioxide (CO2). Not using air also avoids generating NOx, the main atmospheric and health contaminant emitted from gas plants.

Included in a group of technologies known as carbon capture and sequestration (CCS), zero-emission fossil fuel plants have been a dream never realized in practice, as it always seems to cost a lot, adding between 5¢ and 10¢ per kWh. This is probably because most attempts just add on another step after the traditional electricity generation steps, almost as an afterthought.

Some fossil fuel plants have tried, and failed, the most famous one recently being the $7.5 billion coal power plant in Kemper, Mississippi.

But this new technology completely changes the steps and the approach from the ground up. It is based on the Allam Cycle, a new, high-pressure, oxy-fuel, supercritical CO2 cycle that generates low-cost electricity from fossil fuels while producing near-zero air emissions.

The CO2 angle is very unique. NET Power’s plant produces a high-pressure, high-quality CO2 byproduct that is pipeline-ready.This CO2 can be sequestered or used in industrial processes, such as enhanced oil recovery. EOR is a decades-old process that uses CO2 to extract significantly

Most industrial CO2 capture technologies cannot produce cost-effective, EOR-ready CO2, despite the fact that the industry is tremendously CO2-starved. NET Power will have both the capacity and economics to enable the EOR industry to unlock this vast resource while simultaneously sequestering CO2 from thousands of power plants below ground.

And it is the sequestering of CO2 that is probably the most difficult part of this process. Yes, we can use CO2 now, but if we go to these net zero plants in a big way, we don't have enough industrial need for all the CO2 from generating trillions of kWhs every year.

So it will have to be injected underground, and so far that hasn’t been successful in any big way without some side effects, like earthquakes. 

But that is a geoengineering need we can address.

READ THE REST OF THE ARTICLE HERE 


STEPS 1 & 2

This CO2 can be sequestered or used in industrial processes, such as enhanced oil recovery. EOR is a decades-old process that uses CO2 to extract significantly  more oil from old oilfields while permanently storing CO2 underground. 

THE MYTH OF CARBON CAPTURE AND STORAGE, IT’S NOT CLEAN OR GREEN

THE CLIMATE CRISIS IS GLOBAL

NATIONALISM IS A DETERRENT TO FIGHTING IT PART II

PUTIN AND TRUMP AGREE THERE IS NO CLIMATE CRISIS 

THEY WANT TO SELL MORE OIL / GAS 

BOTH RUSSIANS AND AMERICANS 

ARE IN CLIMATE CHANGE DENIAL 

[Above is] The start screen of the “Climadrom” site, kept by Aleksander Zhabskiy. The site is strongly oriented toward rejecting the current scientific interpretation of climate change, labeled as “climate alarmism,” “hysteria,” and the like. This view seems to be fashionable in Russia in all sectors of society and, nowadays, Russian science seems to have rejected the current understanding of climate change as seen in the West. Yet, we must keep trying to bridge the gap: if people don’t speak to each other, the only way they have to communicate is to fight. In this sense, the site by Mr. Zhabskiy has some merit in seeking for a discussion at the international level. I did present my views that he correctly published.

There was a time, during the 19th century, when Darwin’s ideas on natural selection were rejected by the whole French science. One reason was the influence of Baron George Cuvier who had interpreted the geological record in terms of mass extinctions periodically caused by planetary catastrophes (see this link to know more about this fascinating story). French scientists saw Cuvier’s role in nationalistic terms and thought that it was outrageous that their great master was contradicted by those silly Britons.

The concept of “National Science” was rather common throughout the 19th century and the first half of the 20th. Earlier on, scientists were still communicating with each other in Latin, but that was abandoned with the 19th century and that led to science being more and more constrained by national borders and national cultures. There are many examples of how this evolution affected the scientific debate: one is how the work by Alfred Wegener on continental drift was widely rejected in the 1950s in part because of anti-German sentiments in the West (a link). I could cite examples of how the Fascist government in Italy tried to purify Italian Science from foreign influences in the 1930s. Then, of course, there was “Soviet Science,” supposedly different from the decadent capitalist science practiced in the plutocracies collectively known as “The West.” An example is how the Ukrainian biologist Trofim Denisovich Lysenko fought Western Genetics.

But all that seemed to be past and gone with the internationalization of science after that the American legions had imposed English on the rest of the world, just as the Roman legions had imposed Latin long before. As a young researcher, in the 1980s, I perfectly understood that science was international: everyone, anywhere in the world, could be a scientist by accepting two fundamental tenets: publish in English and speak in English. International science was egalitarian, global, and suspicious of national borders. The researchers of my age even tended to mock the older generation of scientists because of their limited command of English. The fall of the Soviet Union, in 1991, seemed to give the final push to the full internationalization of science: there would be no more “Soviet Science.” Just as the world’s economy was being globalized, the same was taking place for science.

That was just a brief spring: today, nationalism is returning everywhere with a vengeance and science is not immune to the trend. I can tell you how the capability of my younger colleagues to speak English seems to be going down every year a little more and one of the shocks of my life was when, a few years ago, one of the students engaged in a laboratory exercise complained to me that the instruction manual of the instrument he was using was in English.

The downfall of English is just a personal impression but it seems clear to me. Some people in Italy seem to find it totally incomprehensible that I keep a blog in English. Actually, I don’t know another example of an Italian scientist who keeps a blog in English, except for my coworker Ilaria Perissi. (If you know of other examples, please let me know!)

How about Climate Science? As it is normal, it is an international field that encompasses contributions from all countries with a significant budget in scientific research. But it seems to me that in Italy climate science is especially neglected. Don’t get me wrong: there are several excellent climate scientists in Italy, but the average effort in the field is not impressive. Some evidence of the problem is a recent petition denying the anthropogenic origin of global warming, said to have been signed by 90 leading Italian scientists. Actually, the “leading scientists” are a ragtag band of elderly scientists, scientists with no competence on climate, and people who are not even scientists — some of them belonging to all three categories at the same time. Nevertheless, that such petition exists is a symptom of deep problems. Much worse was when, in 2015, the president of the Italian Society of Physics (!!) refused to sign a statement on climate science in support of the ongoing Paris negotiations.

So, what’s the problem in Italy? Perhaps the same the French had with their Baron Cuvier. In Italy, we have Antonino Zichichi, an elderly particle physicist who has left a strong imprint in Italian physics and who, today well in his 90s, is still active in criticizing climate science in ways that we can define at least questionable. But it is also a question of science being intertwined with politics: the Italian movement called “sovranism” is clearly suspicious of climate science as a foreign scam.

And let’s go to Russia. Judging from what can be read in the scientific literature in English, Russia may be in the same conditions as Italy in terms of neglect of climate science, perhaps even worse. With the best of good will, I couldn’t locate much in terms of major contributions to climate science by Russian scientists working in Russia, with the work by Gorshkov and Makarieva being the main exception with their concept of the “biotic pump”. I asked my colleagues if they could name a serious Russian climate scientist working in Russia and they couldn’t. Maybe they are publishing in Russian? One of the problems with Russia may be the same as in Italy: a dominant figure blocking progress in a whole field of science. In the case of Russia, it seems to have been Kyril Kondratyev (1920-2006). He was a valuable atmospheric scientist but his views on climate change seem to me obsolete by now but, unfortunately, still affecting Russian science.

I may be wrong if I say that Russia is neglecting climate science, but there is clearly a problem, there: a much larger one which has to do with politics. I must admit that, If I were a Russian citizen, I would find it hard to dismiss the idea that the whole story of anthropogenic global warming is just one more psyop coming from the West. The Western media are producing so much propaganda and so many lies that the temptation is to disbelieve anything that comes from a Western source. It is the destiny that befell the Moon landings, now widely disbelieved in the very country that was so proud of having sent men to the Moon not long ago. The same destiny may be affecting climate science: despite decades of efforts of thousands of excellent scientists, it tends to fall into the same category of government-sponsored propaganda. All this goes together with the locking up of science and scientists within national boundaries, something that may turn foreign scientists from colleagues into enemy agents and foreign science into political propaganda.

And now? Could we ever recover a unity in science allowing us to act together against climate change? Could we do that before it will be too late? For sure, at present, we are moving in the opposite direction. As usual, when people refuse to talk to each other, the only possible way to communicate is to fight. And, unfortunately, it may be where we are heading to.

I am grateful to Mr. Aleksander Zhabskiy for the useful conversations we had on the matters covered in this post.

Ugo Bardi


Ugo Bardi teaches physical chemistry at the University of Florence, in Italy. He is interested in resource depletion, system dynamics modeling, climate science and renewable energy. He is member of the scientific committee of ASPO (Association for the study of peak oil) and regular contributor of "The Oil Drum" and "Resilience.org". 
https://cassandralegacy.blogspot.com/2019/07/the-brief-spring-of-global-science-how.html


SEE  PART I 

HEAT WAVE EUROPA THE WORLD IS AFLAME

This June was the hottest on record, beating out June 2016 -- so far the hottest year ever.

Numerous studies have shown that heatwaves such as the one that baked northern Europe this week are made more likely by climate change, and as man-made greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise, 2019 fits a general warming trend.

Full story: http://u.afp.com/J7xQ

JULY 2019 

THIS PAST WEEK JULY 14-27

July 22 at 8:34 PM · 

Parisians are bracing for potentially the hottest ever temperature in the French capital this week as a new heatwave blasts into northern Europe that could set records in several countries.

Temperatures were already topping 30 degrees Celsius (86 degrees Fahrenheit) on Monday in Paris, but the mercury could soar beyond 40C on Thursday and topple a record dating back to 1947.

Read story: http://u.afp.com/Jhb7 

Dozens of flights cancelled at UK's busiest airports as extreme UK weather wreaks havoc
BA grounds at least 40 flights, while easyJet cancels 10 to and from Gatwick alone

As Europe sweltered in the second record-breaking heatwave in a month, three peer-reviewed papers offered the most detailed overview of regional temperature trends dating back 2,000 years, reports Patrick Galey.

Asia Times | 20th-century warming ‘unmatched’ in 2,000 years | Article
Temperatures in the Little Ice Age and other anomalous periods didn’t rise 

or fall in global lock-step as assumed

The hot air that smashed European weather records this week looks set to move towards Greenland and could cause record melting of the world's second largest ice sheet, the United Nations said on Friday.

Europe's record heatwave threatens Greenland ice sheet

THE CLIMATE CRISIS IS GLOBAL

NATIONALISM IS A DETERRENT TO FIGHTING IT

THIS IS THE END RESULT OF CLEAN COAL

USING THE COAL BASED METHANE GAS 

FROM CARBON CAPTURE AND SEQUESTRATION (CCS)

 TO CREATE THE CO2 TO REVIVE OLD OIL WELLS

THE MYTH OF CARBON CAPTURE AND STORAGE,

IT’S NOT CLEAN OR GREEN

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=carbon+capture

Eugene Plawiuk,

5^th Class Certified Power Engineer

THE CLIMATE CRISIS IS GLOBAL NATIONALISM IS A DETERRENT TO FIGHTING IT
THE 99% OF THE WORLD UNITE!
YOU HAVE A WORLD TO WIN!

DEAR EARTHLINGS; ITS OFFICIAL WE ARE NOW EXPERIENCING

THE EARLIEST DAYS OF THE CLIMATE CRISIS WILL IT BRING OUR EXTINCTION, YES BUT NOT FOR THE 1% WHO PLAN TO HIDE AWAY WITH THEIR ILL GOTTEN WEALTH
THEY DON'T CARE BUT TO MAKE MONEY TILL THE END FRENCH
CHERES TERRES SES OFFICIELS, NOUS SOMMES EN TEMPS

QUI PEUVENT VIVRE LES PREMIERS JOURS DE LA CRISE DU CLIMAT APPORTERA-T-IL NOTRE EXTINCTION, OUI MAIS PAS POUR LES 1% QUI PREVIENT CACHER Loin de leur richesse indécise POURQUOI ILS NE SOIGNENT PAS MAIS POUR FAIRE DE L'ARGENT JUSQU'À LA FIN SPANISH

UERIDOS TERRENOS SU OFICIAL ESTAMOS AHORA EXPERIMENTANDO

LOS DÍAS MÁS ANTIGUOS DE LA CRISIS CLIMÁTICA LLEVARÁ NUESTRA EXTINCIÓN, SI PERO NO POR EL 1% QUE PLANEA OCULTAR LEJOS CON SU IGUALDAD DE LA RIQUEZA POR QUÉ NO LE IMPLICAN PERO HACER DINERO HASTA EL FINAL RUSSIAN
УВАЖАЕМЫЕ ЗЕМЛИ ЕГО ОФИЦИАЛЬНО МЫ СЕЙЧАС ОПЫТАЕМ

РАННИЕ ДНИ КЛИМАТИЧЕСКОГО КРИЗИСА ОСТАЕТ ЛИ НАШЕ ВЫМИРАНИЕ, ДА НО НЕ ДЛЯ 1% КТО ПЛАНИРОВАТЬ ВПЕРЕД ИХ БОЛЕЕ ПОЛУЧИЛО БОГАТСТВО ПОЧЕМУ ОНИ НЕ ЗАБЫВАЮТ, НО ЗАРАБАТЫВАЮТ ДО КОНЦА
UVAZHAYEMYYe ZEMLI YEGO OFITSIAL'NO MY SEYCHAS OPYTAYEM
RANNIYe DNI KLIMATICHESKOGO KRIZISA OSTAYET LI NASHE VYMIRANIYe, DA NO NE DLYA 1% KTO PLANIROVAT' VPERED IKH BOLEYe POLUCHILO BOGATSTVO POCHEMU ONI NE ZABYVAYUT, NO ZARABATYVAYUT DO KONTSA ESPERANTO
ĈAPITROJ Lia Oficejo Ni Nuntempe Spertas

la Fruajn Tagojn de la Klimata KRIZO I alportos nian esprimon, JES SED NE POR LA 1% KIU PLU LIAVAS Malproksima Kun Ilia Malvarmeta Riĉaĵo KIAL Ili ne zorgas SED FARAS MULTAJN ĜIS LA FINO HEBREW יבלות משרדנו אנו חווים כעת את הימים המוקדמים ביותר של משבר האקלים האם זה יביא את הכחול שלנו, כן אך לא ל -1% אשר מתכננים להסתיר הרחיק לכת עם עולמם העולמי למה הם לא דואגים אבל לעשות כסף עד הסוף ARABIC أعزائي الأرض مسؤولها نحن الآن في تجربة أقدم أيام الأزمة المناخية سوف يجلب لنا انقراض ، نعم ولكن ليس لخطة 1 ٪ الذين يختبئون بعيدا مع ثروتهم حصلت على الثروة لماذا لا يهتمون بكسب المال حتى النهاية

'aeizzayiy al'ard maswuwluha nahn alan fi tajribat 'aqdam 'ayam al'azmat almunakhia sawf yajlib lana ainqirad , nem walakun lays likhutat 1 % aladhin yakhtabiuwn beida mae tharwatihim hasalt ealaa altharwa limadha la yahtamun bikisab almal hataa alnihaya CHINESE SIMPLIFIED

亲爱的地球 它的官方我们现在正在经历气候危机最早的日子 它会带来我们的消极，是的 但不是1％的计划隐藏 离开他们的ILL GOTTEN财富 为什么他们不关心，但赚钱 直至最后

Qīn'ài dì dìqiú tā de guānfāng wǒmen xiànzài zhèngzài jīnglì qìhòu wéijī zuìzǎo de rìzi tā huì dài lái wǒmen de xiāojí, shì de dàn bùshì 1%de jìhuà yǐncáng líkāi tāmen de ILL GOTTEN cáifù wèishéme tāmen bù guānxīn, dàn zhuànqián zhízhì zuìhòu

[FOR OTHER LANGUAGES FEEL FREE TO TRANSLATE

I USED GOOGLE TRANSLATION FOR THESE

SORRY NO NATIVE AMERICAN LANGUAGE GROUPS

IN GOOGLE TRANSLATE LET THEM KNOW ]

Red-hot planet: All-time heat records have been set all over the world during the past week

Montreal, Glasgow, Belfast and Yerevan, Armenia, are among the international cities to set all-time-high temperatures.

Deforestation of the Amazon rainforest hits nearly three football fields per minute: report

 Alaska melts glaciers, hints at bigger problems that may be to come
Alaska's temperature has risen by 4 degrees Fahrenheit in the last 50 years, that's compared with 2 degrees for the rest of the planet.

No Climate Event in 2,000 Years 

Compares to What’s Happening Now

While parts of the world have warmed or cooled 

in the past, modern climate change is happening

just about everywhere at the same time.

Extinction Rebellion: Home

https://rebellion.earth/

We are facing an unprecedented global climate emergency. The government has failed to protect us. To survive, it's going to take everything we've got.

‎About Us · ‎Join Us · ‎Events · ‎Our Demands

Extinction Rebellion - Home | Facebook

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Extinction Rebellion.We are in a period of ecological devastation brought about by our own hands. We must..

International Extinction Rebellion

https://xrebellion.org/

International Non-Violent Rebellion Against the World's Governments for Criminal Inaction on the Ecological Crisis. WE DEMAND: >> Governments tell the truth

Extinction Rebellion - latest news, breaking stories and comment 

https://www.independent.co.uk/topic/extinction-rebellion

 Does Extinction Rebellion Have the Solution to the Climate Crisis?

The disconcerting thing about such radicalism, at this moment, is that it is the activists—rather than the state or law enforcement—who have the facts on their side. One of Extinction Rebellion’s favored tactics is to quote the first line of the executive summary of the 2018 report of the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change: “Limiting global warming to 1.5°C would require rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society.” On the day I visited, a study commissioned by the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce, a research organization which dates back to 1754, set a deadline of 2030 to fundamentally redesign British agriculture to withstand the climate crisis and worrying trends in public health. “What we eat, and how we produce it, is damaging people and the planet,” the report said. “This is not some dystopian future; this is happening here and now, on on our watch.”

THE CLIMATE CRISIS IS GLOBAL 

IT IMPACTS ALL OF US 

IT RECOGNIZES NO NATIONAL BOUNDARIES

THE CLIMATE CRISIS IS THE CRISIS OF CAPITALISM

SYSTEM CHANGE NOT CLIMATE CHANGE  

Can Ecosocialism Save The World

teleSUR English

Capitalism is killing the planet, what's the solution?

SEE: HEAT WAVE EUROPA THE WORLD IS AFLAME