
Oklahoma Earthquakes Are a National Security Threat - akg_67
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-10-23/oklahoma-earthquakes-are-a-national-security-threat
======
deckar01
This reminds me of the Oklahoma ghost town that resulted from unregulated
mining practices[0].

[0]
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Picher,_Oklahoma](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Picher,_Oklahoma)

------
etep
For those interested in more on the topic of the earthquakes:
[http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/04/13/weather-
undergr...](http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/04/13/weather-underground)

~~~
jackfoxy
Good information in The New Yorker piece, unlike the continuing coverage I
have been reading in Bloomberg, which uses _fracking_ as a refrain with
minimal information attached.

This is about disposal of waste water from watered-out fields, not about
fracking. The New Yorker correctly points out less than 10% of the water going
down these disposal wells is from fracking operations. So why does Bloomberg
(and not just Bloomberg) keep raising the fracking bogey-man?

------
xpda
Wastewater injection wells, contrary to popular press, are not used primarily
for the disposal of fracking fluid or other drilling waste products. Produced
water is, by far, the largest component going into wastewater injection wells.

When you get oil and gas out of the ground, a lot of salt water comes with it.
Sometimes, especially in Oklahoma, there can be 10 times as much water as oil.
This "produced water" is used for injection into other wells to displace oil,
but there's enough left over to require wastewater injection wells for its
disposal.

[http://energyindepth.org/wp-
content/uploads/2015/02/Wastewat...](http://energyindepth.org/wp-
content/uploads/2015/02/Wastewater-Disposal-Q-and-A1.pdf)

------
rwfilice
The most amazing part of this article is the U.S. would use this seemingly
massive reserve in 3 days.

~~~
akg_67
If you think Cushing storage of 3 days is massive, you will be shocked with
Strategic Petroleum Reserve maintained by US govt, that covers a large swath
underground below Texas and Louisiana states, and only holds about 30 days of
consumption.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_Petroleum_Reserve_%2...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_Petroleum_Reserve_%28United_States%29)

Actually, Cushing storage is not that much. Unlike SPR, it is mostly short
term storage in between transit. Cushing is a transfer point between different
pipelines that connect at Cushing which also later became a delivery point for
oil and gas futures traded in futures market.

~~~
Someone
The norm for a country's total reserves is 90 days of imports
([https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_strategic_petroleum_r...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_strategic_petroleum_reserves#International_Energy_Agency_reserves))

US imports are about 1/4 of consumption
([http://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=32&t=6](http://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=32&t=6)),
so total reserves (including commercial storage) should be around 25 days.

As to Cushing, from both the article and what you say I would be more
concerned about losing those pipes than of losing the oil stored there.

------
ph0rque
_The role that fracking plays in the rise of earthquakes has been hugely
controversial in Oklahoma, where one in five jobs is tied to the oil and gas
industry._

“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends
on his not understanding it.” ― Upton Sinclair

~~~
pkaye
Try fracking under his house and he will understand it...

~~~
ArkyBeagle
Fracking is not the same thing as injection wells.

------
CyberDildonics
What isn't a national security threat now?

~~~
akg_67
Since 9/11, the threshold for being considered national security has gone down
significantly, too much paranoia. Of course the private businesses, in this
case O&G companies, trading exchange and trading firms, benefit from certain
assets being declared of national security importance as the cost of securing
get transferred to the government and taxpayers.

~~~
Bud
Yeah, whatever. Let's see the US run out of oil, then let's wait 30 days or
so, and then you try telling me (if you're still alive) that it's not a
national security issue.

~~~
CyberDildonics
Oil is sold through OPEC, the US won't run out of oil in isolation (and of
course it won't run out at all).

Oil is also distributed all over the earth at various costs to extract, so oil
would rise in price as a commodity decades before it actually runs out. It
would gradually price itself out of different uses.

------
grhmc
Given the resistance to equate increased earthquake activity elsewhere, it is
interesting to see fracking stopped due to earthquake concerns at the oil
reserves. I suspect this could be a strong argument to use in other cities
experiencing previously-rare earthquakes, like Plano, TX.

[http://earthquaketrack.com/us-tx-plano/recent](http://earthquaketrack.com/us-
tx-plano/recent)

------
peter303
The Denver Rocky Flats injection quakes of the 1960s stopped within months of
halting injections. I dont think ending oil production is politically
platable, so they will have to find alternative waste treatment.

