Pipelines: Oil Spills::Geothermal Energy: Earthquakes. For The Archives

Something tells me we won't be seeing this story again -- it will be conveniently ignored by activist environmentalists....but facts are facts, and geothermal renewable energy projects in southern California are causing small earthquakes along the San Andreas fault.

Some worry that these small tremors could set off the BIG ONE.

And "they" can't have it both ways: if geothermal brine injection is KNOWN to cause earthquakes along the San Andreas fault, the argument that fracking MIGHT caught cause micro-tremors is taken off the table. One can't have it both ways. 

The Los Angeles Times is reporting:

The geothermal power plants at Southern California's Salton Sea don't just produce electricity, they also trigger thousands of temblors not far from one of the West Coast's most dangerous earthquake faults, a new study says.

Research published online Thursday in the journal Science found that as production rose at the Imperial County geothermal field, so did the number of earthquakes. From 1981 through 2012, more than 10,000 earthquakes above magnitude 1.75 were recorded in the area.

"That group of earthquakes …. is connected to the production," said Emily Brodsky, a UC Santa Cruz geophysicist and the paper's lead author.

US Santa Cruz is one of the more avant garde universities in the UC system. We probably won't hear from Emily again, any time soon. Smile.

But there you have it.

The largest quake during the three-decade study period was magnitude 5.1. The vast majority of quakes were small. But they are occurring about 12 miles from the southern end of the San Andreas fault, which seismologists predict will eventually rock the Southland with a devastating temblor.

Researchers wonder if the many small quakes could trigger larger ones on the nearby fault.

And, folks have known this "for decades."

Geothermal power production began in the Salton Sea field, on the sea's southeastern edge, in 1982 and includes one of the largest and hottest geothermal wells in the world. Plants extract superheated water from thousands of feet beneath the Earth's surface and use it to produce steam that drives turbines to generate electricity. The remaining brine is then injected back into the ground.

It has been known for decades that injecting fluids into the Earth can lead to seismic activity. Previous studies have also linked earthquakes to geothermal production.