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Archive for June 16th, 2012
Fracking can cause earthquakes, but risk is low: Study
Posted by Agence France-Presse: Kerry Sheridan on June 16th, 2012
Agence France-Presse: Certain oil and gas operations that involve injecting wastewater underground can cause earthquakes, but the risk from hydraulic fracturing is generally low, said a US scientific report Friday.
The report by the National Research Council found that the most significant risk of earthquakes is linked to secondary injection of wastewater below ground to help capture remaining hydrocarbons from a petroleum reservoir.
Also, a technique called carbon capture and storage that aims to reduce carbon...
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Fracking’s risk of causing quake small, panel says
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on June 16th, 2012
San Francisco Chronicle: Workers drill for oil in the Gypsum Hills near Medicine Lodge, Kan., using the fracking technique. The method of disposing wastewater from the process may cause temblors strong enough to be felt.
Pumping high-pressure water and sand underground to break up shale rocks and harvest natural gas or oil - the practice known as fracking - poses little risk of triggering significant earthquakes, a government-sponsored scientific committee reported Friday.
But the method of disposing the wastewater...
Protesters dig canal through Belo Monte dam in Brazil
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on June 16th, 2012
Mongabay: In an symbolic protest of the giant Belo Monte Dam, Friday morning some 300 locals dug a channel in an earthen dam that blocks a portion of the Xingu River and serves as the first step for the controversial hydroelectric project, reports Amazon Watch.
"In the early morning hours, three hundred women and children arrived in the hamlet of Belo Monte on the Transamazon Highway, and marched onto a temporary earthen dam recently built to impede the flow of the Xingu River. Using pick axes and shovels,...
Scientists suspect climate change to blame for massive Pine Beetle infestation
Posted by Examiner: Dorsi Diaz on June 16th, 2012
Examiner: As North America continues to witness the largest Pine-Beetle epidemic in recorded history, scientists struggle to understand how climate change has fueled this voracious species. Although the link between climate change and the record breaking epidemic is not entirely clear, scientists studying the phenomena have come forth to voice their opinions. From Canada's Yukon Territory to New Mexico, pine trees by the hundreds of millions are succumbing to a fungus that the beetles carry.
For Jeff Mitton,...