Oklahoma Earthquakes Are a National Security Threat (bloomberg.com) 166
An anonymous reader writes: A Bloomberg article makes the case that the U.S. must consider the earthquake situation in Oklahoma a national security threat. The town of Cushing, OK is small — fewer than 10,000 people. But enough oil is stored there at times to eclipse the entire U.S. daily usage. "The oil in Cushing props up the $179 billion in West Texas Intermediate futures and options contracts traded on the New York Mercantile Exchange." In the wake of the September 11th attacks, government officials posted guards near the giant storage facilities; they're that important to the U.S. economy.
Unfortunately, the rising seismic activity in Oklahoma is putting those tanks at risk. The article argues that if a terrorist attack would threaten national security, so must an equally devastating natural disaster. This raises major questions for the legality of fracking, which has been linked to the increased number of earthquakes striking Oklahoma over the past decade. "Last month the Oklahoma Corporation Commission, which oversees oil and gas, ordered wells within three miles to shut down entirely and those between three and six miles from the town to reduce their volume by 25 percent."
Unfortunately, the rising seismic activity in Oklahoma is putting those tanks at risk. The article argues that if a terrorist attack would threaten national security, so must an equally devastating natural disaster. This raises major questions for the legality of fracking, which has been linked to the increased number of earthquakes striking Oklahoma over the past decade. "Last month the Oklahoma Corporation Commission, which oversees oil and gas, ordered wells within three miles to shut down entirely and those between three and six miles from the town to reduce their volume by 25 percent."
Classic anti-energy lobby technique (Score:5, Insightful)
A large oil tank farm is an example of infrastructure that can be threatened by a number of disasters, from tornados to terrorism. But as soon as you say "fracking", the swarms of small earthquakes that lubrication of shallow rock strata can create suddenly become much more important than other threats that are historically worse in the region. You can get the same effect by dropping "nuclear" into any discussion.
Re:Classic anti-energy lobby technique (Score:5, Funny)
But as soon as you say "fracking", the swarms of small earthquakes that lubrication of shallow rock strata can create suddenly become much more important than other threats that are historically worse in the region. You can get the same effect by dropping "nuclear" into any discussion.
. . . and there I was, thinking that I could get rich with "Nuclear Fracking"
. . .
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"Created with 3D Printed Nanobots!"
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Seriously.
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. . . Hollywood even made a movie about it, titled: "Crack in the World": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
As films tend to go in Hollywood with nukes and the Earth's crust, things go terribly, and viewed now, hilariously wrong.
I guess a re-make of this film today would be titled, "Frack in in the World" . . . ?
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Oh, don't worry, I'm sure Big Energy will just sue under some "free-trade" treaty agreement [www.cbc.ca] to get their way, regardless.
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Re:Classic anti-energy lobby technique (Score:4, Informative)
I've looked into this -- to the extent of searching for papers and incidents described in the academic literature using Google Scholar, so take this with a grain of salt -- and I've concluded that there are two clear environmental concerns with fracking. The first, of course, is carbon. The lower the price of carbon-based fuel the more of it we'll use. All things being equal that would be a good thing, but the point is that all things are not equal if we emit more carbon.
The wastewater issue is complex, in that it depends on the locality and the stage of development of fracking in the area. Thus far the industry has been quite good about handling wastewater -- my concern is in some of the fracking boom areas there aren't good disposal options yet for "flowback". The industry is dealing with this by re-using flowback, but while this is great in the boom phase of fracking it's going to be hard to sustain in an area when the rate of new well drilling begins to peak. Eventually there'll be more flowback than can be re-used, and as far as I can see there is no plan for dealing with that in some places. This could potentially leave the taxpayers with the cleanup bill. You also have to factor in what practices an industry is willing to undertake in a boom situation as opposed to the eventual scenario of declining profitability.
This is not a crisis; it's something we have time to deal with if there's the political will. The problem is that there usually isn't much political will for dealing with problems that will manifest in fifteen or twenty years' time.
Groundwater contamination is also a serious concern, although it is clearly a matter of each site's local geology. It's an area that needs more research.
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Heh (Score:2)
While the greed pigs make money hand over fist before stealing away in the dead of night, leaving nothing but destruction (and dead-end, labyrinthine LLC shell companies) in their wake.
Great plan!
Asteroids (Score:2)
You can get the same effect by dropping "nuclear" into any discussion.
I wish people would take the threat of gigantic boulders from outer space more seriously. The very existence of the human race is at stake.
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You can get the same effect by dropping "nuclear" into any discussion.
I wish people would take the threat of gigantic boulders from outer space more seriously. The very existence of the human race is at stake.
Time to retrofit a WW2 battleship with a wave motion engine, methinks.
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A large oil tank farm is an example of infrastructure that can be threatened by a number of disasters, from tornados to terrorism. But as soon as you say "fracking", the swarms of small earthquakes that lubrication of shallow rock strata can create suddenly become much more important than other threats that are historically worse in the region. You can get the same effect by dropping "nuclear" into any discussion.
That's just silly. Nuclear fracking would be counter-productive.
Re:Classic anti-energy lobby technique (Score:4, Informative)
Except if you live near oil producing areas using fracking and suddenly your well water becomes flammable:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new... [dailymail.co.uk]
http://ecowatch.com/2013/11/07... [ecowatch.com]
So while there may be some hysteria, I damned well would be hysteric if my drinking water suddenly became flammable.
In fairness, it isn't the fracking process that is directly causing the earthquake problem here -- it is disposing of the wastewater in certain deep wells that is causing the earthquake activity. I read somewhere that ninety percent of the earthquake activity is associated with less than ten percent of the wells, which tells me that if we are able to choose which wells we use for wastewater injection we can substantially solve this problem.
Ohio has had a similar, if less serious, problem:
http://www.livescience.com/493... [livescience.com]
For all that, this whole story sounds like we are watching a classic disaster movie unfold.
Re:Classic anti-energy lobby technique (Score:5, Informative)
Why did you include two links neither of which have to do with earthquakes?
Anyway, this isn't entirely accurate:
It's actually wastewater injection that's tied to increasing numbers of earthquakes. Now, fracking often uses wastewater injection. But other types of oil production sometimes do as well, and fracking doesn't always involve it. It's important to keep clear on just what the problem is.
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If you didn't notice that neither of your articles had to do with earthquakes, or that the topic under discussion here is earthquakes, then you're the one who needs coffee.
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Even if you're right, you can't win. *sighs* You must be bored. ;-)
We don't need facts around here! We've got poop flinging and screeching to do. At least, I'm pretty sure that most threads devolve into howler monkey territory.
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The links show fracking is safe.
They show absolutely nothing of the kind and this is just desperate bullshit from an anonymous coward. The truth over fracking is beginning to bite and be undeniable. The oil price is just the final nail in the coffin that makes cracking totally unviable.
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Like you did?
It worked didn't it?
Also, is it a relative thing ("other threats that are historically worse in the region"... what? the indians?)
Like tornadoes?
You know what, this is a terrible fallacy: I won't solve a secondary problem because there's a main one to solve first. Let's keep fracking until we need to get another main problem.
We have yet to get to a "main problem" in the first place.
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We have yet to get to a "main problem" in the first place.
Large amounts of oil are stored there specifically because there are few earthquakes. Oooops.
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It worked didn't it?
WP:POINT
Seriously though (Score:5, Funny)
Its a problem. A big one.
But are we going to start arresting earthquakes and sending them to Gitmo now?
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I stopped reading after the September 11th introduction.
I stopped reading after the first word in TFS. Seriously: Fuck. That. Place. I finally manage to leave (one of the worst places in the English-speaking world, in my not-so-humble opinion)... and the fucking shithole continues to follow me around on the web.
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This is why I don't believe most of the comments such as yours. If you'd actually traveled, you'd know that people are people pretty much anywhere you go. All those things you see as major problems are really trivial in the scope of things. If you go to most any (not totally impoverished or in a conflict area - I've visited both types) you'll find that the average person is just as content (or not) as they are anywhere else. The average government makes is just as retarded, no matter where you go. The avera
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If you'd actually traveled, you'd know that people are people pretty much anywhere you go.
Okay, okay; I lied: I wasn't actually in Oklahoma for ten years. Truth be told, I was in the Riviera... I just thought people would think I was cooler if I told them Muskogee. ;)
So, you've either never really been anywhere
Dammit, you're really forcing me to divulge everything, aren't you? Alright, alright, I admit: I've never been anywhere (mind you, I was under the impression that Oklahoma essentially counted as nowhere... but we'll defer to your holier-than-thou expert opinion on the subject). ;)
or are completely so self centered that you're unwilling to look around you to determine that your preconceived notions aren't actually correct
Rest assured, I'm plenty self-centered. ;) Nonetheles
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Oklahoma's not bad. I've been there - lots. I once got stuck in an ice storm there (2007ish) and was willing to drive but the tractor trailer trucks kept going off the road. I stopped at a hotel and they gave me the sale price 'cause I had one of those hotel fliers from the rest area. They were only supposed to honor it for one night and not on the weekends. I ended up staying a week. They not only gave me that rate, initially, but because I'd stayed the week they gave me the weekly rate.
People make up the
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>People make up the culture. And people is people. No matter where you go. They're inherently nice (and stupid).
I do great in places with stereotype white racist culture. Of course, my lily-white ass helps, and my ability to interface with people on their own level. And watch what I say.
Of course, a lot of these folks don't take a right shinin to "Joos", them "Nigras", and that "mooslim in the white house". Or "leeburuls", or "atheists", or"Catholicks" or Yankees or sassy wimmin, like that hillary or people that don't hanker to them flying the confederate flag,
Other than that, they are completely identical to
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Pretty much, yeah. I've yet to find one culture that didn't have their biases. I look Asian (I'm actually part Micmac, White, and Black African) and get along just fine regardless of where I go. I've been in places where my own government advised me not to go. Hell, I went to Egypt and was told, expressly, that I'd not be getting any help from the Embassy if things should fall apart. Every single group has its racial prejudices - they're often not seen as well because they live in more homogeneous societies
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I don't know what Utopia you live in Grammy Olsec and I've seen your otherwise brilliant posts over the years but I'm just not seeing what you're seeing. It's the same damned thing - everywhere. Err... It's turtles, all the way down. And, by enlarge, so long as you present yourself as being willing to be considerate of their culture - they tend to be pretty nice in return.
Of which yeah, I do tend to respect the culture, or at least don't say anything about it when in person. I think when people have problems, it's because they don't. respect the culture. My snarky comments are of course taking the stereotypes and amping them up a bit. The part that can be an issue is when people get hung up on racial characteristics, it's difficult to step outside those.
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I was kind of thinking it was amplified snark but that doesn't always come through in text. I was kind of baffled. I've read enough posts from you, over the many years now, to actually respect your opinions and insights. By enlarge, yeah, people suck but they're just people. People make the culture and it's different and we all suck in new and interesting ways. I really can't see a huge difference, when looked at it objectively, with *most* cultures. Hell, I suspect that the vast majority of people in N. Ko
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I've never seen somebody so triggered by the word "A" before.
Well, to be fair, it's in "Oklahoma" not once but twice!
It's how our politics work (Score:2)
I hate to admit it but I can
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The summary doesn't say it, but the issue here is fracking.
Did you read the summary? Its entire focus is that the recent earthquake swarm is caused by fracking (unlike the many similar earthquake swarms that area has had in the past, apparently).
This raises major questions for the legality of fracking, which has been linked to the increased number of earthquakes striking Oklahoma
Re:It's how our politics work (Score:4, Informative)
Did you read the summary? Its entire focus is that the recent earthquake swarm is caused by fracking (unlike the many similar earthquake swarms that area has had in the past, apparently).
I RTFA, and there might be some serious issues with it. It has some severe inconsistencies with the report it cites:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com... [wiley.com]
tl;dr version The report notes that increased fracking and the wastewater injection, if disposed in that manner, might be a problem. But the injection wells are the cause of the problem, not the nature of hydraulic fracking. Those injection wells have been there long before modern day fracking was around. Here's an abstract from Geology http://geology.gsapubs.org/con... [gsapubs.org]
The takeaway is that the culprit here is injection wells for wastewater, which by the way, is not only loaded with brine water, and toxic chemicals, but lubricating agents. It was proobably never a good idea, even when these injection wells were utilized well before modern day fracking - like the culprit wells in Oklahoma.
As noted before, we need to make the fracking fluid more environmentally benign. It won't ever be completely so, as brine is picked up in drilling. But simply pumping it back underground will just expose local fault lines over the years, and endangers a whole lot of folks and real estate.
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And it should be followed by a link to ISO 8601 [wikipedia.org] because American/European-style dates need to be eliminated.
And to answer your question, 9 divided by 11 equals approximately 0.81818181818182
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undergoing withdrawal eh?
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Re:Oh the Irony.. (Score:5, Informative)
Fracking may or may not be of negative environmental consequence, but it is the reinjection of production water into formations through SWD (salt water disposal) wells that is being blamed for the uptick in small earthquakes.
The floating top tanks are surrounded by earthen dams and the pipelines can be shut down almost instantly, so a disaster from earthquakes is pretty much FUD> don't panic.
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It's as if the oil disasters across the US just magically never happened.
Tell us about these "oil disasters" and we'll see if you're an idiot or not.
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Tell us about these "oil disasters" and we'll see if you're an idiot or not.
Fucking hell. You're an idiot before we need to discuss anything.
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You're an idiot before we need to discuss anything.
Since I'm not an idiot, I guess we'll just have to end the discussion then.
Devastating earthquakes (Score:4, Insightful)
Those 2-3 richter scale earthquakes could cause devastation. The security guards' "best Dad" coffee cups might fall onto the floor and break.
The 4.5 scale quake might even set off the alarms!
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Have you ever tried to tell your child that you broke the birthday gift they gave you and that they put so much work into?
Believe me, you'd prefer dealing with ruptured and exploding fuel tanks.
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Those 2-3 richter scale earthquakes could cause devastation. The security guards' "best Dad" coffee cups might fall onto the floor and break.
What about the little ceramic coffee cream dispensers that say "Lubbock TX" shaped like a cow that pours out of the mouth? Because they tried making one that poured from the udders like it should but the milk leaked onto the table. Then they tried raising the udders up right under the tail but it looked really weird and disgusting. Clearly we have some serious problems to solve in this country besides small earthquakes, like cow dispensers that barf milk. Who has the courage to stand up and decide that crea
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Error in summary (Score:1, Troll)
This raises major questions for the legality of fracking, which has been linked to the increased number of earthquakes striking Oklahoma over the past decade.
This isn't true. Even the EPA has been forced to admit that freaking is safe.
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How much did THAT cost? It's got to be more expensive to force the EPA to lie.
I think you're telling more literal truth than you anticipated.
Re:Error in summary (Score:5, Informative)
This raises major questions for the legality of fracking, which has been linked to the increased number of earthquakes striking Oklahoma over the past decade.
This isn't true. Even the EPA has been forced to admit that freaking is safe.
Pumping the used fracking water into wells might not be. When they do the drilling and fracking, they put chemicals in the water - some to make it slippery to aid in the fracking. There's no reason to believe they don't retain the same properties. Lubricate a fault line, don't be too surprised if it moves.
Fracking is almost certainly pretty safe. What I mentioned above might pose a problem. We've been doing fracking for a long time, and I think the big push now will be to research more environmentally safe or easily recyclable fracking fluid. Injection wells are just accidents waiting to happen.
Side note: After WW2, there was a lot of napalm left over, and they used it as a lubrication agent in fracking solutions for some time. I suspect a blowout could be pretty exciting.
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This isn't true. Even the EPA has been forced to admit that freaking is safe.
Well, as long as we get our freak on in a responsible manner.
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Fracking is absolutely safe. There is no way you could possibly get hurt by it.
As long as it's done far enough away, of course.
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The EPA also said that sulfoxaflor was safe.
http://www.reuters.com/article... [reuters.com]
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ATTENTION, it is of ABSOLUTELY CRUCIAL importance that NO ONE make a joke on this MOST DEADLY SERIOUS of issues. If you can't discuss this HORRIFIC RISK to my PRECIOUS PRECIOUS LIFE with all the seriousness of a HUMORLESS ASSHOLE about whose OPINION nobody CARES, well then.
Although to be fair, freaking has been known to cause an earthquake or two in MY house. OH BITCH NO I DIDN'T!!!
Actually, a Global Threat (Score:2, Funny)
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Dear God,
If you don't want earth to go to hell, you might have wanted to do a better job and invest more time than six friggin' days in its creation. Were you on a budget or something? Or did your superior tell you that you'd lose the bidding to the competition if you had to put in more than 6 man-days?
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Dear God,
If you don't want earth to go to hell, you might have wanted to do a better job and invest more time than six friggin' days in its creation. Were you on a budget or something?
(sshh, kids... Grampa is almost finished, this is the part of his rant about how, "Heaven must be in a bad neighborhood, 'cause it needs a gate!'.")
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Is that the atheist version of "holier than thou"?
Re: Actually, a Global Threat (Score:5, Funny)
Eskimo: 'If I did not know about God and sin, would I go to hell?'
Priest: 'No, not if you did not know.'
Eskimo: 'Then why did you tell me?'
What? How DARES that planet! (Score:2)
What cheek! How dares that planet threaten our national security! It's time to declare a War on Earth!
Wait... haven't we already?
so what? (Score:2)
These are private oil storage facilities. If they are being threatened by human activity, this can be sorted out in the courts. If they are being threatened by natural disasters, insurance and diversification can sort it out. Furthermore, we have insane amounts of oil in the "strategic petroleum reserves" all across the country, which could easily absorb even a total loss. There is absolutely no reason for the US government to get involved in this; it simply amounts to crony capitalism. It is even more idio
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The US supply network is basically a for profit just in time network that moves in cheap raw material, has it passed into a limited number complex plants and the resulting products move around the nation at a nice profit.
No good buying in expensive raw product, refining it and waiting for prices to go up again "soon". Better to pass on the production costs with a just in time production and final product transport method.
With news of wars, peace, other i
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None of your lengthy bloviations explain why tax payers or the government should get involved in this.
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Not many insurance companies would stay in profit or interested in the US oil sector for long if that human related site coverage was allowed to stand as the default legal finding.
Sites that fail due to well understood human activity will have to resort in some way to the "tax payers or the government". Think of it as a geological induced supe
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Quite the opposite: sites that fail due to well understood human activity should hold the people engaging in that activity responsible for the failure.
I have no idea what "extending clauses over human induced events" is eve
Terrorists! (Score:2)
Oklahoma Earthquakes are caused by wastewater injection wells, which are in need of regulation. Since the U.S. Congress are a bunch of weenies and won't pass anything rational, and since the Oklahoma government is largely owned by Oil and Gas, there won't be much done to resolve this until there is an expensive earthquake. It's not rocket science.
Perhaps we should take oil off the futures market? (Score:2)
Perhaps we should take oil off the futures market?
That way, if the worst happens, we won't have to worry about it collapsing, because it won't be there to collapse?
Wastewater Disposal is NOT Fracking... (Score:2)
As I understand it, the scientific consensus is that these earthquakes are the result of the former (which I consider the ultimate in 'sweeping under the rug'), not the latter.
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Perhaps you should read up how fracking works instead of writing nonsense like 'fracking is just the extraction of oil and gas'.
If that is the case, why is it only called fracking recently and was not called fracking when we simply used to drill a deep long hole?
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USGS Cite: https://profile.usgs.gov/mysci... [usgs.gov]
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Does not show that you are aware how fracking works :D If you where aware how it works, the rest of your post where not such nonsense.
And: learn to read. I did not argue that fracking necessarily causes earth quakes. In germany we had none due to fracking since 50 years (and that is roughly how long we do it).
More Bad On Oil (Score:2)
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use of oil and coal has propelled mankind into the modern age of increased health and lifespan, far outweighing all negative side effects. Don't diss it.
Sure, non-polluting energy sources would be better, and we'll continue build those largely using oil and coal for now
Prepare for impact (Score:2)
It seems like the much greater danger is the huge impact from the gigantic leap you took from fracking quakes (still unproven) to anything near a quake powerful enough to disrupt tanks strong enough to hold thousands of gallons of liquid - not to mention how much inertia those tanks have that is it's own resistance to quake damage.
A leap of that magnitude much have incalculable waves of every released on landing - thus I think we can all agree the frothing anti-fracking mind is the real danger here.
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Oil tanks have failed during several earthquakes.
Here is a presentation that calculates the risk based on tank construction and dimensions: https://idrc.info/fileadmin/us... [idrc.info]
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Yes, a MAJOR quake can affect tanks. But we are talking about, at worst, micro-quakes.
They would not be enough to overcome inherent large tank stability - not to mention the government probably ridiculously overbuilt the storage tanks for the strategic oil reserve...
Imagine This (Score:1)
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"The oil in Cushing props up the $179 billion in West Texas Intermediate futures and options contracts traded on the New York Mercantile Exchange."
This single sentence is all you need to know about the motivations behind the article. We wouldn't want the speculators, I mean investors in the oil industry, risking their money would we?
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I do play in the markets but I don't speculate on commodities. I think it would be interesting if those who speculated had to accept and store the commodities, however. That might help. I imagine you'd be less likely to speculate on hogsheads if you had to accept delivery and store 1,000,000 pounds of the stuff - same for oil.
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Well, obviously, you have a Cookie Monster infection....
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Actually it's not. What the intro blurb utterly failed to mention is that the the US petroleum pipeline distribution system is set up on what is essentially a spoke and hub system with the Cushing facility as the central node, and there is no redundancy. Catastrophic damage to Cushing shuts down the entire pipeline system and forces the products to be moved by truck and rail which is literally about an order of magnitude more expensive and there is not even close to enough rail and road tanker capacity to
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And in 20 years, everyone will wonder why nobody saw the end coming.
That is because they had their heads stuck up their ass.
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And in 20 years, everyone will wonder why nobody saw the end coming.
That is because they had their heads stuck up their ass.
Ostriches with their heads stuck in fracking well holes ...
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Re:Predictable responses (Score:4, Insightful)
Y'know, people were saying this when my daughter was a kid 20 years ago.
And they were saying this when I was a kid 40 years ago.
Hell, from what my Dad has told me, they were saying it when HE was a kid too....
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Yes, the idea goes back to Socrates and beyond. There are probably prehistoric cave drawings depicting the same thing.
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Guess you would know more that the Smithsonian [smithsonianmag.com], right, professor?
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Liberals... grow crops...?
You can't eat marijuana, dude. Other crops require more than lamps, you know.