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Natural gas drilling is causing earthquakes in Europe too
Natural gas drilling is causing earthquakes in Europe too
By John Lighton 19 Feb 2015commentsShare
Shell and ExxonMobil, as well as the Dutch government, ignored for decades that drilling in Europe’s largest gas field was causing earthquakes that put human lives and property at risk. That’s the takeaway of a new report out this week from an independent group advising the Dutch government.
As the natural gas beneath the Netherlands has dwindled in recent years, residents of Groningen County have experienced an increasing number of earthquakes. Last year, the area was hit with 84. The New York Times summarized what’s going on in a feature last summer:
A half-century of extraction has reduced the field’s natural pressure in recent years, and seismic shifts from geological settling have set off increasingly frequent earthquakes — more than 120 last year, and at least 40 this year. Though most of the tremors have been small, and resulted in no reported deaths or serious injuries, they have caused widespread damage to buildings, endangered nearby dikes and frightened and angered local residents.
Though the quakes started in the 1990s, the strongest came in 2012 when a 3.6 magnitude quake caused widespread damage to buildings in a region where structures were not designed to withstand seismic activity.
It was only after that quake that the government and the drilling company started taking the welfare of residents into account, according to the recently released findings of a year-long inquiry by the Dutch Safety Board, a government-funded but non-governmental organization.
“The Dutch Safety Board concludes that the safety of citizens in Groningen with regard to induced earthquakes had no influence on decision-making on the exploitation of the Groningen gas field until 2013. Until that time, the parties viewed the impact of earthquakes as limited: a risk of damage that could be compensated,” the report concluded.
Residents have been putting pressure on the Dutch government to force production cuts at the gas field, and it has responded; most recently, the government ordered a 16 percent cut for the first half of 2015 on top of cuts already in place. The field is a major source of revenue for the Dutch government, bringing in billions of euros each year. It also accounts for one third of the natural gas produced by the European Union.
The government and the joint venture between Shell and Exxon (NAM, short for Nederlandse Aardolie Maatschappij, of course) are also trying to win over Groningen residents by paying for damages. From the Times:
The company and various government authorities have also agreed on a five-year, €1.2 billion package to repair and reinforce homes and other buildings, including more than 20 of the medieval churches in the region that have sustained substantial damage.
This all raises questions about U.S. natural gas production and earthquakes. In recent years, wastewater disposal from fracking has caused a dramatic uptick in earthquakes in a number of states; Oklahoma has been hit particularly hard. Though the geological processes involved with the Dutch quakes are different — and Groningen was developed using traditional drilling, not fracking — some of the policy questions are the same. Namely: How bad do earthquakes have to get before the state or federal government considers limiting production?
At the moment, the more business-friendly U.S. government isn’t looking at curtailing fracking. In fact, one state hit by a recent spate of earthquakes, Ohio, is making sure that local authorities don’t interfere with state decisions about when and where drilling is allowed.
In Groningen, the relationship between the gas company and local residents got quite bad before things started to turn around. And at this point it might be too late. “NAM has spoiled trust over the last 20 to 30 years,” Jacques Wallage, a former member of the Dutch cabinet and a former mayor of Groningen, told the Times last summer. “The main question is, Can you rebuild trust?”
Oil and gas drillers across America may someday be forced to cough up an answer to the same question. But for now, fracking in the U.S. just continues — and Americans can only dream of getting more than a billion bucks to compensate for quake damage.
Source:
Earthquake Dangers in Dutch Gas Field Were Ignored for Years, Safety Board Says
, The New York Times.
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Mounties claim anti-oil activists are a threat to Canada
Mounties claim anti-oil activists are a threat to Canada
By John Lighton 18 Feb 2015commentsShare
If you consider yourself part of the “anti-petroleum movement,” you’ve joined ranks with violent individuals who pose a threat to Canadian security, and who warrant close scrutiny from the intelligence wing of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
That’s the main thrust of a “protected/Canadian eyes only” document from January 2014. It was obtained by the French-language Canadian newspaper La Presse. Shawn McCarthy reports, in English, for the Canadian Globe and Mail:
In highly charged language that reflects the government’s hostility toward environmental activists, an RCMP intelligence assessment warns that foreign-funded groups are bent on blocking oil sands expansion and pipeline construction, and that the extremists in the movement are willing to resort to violence.
“There is a growing, highly organized and well-financed anti-Canada petroleum movement that consists of peaceful activists, militants and violent extremists who are opposed to society’s reliance on fossil fuels,” concludes the report which … was obtained by Greenpeace.
“If violent environmental extremists engage in unlawful activity, it jeopardizes the health and safety of its participants, the general public and the natural environment.”
While painting environmental activists as a violent threat — referring specifically to Greenpeace, Tides Canada, and Sierra Club Canada — the report also casts doubt on their motivations. More from The Globe and Mail:
The report extolls the value of the oil and gas sector to the Canadian economy, and adds that many environmentalists “claim” that climate change is the most serious global environmental threat, and “claim” it is a direct consequence of human activity and is “reportedly” linked to the use of fossil fuels.
Never mind that the vast majority of scientists make the same wacky claims.
The report also suggests that the anti-petroleum crowd is doing the bidding of foreign funders, a claim also made recently by Canadian politicians. (Governments in countries with murkier records on freedom of speech than Canada sometimes use similar logic to stymie their own domestic environmental activists. See: Russia, India.)
Activists in the U.S. are under increased scrutiny too. As Grist’s Heather Smith wrote last week, the FBI has been contacting American anti–tar sands activists at home, at work, and at their parents’ houses. Many of the activists had blocked roads in the U.S. while trying to prevent the movement of oil-extraction equipment headed for the Canadian tar sands. Larry Hildes, a lawyer representing a number of these activists, told Smith that it was unclear what the agency was up to.
Conservatives in the Canadian parliament have, meanwhile, been pushing a bill that would expand the country’s intelligence agency’s ability to investigate “activity that undermines the security of Canada,” potentially through “interference with critical infrastructure.” Though the bill is ostensibly aimed at targeting Islamic fundamentalists, it could also allow the government to keep closer tabs on environmental groups. And now this leaked document may be an indication of an intelligence community that is gearing up to get more aggressive.
“What is genuinely alarming about the RCMP document is that, when combined with the proposed terrorism bill, it lays the groundwork for all kinds of state-sanctioned surveillance and ‘dirty tricks,’” Keith Stewart, a climate campaigner for Greenpeace, wrote in a blog post. Considering that Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper is a climate denier known for muzzling scientists in his own government, we wouldn’t put any dirty tricks past him.
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Now we can watch the oceans acidify in real time
Now we can watch the oceans acidify in real time
By Amelia Urryon 18 Feb 2015commentsShare
We have a new way to measure ocean acidification … from space! Just as it did for the rotary phone and the which-way-is-my-weathervane-pointing meteorology, satellite technology will give a big boost to the tech available to monitor ocean chemistry, according to new research. Scientists previously relied on a patchy network of buoys, ships, and lab tests to monitor acidification. By combining satellite measurements of salinity and other ocean variables, scientists can now paint a near-instantaneous picture of the ocean’s acid baseline at any one time.
And, bonus points: It turns out that five years of changing ocean chemistry is pretty mesmerizing:
Here’s more from Climate Central:
The new monitoring techniques can help monitor hot spots such as the Bay of Bengal, the Arctic Ocean, and the Caribbean, three places where ocean acidification could have major economic impacts but where little research has been done.
New monitoring efforts may come in particularly useful in the coming months, when the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says there is a risk of major coral bleaching in the tropical Pacific and Indian Oceans through May, an event that may rival severe bleaching that occurred in 1998 and 2010. Some island nations in the tropical Pacific including Kiribati, Nauru and the Solomon Islands are already seeing ocean conditions that can cause bleaching.
Source:
Ocean Acidification, Now Watchable in Real Time
, Climate Central.
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Posted in Anchor, FF, GE, LG, Mop, Nespresso, ONA, Radius, Uncategorized
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