Fracking, Cheap Electricity, and Earthquakes
There is mounting evidence that the controversial process of Hydraulic Fracturing in the natural gas industry is the cause of local earthquakes in such states as Texas, Arkansas and Pennsylvania.
First, the good news. Many market observers believe that the widespread adoption of hydraulic fracturing in the natural gas industry has contributed substantially to the dramatic price declines in gas and electricity over the last three years. This is very significant in the southern states where a large portion of the region's electricity comes from natural gas power plants.
Texas in particular receives over half of its electricity from natural gas. Since the dramatic collapse in natural gas prices that started in 2008, Texas has seen rates decline by over 50%. For example, electricity rates in Dallas have fallen from 14¢ per kwh at the 2008 peaks to around 6.5¢ per kwh.
However, a growing list of environmental concerns threatens the long term viability of hydraulic fracturing technology, and these are not just the environmental concerns we are all used to hearing about, such as water pollution, carbon emissions and the like. Earthquakes have been added to the list of concerns.
The first response to these claims may be to dismiss them as conspiracy theory. But the circumstantial evidence is compelling. Take, for example, the situation in Arkansas. Soon after operations began at two waste water reinjection wells the ground began to shake. People who lived in the area were treated to over 800 quakes in a 6 month period including a magnitude 4.7 earthquake in February of 2011. The Arkansas Oil and Gas Commission was convinced of a link between the wells and the earthquakes and ordered a halt to the wells. The earthquakes dramatically declined following the shutdown of the wells.
There are other such examples. The Dallas/Fort Worth area, an area not accustomed to the ground shaking, experienced over 100 small earthquakes in the 6 months after the opening of a similar reinjection well in 2008. In 2010 researchers from Southern Methodist University and the University of Texas at Austin wrote in a paper published in the Society of Exploration Geophysicists' that the activity related to the wells was a "plausible cause" of the earthquakes.
To be clear, the link between natural gas fracking and earthquakes is far from conclusive from a scientific standpoint. However, if you are a homeowner whose house is being shaken from its foundation the burden of proof is far lower. And no amount of cheap electricity is going to assuage those concerns.
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