
South Korea accepts geothermal plant probably caused destructive quake - bookofjoe
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-00959-4
======
reallymental
\---- From the article:

A South Korean government panel has concluded that a magnitude-5.4 earthquake
that struck the city of Pohang on 15 November 2017 was probably caused by an
experimental geothermal power plant....

Unlike conventional geothermal plants, which extract energy directly from hot
underground water or rock, the Pohang power plant injected fluid at high
pressure into the ground to fracture the rock and release heat — a technology
known as an enhanced geothermal system....

\---

This is both horrifying and incredible. They managed to fracture enough rock
to generate energy contained in a mag-5.4 earthquake.

That's around 200 KT of TNT [0]. That's a lot of useful energy if contained. I
wonder what the efficiency of the plant would be then.

South Korea already has 23 nuclear plants though [1], I wonder why they
decided to go this route, perhaps easier setup and lower associated costs ?

[0]
[https://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/energy/energ...](https://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/energy/energy-
hurricane-volcano-earthquake3.htm)

[1] [http://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-
pro...](http://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-
profiles/countries-o-s/south-korea.aspx)

~~~
acidburnNSA
> South Korea already has 23 nuclear plants though [1], I wonder why they
> decided to go this route, perhaps easier setup and lower associated costs ?

Despite South Korea being among the only countries that can currently do
successful large nuclear builds, South Korea's government is fairly anti-
nuclear, reflecting fear of the public post-Fukushima [1]. This is really sad
because the skilled workers and construction management expertise required to
accomplish this are very rare, and this team could be instrumental in very
rapidly decarbonizing the world if deployed strategically. S. Korea also has
some of the best shipyards. Turning them into assembly lines for GW-scale
nuclear plants (floating or embanked) is one of the more interesting ways to
rapidly and cheaply build out terawatts of clean, safe energy [2].

[1] [https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jun/19/new-south-
kore...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jun/19/new-south-korean-
president-vows-to-end-use-of-nuclear-power)

[2] [https://news.mit.edu/2015/new-look-floating-nuclear-
power-06...](https://news.mit.edu/2015/new-look-floating-nuclear-power-0624)

~~~
madez
A floating nuclear plant sounds like of one the most dangerous things a
society can do. One of the problematic aspects of atomic fission energy plants
are their failure behaviour. One of the most important aspects there is the
containment of the pollution (in Fukushima they literally freeze the ground
water under the plant so it is contained from below, too). If you are free
floating in water, possibly even an ocean, you are about as uncontained as you
can possibly get.

~~~
acidburnNSA
That's a common reaction, but it doesn't stand to much scrutiny. Before
radiation gets to the public, about 4 or 5 different barriers have to fail.
The first is the fuel pin, then the cladding metal, then the coolant itself
(which can often absorb problematic fission products), then the reactor
vessel, then the containment, and then dispersal. You're focusing on
containment/dispersal.

But how do the first ones fail? The answer is that lack of decay heat removal
allows the earlier barriers to heat up, melt, and fail. Well, if you have an
intimate connection to an infinite heat sink (the sea), you don't ever lose
decay heat cooling. You can't! So your fuel and clad stay intact in almost all
scenarios.

Earthquakes? No problem, the sea buffers you. Tsunamis? No problem, stay in
moderately deep water and the wavelengths are so long that you'll barely
notice them. Heavy weather? The world's largest ship (Prelude) is designed to
stay operating (it's a LNG facility) during Cat 5 cyclones. Military attack?
Sink and cool passively until a designed recovery operation can occur Ship
collision? Stay out of shipping lanes; worse case, sink and don't leak.

Also, keep people out of your exclusion zone by being a few km offshore.

Honestly it's a pretty slick low-carbon rapid deployment scenario that
improves construction cost and safety. Operation will likely be more
expensive, but maintenance maybe not (since you can go home to the shipyard
and be relieved by a spare).

~~~
bronson
Most energy profit comes from externalizing the costs. Floating reactors would
do that fantastically!

Love the "sink and don't leak" requirement.

~~~
acidburnNSA
Better stated: sink and don't leak because you are intimately linked to a
near-infinite heat sink, and heating up/melting are a prerequisite to leaking.

~~~
DoctorOetker
that doesn't discuss corrosion though, the ocean is full of salt, how many
half-lives until corrosion prevents containment?

~~~
acidburnNSA
The ocean would take a while to corrode through a couple dozen cm of steel,
especially in cold water. But you're right that eventual leakage is a concern.
A viable design of this kind of system would have to come with a sink-safely-
and-cool design fully engineered as well as a designed recovery process. In
other words, it should be expected that a recovery and disposal operation will
be required (even though it's unlikely to be needed). This system should be
designed so the salvage/recovery operation is easy.

Nuclear accidents generally worry about something called Large Early Release
Frequency. Some of the most bioactive/dangerous fission products decay away in
a few days. This kind of scenario completely eliminates those FPs from
concern, though we do still have to worry about the longer-lived ones.

~~~
DoctorOetker
is that assuming steel at the same temperature as the surrounding salt still
water, or assuming steel that is hotter than the constantly convecting stream
of fresh salty water?

~~~
acidburnNSA
The way the heat transfer would work in this scenario would have small
temperature gradients on the outermost layer of heat transfer because steel
and water are good heat transfer mechanisms.

This isn't hypothetical. This list may interest you:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sunken_nuclear_submari...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sunken_nuclear_submarines)

~~~
DoctorOetker
I wasn't asking about a list of sunken submarines?

~~~
acidburnNSA
They are scuttled floating nuclear reactors at the bottom of the sea. These
are real-life examples very similar to the scenario you are inquiring about.
They have not corroded away and released wholesale nuclear waste after many
decades. If that's not relevant to your line of inquiry then I must be totally
misunderstanding you.

~~~
DoctorOetker
quoting myself, emphasis added:

>... the ocean is full of salt, how many _half-lives_ until corrosion prevents
containment?

quoting you:

>They have not corroded away and released wholesale nuclear waste _after many
decades_. If that's not relevant to your line of inquiry then _I must be
totally misunderstanding you._

You don't misunderstand me, you purpousely misinterpret my questions so you
can give easy answers...

~~~
acidburnNSA
Ah, I see what's going on here. Please review the HN guidelines.

I-131 has an 8-day half-life and is the primary threat to populations in large
early releases. The direct answer to your question for I-131 is at least 2,000
half-lives. Sr-90 and Cs-137 have 30-year half lives, so for them it's at
least 2. As you surely know, the longer half-life nuclides release energy more
slowly and are therefore less dangerous to biological systems. At the extreme,
U-238 has a few billion year half-life and can be handled safely without
shielding.

In the scenario I'm painting, the reactor would be recovered from the sea
within ~5 years so none of this matters. The corrosion will not fail the
system within those 5 years. I do not propose to just leave any failed reactor
down there indefinitely.

~~~
DoctorOetker
You must be referencing the following rule:

>Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone
says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith.

Which is exactly what I was accusing you of before you reflected the
accusation. Please note there are 2 components in this rule:

1\. Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone
says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize.

2\. Assume good faith.

I will discuss part 1 in the context of our discussion, but first point out
that 2: does not mandate to _keep and maintain the a priori assumption of good
faith_ , it only mandates to _assume good faith_.

Now for part 1, lets personally dissociate and review the discussion as being
held by Alice and Bob:

After Bob states,

>Better stated: sink and don't leak because you are intimately linked to a
near-infinite heat sink, and heating up/melting are a prerequisite to leaking.

Alice _asks_ a concise question:

>that doesn't discuss corrosion though, the ocean is full of salt, how many
half-lives until corrosion prevents containment?

and later Alice adds the question:

>is that assuming steel at the same temperature as the surrounding salt still
water, or assuming steel that is hotter than the constantly convecting stream
of fresh salty water?

All the while Alice is a priori assuming good faith on behalf of Bob.

Now Bob can give multiple interpretations to Alice's question, and he is
required to _please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what
someone says, not a weaker one that 's easier to criticize._

Bob can use interpretation 1 interpreting Alice as Alice1 implying all of the
following:

* 1A) Alice is worried about shortlived isotopes

* 1B) moreover she seems to believe steel corrodes in a matter of days in the salty sea, Alice probably never heard of the Titanic recovery, Alice believes that ships can't be reused because after every trip they are decommisioned and a new ship is built for every trip.

* 1C) Also Alice seems to be unaware that Iodine is the most easily mitigated isotope since we can bulk manufacture Iodine tablets containing non-radioactive isotopes.

* 1D) Alice seems to be uninformed about all the above topics despite referencing concepts like nuclear half lives, the corrosion of metal in salty water, convection of hot water in cold water, and the concentration and saturation of metal ions in aquaous solutions...

This interpretation of Alice is easy to criticize, for obvious reasons

or Bob can use interpretation 2 interpreting Alice as Alice2:

* 2A) Alice is worried about _longlived_ isotopes

* 2B) Alice is worried about the influence of energy release in the long tail of nuclear decay: consider a simple system of N identical unstable isotopes decaying to a stable isotope (thats ignoring the worse long decay _chains_ ), after one half life, half the number of remaining radioactive particles has halved, but half of the energy that will eventually be released as _heat_ (not temperature!) is still contained in that long tail. Alice wonders if that energy can speed up the corrosion process on _long time scales_. When salty water dissolves metal, theres a thin layer of water that is saturated by dissolved metal which acts in a self-limiting way. But if the heat causes convection, that thin layer of saturated water will be constantly replenished with fresh unsaturated salty water. Similarily evaporation is much enhanced if convection or wind carries away the saturated air, which is why we like to hang our clothes to dry outside...

If Bob chooses interpretation 1 (which is easier to criticize) over
interpretation 2, then it is _Bob_ who is acting in violation of part 1 of the
rule from the guidelines...

If Bob then at some point replies "They have not corroded away and released
wholesale nuclear waste after many decades." Then Alice _can only conclude_
that Bob has chosen the weaker interpretation Alice1 over Alice2. At that
point she simply corrects her _a priori assumption_ that Bob is acting in good
faith, and she _explicitly points it out_.

Then Bob escalates by reflecting the identical accusation in a vague reference
to the guidelines, simply because Alice is open about her _founded_ conclusion
on Bob's behaviour, while Bob never explicitly states he chooses
interpretation Alice1 over Alice2 even though it is evident to any reader...
Alice _did assume good faith_ on behalf of Bob, but Bob's replies _imply_ he
chose the weaker interpretation Alice1. That is unless Bob genuinely believes
people like Alice think ships are one-time-use items, that Iodine tablets do
not exist, ...

I hope someone (dang?) who can prove their association with the platform can
clear this up, perhaps in your favour perhaps in mine (don't care really, I
would just like clarity / precedent, so that we maintain equality before the
guidelines)

 __*

Also you keep changing attention to a lesser problem of containment, the
short-lived nuclides, for example you state:

>Nuclear accidents generally worry about something called Large Early Release
Frequency.

Why are you personifying the accident events? Surely you mean nuclear experts
instead of accidents? Let me explain why they focus on the short-lived
nuclides: because they can be affordibly mitigated with measures like Iodine
tablets. abstaining from eating produce from the affected area for a few days,
etc...

The longer lived ones are not necessarily safer, they are simply not
affordibly mitigatable over longer timespans! (In case of consumption, the
shortlived ones have a higher activity of course, but the longer-lived ones
with a lower activity would be consumed for long timespans, such that DNA
damage can integrate over time)

 __*

Regardless of these issues, would you consider it prudent for mankind to
explicitly define an absolute _reference_ background energy-spectrum of radio-
activity? i.e. for each gamma energy bin some typical but from then on fixed
reference background activity? Because the only references to background I
find are currently comparing with whatever local background is found away from
a target of investigation, which is good enough on short timescales, but how
will future generations be able to compare their background with ours? It
seems we keep assuming that the natural background can not be influenced by
human activity, which seems dangerously close to the original fallacy that
human activity can not influence atmospheric CO2 concentration...

------
duchenne
Just to clarify. The source of the energy of this earth quake was not man-
made. It was pre-existing gravitational potential energy.

Similarly, a low-energy scream in the montain can trigger a high-energy
avalanche.

~~~
jfindley
> Similarly, a low-energy scream in the montain can trigger a high-energy
> avalanche.

While this is a popular myth, it's actually entirely false. You can shout and
scream all you want - there's not enough energy transmitted to the snowpack to
actually trigger an avalanche (by at least two orders of magnitude). This has
been debunked by multiple studies, one example here:
[http://www.gblanc.fr/IMG/pdf/reuter2009.pdf](http://www.gblanc.fr/IMG/pdf/reuter2009.pdf)

~~~
sandworm101
It is one of those areas where definitions matter more than reality. Many
avalanches happen without external input. At a fraction of a second before one
will happen, any extra energy will "cause" it to happen slightly earlier than
otherwise. So one could biuld a situation where a shout, or a mouse, could
indeed cause an avalanche.

It is like heating a pot of water to 100c. It is about to boil. Shout at it
and it will start to boil a picosecond faster than if you didnt shout at it.
Be really careful with the temperature and maybe your shouting makes it boil
when otherwise it never would.

~~~
Retric
Not all potential avalanches happen. As a positive feedback loop the
difference between an avalanche that does or does not happen can be
arbitrarily small.

Back country snowboarding is a great example where small avalanches are much
more common even if most of them don’t become significant. But, because the
many small avalanches happen close together they are much more likely to grow.
This is also why sound is more effective than you would expect, getting a huge
number of tiny avalanches to happen at the same time makes it significantly
more likely to form a large one.

------
whatshisface
If the energy was building up anyways, then wouldn't it have come out in an
earthquake eventually? In fact, the later earthquake would have been worse.
Maybe people will start intentionally fracking near earthquake zones on a
regular basis to prevent the energy buildup from becoming dangerous.

~~~
dhimes
Yes. In fact, years ago it was suggested that we do that for the San Andreas
Fault to prevent a catastrophic "big one" release.

I read occasionally that fracking causes earthquakes, too. While there is
controversy around fracking, I see the systematic de-stressing of the earth's
surface as a benefit.

~~~
lightedman
"I see the systematic de-stressing of the earth's surface as a benefit. "

Those of us in geological fields totally disagree with you. If you start a
small earthquake in San Andreas, say up in the northwestern section, you can
trigger a full-length chain reaction that culminates in unleashing the big one
which will rip all the way through Mexico. What is worse is that the
earthquake will get stronger as it propagates along the fault line. What you
call the big one in the northwest section where it all began is thousands of
times weaker than what gets felt further down the fault.

~~~
pathseeker
So you would rather just wait for it to randomly unleash as the big one?

~~~
ineedasername
It does seem better than purposely releasing the big one, or doing so
accidentally, which would be a risk until we can build much more sophisticated
models that would guide these release efforts.

------
PaulHoule
"Hot Dry Rock" geothermal was pioneered by people at Los Alamos:

[http://coloradogeologicalsurvey.org/energy-
resources/geother...](http://coloradogeologicalsurvey.org/energy-
resources/geothermal-2/uses-2/enhanced-geothermal-systems/)

It was a strange story. It started out with ideas for super-high-temperature
mobile reactors that could melt a shaft ten miles down to tap geothermal
energy. In the early 1970s the enthusiasm for that kind of thing declined, so
they got an idea to tap geothermal energy using "fracking" technology which
existed back then but wasn't anywhere near as capable as it is today.

One thing I remember about their work is that they didn't observe any
fracking-related seismic activity at all: when you frack sedimentary rock you
get the rapid formation of large cracks with obvious seismic activity. At
least in that experiment they found that fracking would open up micro cracks
in bedrock slowly and that there was no obvious activity from it.

------
nemacol
I wonder how close this process is to hydraulic fracturing to extract fossil
fuels. Is the volume of liquid pumped into the ground similar? I imagine
geothermal is pumping more and deeper to get to where the earth is warmer, but
I am not sure.

In my area, Pittsburgh Tristate area (WV,OH,PA) fracking is big business.
Seems we are fortunate to not have a major fault line running through the
area.

edit - clarifying that I am talking about fracking for fossil fuels

~~~
torqueTorrent
Perhaps this could be thoroughly tested by performing high-pressure hydraulic
fracking in very close proximity to gas pipelines.

------
zubspace
Something like this happened in Basel, Switzerland in 2007 [1]. I remember
that during their work on the enhanced geothermal system small quakes were
triggered in the region. They had to cancel the project thereafter.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induced_seismicity_in_Basel](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induced_seismicity_in_Basel)

------
emiliobumachar
Interesting. I always assumed that the energies involved in major earthquakes
were far too large for us to affect them in any way.

If we can cause them, I wonder, will we be able to prevent the natural ones as
our knowledge increases?

~~~
pmontra
Earth's crust "wants" to move. One thing is triggering an earthquake by
fracking, another one is stopping the crust with all the mantle below pushing
heat into it. That heat has to go somewhere. I guess the best we'll reasonably
do is forecasting quakes.

~~~
granos
Hypothetically, if you could cause earthquakes in a controlled way, it may be
possible to perform periodic small stress relief quakes rather than allowing
one big one to occur naturally. We can't stop it moving, but maybe we can make
it move on our terms.

~~~
eloff
Exactly, this seems like an interesting avenue to explore.

~~~
pmontra
I think to remember that wet faults (as in "there is water mixed with the
rocks") slide more frequently that dry faults and yield energy in less
powerful bursts. If so, lubrificating faults could be a solution.
Unfortunately I found a paper from 2017 [1] that suggests that it's not so
simple. There are many more micro conditions that can trigger an earthquake.

[1]
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5580450/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5580450/)

------
lxe
I wonder if someday we'd be able to trigger small earthquakes to release
pressure gradually and prevent larger and more destructive earthquakes.

~~~
Merad
Seems unlikely, because the Richter scale is logarithmic. For example, to
bleed off the energy released by this magnitude 5.4 earthquake, you'd have to
trigger 125000 magnitude 2.0 quakes. Fun little calculator on the USGS site:
[https://earthquake.usgs.gov/learn/topics/calculator.php](https://earthquake.usgs.gov/learn/topics/calculator.php)

~~~
invalidOrTaken
Sure, but isn't this literally just a notation convention?

There's big quakes and there's little quakes. But energy is still linear. The
fact that a quake releasing 1/3 of the energy of a 6.0 is not _denoted_ as 2.0
quake, does not mean that it isn't releasing 1/3 of the energy.

I'm not a quakologist. Am I wrong?

------
mchannon
California had best take heed: The Geysers and Salton Trough have taken way
more heat out of the Earth, and I would argue delayed, shifted, and
intensified the big one the Hayward Fault is overdue for.

There's been a great deal of ridicule placed on opponents of geothermal
energy, saying that geothermal could never contribute to an earthquake. I'm
hopeful the ridicule will start to go away now.

~~~
bunderbunder
At least according to the second paragraph of TFA, the problem wasn't the
amount of energy they took out of the ground. It was all the fracking.

~~~
ThomPete
Which shouldn't be confused with the type of fracking we normally do.

~~~
vonmoltke
How is it different?

~~~
ThomPete
Normal fracking doesent create earthquakes.

~~~
bunderbunder
I've not seen a credible source say that.

The closest I've seen is sources saying that fracking itself only explains a
minority of the increase in earthquakes in places like Oklahoma, and that the
majority are more properly attributed to other things, particularly the
wastewater injection wells that fracking operations use to dispose of all the
wastewater that fracking produces.

Which is such an amazingly damn hair-splitty distinction to most of us, but I
can see where a spin doctor could have lots of fun with it.

------
kijin
It's unlikely that all of that energy was injected into the earth by humans.
The high-pressure fluid injection generated cracks and lubricated the
surrounding rock, facilitating a release of existing stresses. The area around
Pohang is riddled with faults. There's a lot of energy down there just waiting
to be released.

South Korea, like most other developed nations, is trying to increase the use
of renewable energy. There are many hot springs in Korea, especially around
active faults. Geothermal is an obvious candidate in those areas. Of course
they're also doing wind and solar where feasible.

------
tomkat0789
I'm seeing a lot of folks making a connection between hydraulic fracturing in
the US and this earthquake. In fact, the earthquakes in Oklahoma were caused
by waste water wells:
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Injection_well](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Injection_well)

Fracking is happening all over the US (Appalachians, the Dakotas, Texas), but
for some reason Oklahoma only gets the quakes. I think it's because only
Oklahoma has these bad wastewater wells. Apologies, can't find the sources I
found a few years ago that convinced me of this.

~~~
dmos62
Statistics for increase in rate of earthquakes in US:
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Cumulative_induced_seis...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Cumulative_induced_seismicity.png)

The keyword is induced seismicity. I hadn't heard of that before.

------
bitL
Was there a similar causality between Puna Geothermal and the vigorous lava
vent popping up next to it that was entertaining us last year, extending Big
Island of Hawai'i by a large chunk, covering whole Kapoho Bay?

------
bsder
Side question: why did a magnitude 5.4 quake cause so much grief?

A 5.4 is a quake where Californians finally start paying attention, but
generally doesn't cause a lot of grief unless something very unlucky happens.

------
crimsonalucard
Nuclear obviously has its risks. Exploring alternatives is a viable strategy.
Also do not be mistaken to think that nuclear power is unlimited. It requires
the mining of a resource that is very very limited.

------
mr_overalls
Next step: harness energy released by earthquakes.

------
rgrieselhuber
Sounds like something out of a conspiracy theory.

~~~
olliej
What? There is a huge amount of data demonstrating that the rate of
earthquakes increases significantly anywhere that any fracking happens, and
the rate of increase is proportional to the amount of fracking that occurs in
the region.

What is the conspiracy theory here?

------
randyrand
Could we use this method to prevent large quakes by splitting them into a
series of smaller ones?

~~~
httpz
Earthquake magnitudes are in logarithmic scale so magnitude 1.0 difference is
32 times more energy. So to break up a 7.0 earthquake into a series of 5.0
earthquakes, it'll take 1000 small earthquakes. With our current technology
it's not very feasible.

~~~
randyrand
Im well aware.

------
daodedickinson
So some of those conspiracy theories about earthquake weapon tests could be
credible?

------
_bxg1
And here I thought earthquakes were the one kind of natural disaster we still
couldn't bring upon ourselves

------
deathhand
Would this be the first nation to denounce fracking?

~~~
ptah
no, there is quite a long list of countries that banned it. also a few
counties and states in US have also banned it

------
booleandilemma
I wonder if any countries are trying to weaponize this?

~~~
ceejayoz
I suspect we'd notice if North Korea started drilling wells in California.
It's not exactly a suitcase nuke level of concealability.

~~~
interestica
South Korea accidentally discovered a bunch of tunnels that the North had been
prepping. They'd gone unnoticed until performing some sort of water
investigation iirc. You used to be able to go into them (near the DMZ) on
tours. The walls are black and the guide I had noted that upon discovery, the
fleeing workers painted the wall with coal to "make it seem like it was a
mining operation all along".

So, the "drink your milkshake" level access isn't crazy.

~~~
ceejayoz
Using tunnels offensively and using _earthquakes_ offensively are enormously
different things, though.

A tunnel is useful; you can get past the landmines and other defenses. Causing
an earthquake a few miles across the DMZ is far less useful.

~~~
dba7dba
No body/tank is getting through the ironically named Demilitarized Zone
dividing South and North Korea, without getting lit up with fast moving pieces
of metal hitting with high kinetic energy.

Hence the tunnels.

North Korean government's long standing, highest priority goal is conquest of
South Korea through any means, including military invasion.

~~~
ceejayoz
I'm not disputing any of that.

I'm disputing "earthquakes as offensive weapon" being useful. Not tunnels.

------
howiroll
This is a purely political decision.

The current government, which ousted the former goverment with absurd
scandals, is under a huge bribery and corruption scandal which includes kpop
stars, police and prosecutors alike.

The current government always tried to shift the media’s attention when they
were in trouble with former government’s incidents and this is one of them.

The government is actually trying to indict former government’s staff and let
them take all the media’s blame, while they clean up their own bribery
scandal.

~~~
mhandley
Here are the abstracts of the two Science papers. This isn't my area, and
although it would be hard to prove causation, they do have good evidence that
causation is _plausible_. That's probably as strong a claim as anyone would be
likely to be able to make, given the constraints on what is known.

 _The moment magnitude (Mw) 5.5 earthquake that struck South Korea in November
2017 was one of the largest and most damaging events in that country over the
past century. Its proximity to an enhanced geothermal system site, where high-
pressure hydraulic injection had been performed during the previous 2 years,
raises the possibility that this earthquake was anthropogenic. We have
combined seismological and geodetic analyses to characterize the mainshock and
its largest aftershocks, constrain the geometry of this seismic sequence, and
shed light on its causal factors. According to our analysis, it seems
plausible that the occurrence of this earthquake was influenced by the
aforementioned industrial activities. Finally, we found that the earthquake
transferred static stress to larger nearby faults, potentially increasing the
seismic hazard in the area._

 _The moment magnitude (Mw) 5.4 Pohang earthquake, the most damaging event in
South Korea since instrumental seismic observation began in 1905, occurred
beneath the Pohang geothermal power plant in 2017. Geological and geophysical
data suggest that the Pohang earthquake was induced by fluid from an enhanced
geothermal system (EGS) site, which was injected directly into a near-
critically stressed subsurface fault zone. The magnitude of the mainshock
makes it the largest known induced earthquake at an EGS site._

------
goodasa
I think this accident was expected. All construction works in South Korea are
corrupted now. Why nobody knows?? It is because these kinds of works are under
controlled by some companies. Not only this part but also nuclear power plant
part is the same as this catastrophe. Just check out the Nuclear power plants
in UAE. Those NEVER going to generate electricity because those are based on
this culture...

[https://medium.com/@cyb999999999/nuclear-energy-clean-but-
no...](https://medium.com/@cyb999999999/nuclear-energy-clean-but-not-
clean-341c26d95fa0)

