OT. Fracking and earthquakes.

As I read it, the fracking itself didn't cause the earthquake. It was the disposal of wastewater from the fracking process, by deep injection, that caused the earthquake.

If it's likely to be a problem, just dispose of the wastewater in another way; it doesn't have to be by deep injection.

As I have said before, injecting water can trigger earthquakes that were going to happen anyway. It is, therefore, probably not a good idea to inject water into known major fault areas, unless you actually want to allow the fault to slip.

You may note that it was waste water disposal, not the fracking itself, that lead to this event. That suggests that waster water recycling is a better option in high risk areas. While we have many earthquakes every year in the UK, we don't have any major faults that are likely to give rise to large earthquakes.

Colin Bignell

Well very dependent on the geology and strength of the materials etc. After all its often common that small collapses inside coal mines have issues, some can even cause sincholes etc. Brian

Indeed, I knew a lady in Bristol whose house fell into old coal-mine workings (well, bits of it did).

"The wastewater was from traditional drilling, not the controversial hydraulic fracturing method."

Andy