There’s been an earthquake in the Gatwick region of Southern England. Terror as tens of thousands flee, gas lines disrupted, civilisation falling to pieces – actually, near nowt happened. A few people got shaken in their beds and that was that. This earthquake being some 63,000 times larger than the limit applied to fracking. This showing us that the fracking earthquake limit is what?
[perfectpullquote align=”full” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””] The most powerful earthquake to strike southeastern England in more than 50 years jolted terrified residents awake in the early hours of this morning. Panicked families feared their homes could collapse as the 3.7-magnitude quake struck near the village of Southwater in West Sussex, ten miles southwest of Gatwick Airport, at just before 3.45am. Shaking was felt across the region with people being woken up from the south coast to London, including in Reigate, 23 miles away, but there were no reports of damage. [/perfectpullquote]Umm, yes. No damage. And this is in a part of the world where we don’t even build to earthquake standards. Nowt happened.
And yet we’ve that fracking earthquake standard. If drilling for natural gas leads to an earthquake of 0.5 or above then everyone’s got to stop fracking. And the thing is that earthquakes are measured on a logarithmic scale. 3.7 is not some few times larger than 0.5. It’s not, say, 7 times larger. In fact, in energy it is 63,095 times larger.
All of which shows us that the fracking earthquake limit is a sack of stercore*, isn’t it?
As, of course, it is. It’s a ludicrous limit placed there in order to make sure that fracking doesn’t happen. There’s no safety issue involved at all. 63,000 times the size and no damage? Yup, they’re lying to us again.
*Gibbon.
The language we use matters - it provides clarity to our own thoughts and enables…
It is now generally acknowledged that the structure of the NHS needs to be overhauled…
In the film Apollo 13, a loss of oxygen causes the crew to start inadvertently…
There's an idea out there which seems intuitive but then so many ideas do seem…
When we think about the darkly opaque goals of modern central bankers as they relate…
As the papers recently filled with the distressing images of desperate souls looking to escape…
View Comments
My bet would be that of some 650 MPs, fewer than 50 would know how a log scale works and fewer than 20 would not the Richter scale is a log scale.
They're digging a mining transport tunnel about six miles from me. If you stand on the road outside the site you can feel a rumble through the soles of your feet. If I stand on the bridge in the middle of town I feel a greater shock ever time a car goes across. CARS CAUSE EARTHQUAKES!!!!
Just for perspective. Anchorage, Alaska has had over 6,600 earthquakes 1.5 magnitude and greater in the last 365 days. With this experience I can tell you that you have a highly developed sensory system to feel anything under a 3.0.