earthquakes

Climate change will shake the Earth — literally

A changing climate isn't just about floods, droughts, and heat waves. It brings erupting volcanoes and catastrophic earthquakes too.

Climate Desk Science

Levitating houses stay safe during earthquakes

A Japanese company called Air Danshin Systems can make houses fly. Not all the time, and not for particularly long. But when it counts — during an earthquake — the company’s technology can levitate a house more than an inch off its foundation. That means that while the earth shakes, the house stays safe.

Sarah Laskow Technology

Yeah, looks like fracking caused Ohio quakes

The Youngstown, Ohio area has had 11 minor earthquakes since last March, and according to seismologist John Armbruster of Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, you can blame those rumbles on fracking. A fracking wastewater disposal well has been identified as the source of the quakes -- extraction companies inject the briny wastewater into the well, and the pressure from that injection ripples outwards, Armbruster says. The injection well that caused the Youngstown quakes has been shut down, but the area can still look forward to another year of uncharacteristic seismic activity.

Jess Zimmerman Energy

Fracking causing earthquakes in England and Oklahoma

Natural gas fracking caused an earthquake in England. And a spate of quakes in Oklahoma. And while the idea that fracking for natural gas causes earthquakes has been floating around, these quakes offer stronger proof that fracking seriously messes with the environment. And while these quakes, peaking in intensity around the high 2s on the […]

Sarah Laskow Energy

Photo of devastation from the East Coast earthquake

(Via here, via here, ultimately via here.) Yep, we had a 5.9 magnitude earthquake over here! (Update: Boo, those buzzkills at USGS downgraded it back to 5.8.) It's probably Ragnarok. Or maybe planet Earth is still trying to tell us to piss off.

Jess Zimmerman Climate & Energy

After hundreds of earthquakes, Arkansas shuts down fracking disposal wells

Here's a novel idea: if your local extraction industry is causing hundreds of earthquakes, make them stop doing whatever it was that was causing the earthquakes.

That's exactly what the Arkansas Oil and Gas Commission did yesterday, when its members voted to shut down a fracking fluid disposal well and ban the drilling of new ones. The Associated Press explains:

Sarah Laskow Energy

Is pro-nuke enthusiasm in the U.S. waning?

This is the fourth and final post in a series on the United States and nuclear power. Read parts one, two, and three. Fukushima gave many Americans a sense of déjà vu: In 1979, a threatened explosion at Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station in Pennsylvania caused by venting an explosive gas mixture was just […]

Arne Jungjohann Energy

States fight back against nuclear power, even as the feds remain in its thrall

This is part three in a series on the United States and nuclear power. Read parts one, two, and four. Although Democrats and Republicans in Congress feed at the nuclear industry’s trough in equal measure, Republicans in particular have been trying hard for years to bring about a renaissance of nuclear power in the United States. […]