4.0 directly under steam fracking plant

The City of Los Angeles performs fracking of andesitic magma hot spots at the Salton Sea. Today we triggered a 4.0 and a bunch of mid three's under the water injection field. This field is small scale compared to Frisco which causes 200 and more earthquakes each week as they frack Boggs Mountain. LA are small time frackers but the laws of physics will not be violated while I am watching. San Fran is big time and they are rocking Nor Cal. They trigger a larger event every few months.

 

Wow, and I thought fracking was limited to the Midwest. Are we so greedy (and stupid) that we would be doing this directly on top of the Southern section of the San Andreas fault line, a section that is officially overdue to see considerable activity?

 

Little quakes can relieve pressure before a big one happens.
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I "think" what Cagey is saying that this is not related to oil or monetary opportunity, but to fault line pressure relief to assist in preventing larger scale earthquakes.

 

I dont subscribe to the “relieving pressure” theory because faults like the San Andreas are massive.

 

I think that is why you "should" subscribe to relieving pressure. Which would you prefer Amigo. A series of 3.0's or one 9.8?
Is there a Seismologists in the house?

 

Well, a 9.8 magnitude, of course. Lets get this shyte over with for a few more thousand years. Got enough to worry about already in this “covid time”, dont we? One less thing to be concerned with sounds dandy to me!

 

Hmm, I never really thought of geothermal as fracking- but I guess it really is. Always thought of geothermal as pretty benign.
Also didn't realize that Boggs has so many quakes.
Must go further in the rabbit hole.

 

you drill a well down to hot rock, put a pipe down the center. Add water and catch the steam as it rises. Take the steam and run it through a turbine. Just like the power people do except you do not burn coal, oil, natural gas, or uranium. The bad news is the entire thing is caustic and your pipe gets eaten, and the salts collect and close your hole. So you drill another hole. San Fran gets their water for free, its from the city of Santa Rosa. They take the waste water and throw it down the hole. The farm used to be limited by water supply, now it is just a flush away. Here is an google map photo of one of Frisco's plants

 

Here is City of LA. It shows steam escaping

 

I thought Crummer Rd is just southeast of the Salton Sea in the City of Calipatria?

If your pipe gets eaten due to the caustic minerals, it doesnt seem cost effective because I'm sure it isnt cheap to drill a geothermal well. I wonder how long before you make your money back in electricity to pay for said well.

I thought that not all geothermal wells are vapor dominated where you need to add water to make steam? I seem to recall only the The Geysers are vapor dominated and the rest are water dominate. Maybe I'm wrong, but recall reading it somewhere.