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As editor in chief of Professional Remodeler, a lot of information crosses my desk. This blog will be a chance to share some of that with you, with an immediacy not possible with a monthly magazine. It's also your chance to tell me what you think about what I have to say. Whether you agree or disagree, I hope you won't be shy. Post here, write me at jonathan.sweet@reedbusiness.com or you can also follow me on Twitter at www.twitter.com/sweetedit.
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Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Does Geothermal Energy Cause Earthquakes?
Jun 24 2009 10:36AM | Permalink | Email this | Comments (1) |
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By Jonathan Sweet
I had never heard of this before, but apparently there is some evidence that deep drilling in bedrock for large geothermal projects can cause earthquakes. It happened in Basel, Switzerland, in 2006 and residents in Northern California are protesting a plan to use a similar method there in the near future.
The New York Times has the full story:
Power companies have long produced limited amounts of geothermal energy by tapping shallow steam beds, often beneath geysers or vents called fumaroles. Even those projects can induce earthquakes, although most are small. But for geothermal energy to be used more widely, engineers need to find a way to draw on the heat at deeper levels percolating in the earth’s core.
Some geothermal advocates believe the method used in Basel, and to be tried in California, could be that breakthrough. But because large earthquakes tend to originate at great depths, breaking rock that far down carries more serious risk, seismologists say. Seismologists have long known that human activities can trigger quakes, but they say the science is not developed enough to say for certain what will or will not set off a major temblor.
Reader Comments
at 7/17/2009 12:28:00 PM, Geo guy said:
Well, not, it''s not the drilling. It''s the injection of fluids into wells that have been drilled that causes this. This is true for both "standard" hydrothermal geothermal, which tends to be relatively shallow and have plenty of hot water already in place, and for Enhanced (or Engineered) Geothermal Systems, which enhance existing fractures in "tight" hot rock and introduce water into them to "mine" the heat. The NYT article is about the latter form. At issue is the shut down of an EGS project in Basel, Switzerland, in 2006 after it caused three quakes large enough to shake china from shelves and crack plaster of buildings close the the quake -- but not a single structure was damaged beyond repair.
AltaRock Energy, the U.S. EGS company mentioned in the article, is well aware of the events and circumstances that led to the Basel quakes, and intentially chosen a project location with well-understood earthquake behavior that its studies say can''t generate a quake, using their approach, like those in Basel. Also, big diff is Basel area has 200,000+ people, the town in question in California has almost 200.