America's critical mineral shortage problem could be solved if new extraction method works

Electronic waste could provide needed minerals.
(Photo by Nathan Cima, Unsplash)

Despite rich geological stores and landfills piled with used tech equipment, the U.S. doesn't have the domestic supply of critical minerals it needs to build tech equipment. The country has lacked an economically viable way to "extract metals like copper, silver and rare-earth elements from the country’s abundant ores and heaps of old electronics," reports Ryan Dezember of The Wall Street Journal. But a new metallurgy company with innovative scientists says it has found a solution.

The company, Valor, is working "to commercialize a breakthrough in metallurgy called electrochemical liquid-liquid extraction," Dezember explains. According to scientists, the new process "can separate metals and rare earths from electronic waste and mined ores without the massive amounts of energy and chemicals" used by smelting or other refining methods.

The cutting-edge science starts with molecular magnets, called ligands, that scientists make to bind and release specific elements. Dezember explains. "To pluck the silver from a slurry of ground-up computer chips, the ligand made to bind to the precious metal is activated with a current of electricity and then turned off to release the silver for reuse."

Critical and rare-earth minerals are essential for producing the most advanced technologies, including defense systems, magnets, semiconductors, medical equipment and consumer electronics; however, China has always dominated the global sector. Unleashing a new way for the U.S. to harness its rare earth stores could change that dynamic.

For now, Valor will open its first plant in Houston, Texas. The company plans to "eventually build refineries of various sizes across the country, near lithium brine fields in Arkansas, Arizona’s copper mines and big cities where loads of recycled cellphones and computers can be gathered."

Geologic naming body rejects Anthropocene proposal

Sediment history from Crawford Lake, Ontario, is part of 
the Anrthropocene epoch proposal. (Wikipedia photo)

"Monday night, the group of scholars responsible for delineating the past 2.6 million years of geologic history rejected a proposal that would mark the start of the Anthropocene epoch in the mid-20th century, when global trade, nuclear weapons tests and rampant fossil-fuel consumption radically altered the Earth," reports Sarah Kaplan of The Washington Post.

"But Anthropocene advocates — including two leading members of the panel that just voted — say the decision by the Subcommission on Quaternary Stratigraphy violated the rules for naming new geologic time spans. Subcommission chair Jan Zalasiewicz and vice-chair Martin Head on Wednesday called for an investigation into the voting process that could lead to the decision being overturned.

"The contested vote, which was first reported by The New York Times, has exposed a deepening rift in the hidebound world of stratigraphy — the science of measuring geologic time. Researchers overwhelmingly agree that people have transformed the climate and put ecosystems in peril. But most members of the Subcommission on Quaternary Stratigraphy felt this 'Age of Humans' should not be rigidly defined as an epoch — a stretch of geologic time that typically spans thousands or even millions of years."

The International Commission on Stratigraphy could overturn the decision, sending it to the International Geological Congress. But they could also define the Anthropocene "as a geologic event — a looser term that can describe phenomena that unfold in multiple places at different times," Kaplan notes.

In the shadow of the coal industry, the Mountain Valley Pipeline runs into resistance in Appalachia

The Daily Yonder graphic

The long relationship between Appalachian people and energy industry representatives was barely forged before it started to fracture due to misrepresentation and unscrupulous contracts pushed by coal representatives, reports Hannah Wilson-Black of The Daily Yonder. More recently, Mountain Valley Pipeline representatives have come calling, and wiser Appalachians are not all-in for their contracts or pipeline.

"When speculators and early corporations first came to the hollers of Central Appalachia's coal country in the late 1800s, they wanted to buy landowners' mineral rights — not the rights to their farmland, but to the coal underneath," Wilson-Black writes. "Knowing that these landowners were subsistence farmers who had little money and were not fluent in legal language or the going price of coal, the land agents offered to buy mineral rights for as little as fifty cents an acre. Or, as West Virginian community organizer Maury Johnson put it, for 'a little bit of nothing and a Christmas turkey.'"

MVP representatives first approached West Virginia and southwest Virginia landowners in 2014, "seeking 'right-of-way' easement agreements that would allow the pipeline to go through private property without requiring purchase of the land itself. Johnson, a resident of Monroe County, was one such landowner," Wilson-Black reports. "An analyst sent by the company asked to survey his farm, and Johnson agreed — with the stipulation that he accompany the surveyors. . . . Johnson claimed that when he followed the surveyors around, he watched them omit the existence of springs or dangerous karst formations on his property in their reports, and said the surveyors would only note the geographic obstacles when he drew attention to them."

Sunset in Monroe County, W.Va., one of the counties the MVP
pipeline passes through. (Photo by Hannah Wilson-Black)

Johnson and Arietta DuPre, who also lives in Monroe County, told Wilson-Black that MVP representatives employed some of the same undervalue-offer tactics coal companies used years ago. Johnson told her: "A lot of people, they've never dealt with this. They don't know what they're doing. I didn't know what I was doing. They [MVP representatives] say, 'We'll give you X amount of dollars, this is the best you're going to get."

Johnson found a way to protect his property. Wilson-Black reports, "He retained an eminent domain attorney who negotiated a higher price for his easement based on 'real impacts to the property,' as he put it. This allowed him to avoid a protracted — and expensive — court battle with MVP. He was also able to stipulate, through his final contract, which crops or chemicals MVP must use to restore the land."

As the pipeline build continues, landslides and explosions remain a top concern to residents who fear a repeat of the Leach XPress Pipeline explosion in Marshall County, West Virginia, where "a fireball burned for several hours after an 83-foot section of the pipeline burst into flames, releasing more than $430,000 worth of natural gas," Brittany Patterson reported for West Virginia Public Broadcasting. Land shift was blamed for the explosion, which left a crater in the ground and a stark reality burned into Appalachian communities.

Little lake in Canada is the key marker of a proposed geological epoch: Anthropocene, named for human beings

UPDATE, July 12: The Anthropocene Working Group says it chose Crawford Lake as its representational site because it has "the clearest and most pronounced evidence of humankind’s influence on the global geologic record," The New York Times reports. "Three more committees of geologists will vote on it, a process that could start this fall; 60% of each committee will need to approve the proposal for it to advance to the next one. Ratification by any is far from guaranteed."

An aerial view of Crawford Lake, where sediments hold over
a thousand years of geologic history. (Washington Post photo)

Once considered "bottomless" by locals, a small lake near Milton, Ontario, has a floor of finely detailed sediment layers that show the dramatic change humans have wrought on Earth, so much that it may mark the beginning of a new geological epoch, the Anthropocene, report Sarah Kaplan, Simon Ducroquet, Bonnie Jo Mount, Frank Hulley-Jones and Emily Wright of The Washington Post: in a richly illustrated presentation: "Researchers will determine whether Crawford Lake should be named the official starting point for this geologic chapter, [breaking] from the dependable environment of the past to the uncertain new reality humans have created. . . . In just seven decades, the scientists say, humans have brought about greater changes than they did in more than seven millennia. Never in Earth's history has the world changed this much, this fast. Never has a single species had the capacity to wreak so much damage — or the chance to prevent so much harm."

Scientists begin each epoch, a segment of  geologic time, "with a 'golden spike' — a spot in the geologic record where proof of a global transformation is perfectly preserved," the Post reports. "These spikes are like exclamation points in the story of the planet, punctuating a tale of shifting continents, evolving species and temperatures that rose and fell as carbon levels fluctuated in the atmosphere." Scientists think the golden spike for the Anthropocene Epoch may be Crawford Lake, because of its rare substrate: "No other water body is known to possess this particular combination of attributes, making Crawford Lake a unique bellwether of global change." Two keys: The water at the bottom of the lake doesn't mix with the water above, and the local environment produces a thin layer of calcite that marks every year, going back a millennium.

Radioactive plutonium began to spike in the 1940s with testing
of nuclear explosives. (Research photo, Washington Post graph)

Francine McCarthy, a professor of Earth sciences at Brock University in Ontario, has led the study of sediment layers that show how life has changed on Earth. "Fly ash, a byproduct of burning coal and oil, drifted into the lake from rapidly industrializing cities. Heavy metals like copper and lead increased in the mud," the Post reports. "And then, around 1950, the world reached a tipping point," Head told the Post: "This is when humans essentially overwhelmed the Earth as a functioning system."

From pollution to radioactive remains of nuclear-bomb tests, "The same evidence appears all over the planet, in every potential golden spike site the Anthropocene Working Group has examined," the Post reports. "Peat bogs, ocean basins, the skeletons of coral reefs — even the ice of Antarctica has been permanently tainted by human pollution."

Washington Post map from OpenStreetMap base

"What we have measured, in a very objective and quantitative way, is we are living in a world with conditions that are no longer within the last 11,000 years of natural variability," McCarthy told the Post. "The Earth is, in fact, fundamentally different." The Post reports, "As much as the Anthropocene is a recognition of humanity's culpability, it is also a declaration of human agency, McCarthy believes. Alongside geologic evidence of environmental destruction, Crawford Lake holds proof of people's capacity for repair. She told the Post: "It's not just a doomsday story. It is a 'wake up and smell the coffee' story. It shows we can make meaningful change."

We are in Southwest Kansas, and there's not enough water; moving water to the area is a long-shot option

Ogallala Aquifer map by U.S. Geological Survey
Map by Emma Brown, The Wall Street Journal

"When the well is dry, we know the worth of water." --Benjamin Franklin

Increasingly arid states across the country agree with Franklin, and Kansas is no exception. "Southwest Kansas officials have long pushed a moonshot aqueduct project to send Missouri River water across the state to their region, where a $12.5 billion agricultural economy relies on a dwindling Ogallala Aquifer," reports Shannon Najmabadi of The Wall Street Journal. "In Kansas, where federal data shows that nearly every county was experiencing some level of drought at the end of 2022, water is among the most urgent issues facing the state legislature this year."

Despite the expense and hefty challenges, other states have completed "projects that move water to fuel development or to irrigate crops. . . . . states such as Arizona and California. The Kansas aqueduct would be farther east—reflecting spreading concern about water scarcity amid a changing climate and growing population centers," Najmabadi writes. "The Arizona state legislature in 2021 asked Congress to study a plan to transport Mississippi River floodwaters to the Colorado River, upon which seven states rely."

Najmabadi explains, "U.S. Army Corps of Engineers first assessed the feasibility for a Kansas aqueduct in 1982, as part of a federal study looking at ways to supplement the Ogallala Aquifer . . . . A 2015 update of the study estimated it would cost between $5 billion and $20 billion to build the concrete-lined canal system and up to $522 million in annual energy. . . . Proponents of the Kansas aqueduct say it is needed to sustain the economy of the state's southwest . . . . Opponents say the idea is too expensive . . . .The Ogallala Aquifer lies under parts of eight central U.S. states, running from South Dakota to Texas. It adds $3.8 billion to the value of the land in western Kansas, one 2022 study found."

"Blake Brownie Wilson, with the Kansas Geological Survey, says 80% to 90% of the aquifer's water in Kansas goes to irrigation," Najmabodi reports. "About 30% of it had been pumped as of 2013. Another 39% was expected to be gone by 2063 given current rates of use." Clay Scott, who is a member of the board for the Southwest Kansas Groundwater Management District and a proponent of the aqueduct plan, told Najambodi, "We will continue to dry up the infrastructure for feed yards and dairies and grain elevators and cotton gins. . . . We can't afford to wait any longer."

Najmabodi adds, "The project remains a long shot. Kansas lawmakers this year are focused on bills aimed at promoting conservation and dedicating tax revenue to water projects."

As quakes in West Texas increase, some oil-wastewater disposal has changed, but preparedness questions remain

The Permian Basin is a major oil production area. (Wikipedia map)

In 2017, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration said "Texas is ranked first in the U.S. in the variety and frequency of natural disasters. Flooding, wildfires, tornadoes, hurricanes . . . . Sometimes, even utilization of the state’s natural reserves of oil, gas, and water can lead to subsidence and earthquakes." It's that last part, earthquakes, that has been increasing in number, and raising concerns: "In 2022, the state recorded more than 220 earthquakes of 3.0 magnitude or higher, up from 26 recorded in 2017, when the Bureau of Economic Geology at the University of Texas began close monitoring," reports David Goodman of The New York Times.

In oil-rich West Texas, two earthquakes were felt in late 2022, one in Pecos and the second in December near Odessa and Midland, all in the Permian Basin. Goodman writes: "The [November] tremor registered as a 5.4-magnitude earthquake, among the largest ever recorded in the state. Then, a month later, another of similar magnitude struck not far away. . . . . The earthquakes, arriving in close succession, were the latest in what has been several years of surging seismic activity in Texas. . . . In 2022, the state recorded more than 220 earthquakes of 3.0 magnitude or higher, up from 26 recorded in 2017, when the Bureau of Economic Geology at the University of Texas began close monitoring."

The cause of the earthquakes is known. Goodman reports: "Dr. Peter Hennings, the principal investigator for the Center for Integrated Seismicity Research at the University of Texas, said that earthquakes can be induced through human activity: the injection of a large amount of water in a short period of time adds fluid pressure under the earth, which essentially decreases the 'clamping' between rocks along natural faults and allows them to slip, creating an earthquake. . . . seismologists have established a relationship between smaller earthquakes and larger ones, Dr. Hennings said: The more small earthquakes you have, the greater the likelihood of a bigger one." 

Many Texas earthquakes "have been concentrated in the highly productive oil fields of the Permian Basin, particularly those in Reeves County, north and west of the city of Pecos," Goodman writes. "Where oil and gas production has increasingly meant hydraulic fracturing, a process of extraction that produces, as a byproduct, a huge amount of wastewater. Some of that wastewater is reused in fracking operations, but most of it is injected back under the ground."

An oil field near Pecos; Texas only recently began its statewide program of
monitoring for earthquakes. (Photo by Paul Ratje, The New York Times)

And what about the quakes? Rod Ponton, a former Pecos city attorney, told Goodman, “In West Texas, you love the smell of the oil and gas patch because it’s the smell of money. If you have to have the ground shaking every two or three months to make sure you have a good paycheck coming in every month, you’re not going to think twice about it.” But the area has made some changes. Goodman writes: "To address earthquakes outside of Odessa and Midland, state regulators suspended permits for deep disposal wells. . . . For local officials the earthquakes have presented new and unforeseen concerns about the structural integrity of buildings and buried pipes, as well as basic questions, such as, what are you supposed to do in an earthquake?"

Odessa Mayor Javier Joven told Goodman, "The big popular discussion out here is: Did you feel it? Did you feel it? And everyone goes on Facebook: I felt it. I felt it.” Joven also noted that the city has yet to alter building safety codes to prepare for earthquakes.

Meteorologists and economic geologists join other earth scientists in believing humans cause most climate change

More than 99.9% of peer-reviewed scientific papers now agree that climate change is mainly caused by humans, according to a new survey of 88,125 climate-related studies, and the earth scientists who have been the most skeptical, meteorologists and economic geologists, are now firmly on board.

Research at Cornell University updates a 2013 paper which found 97% of studies published between 1991 and 2012 supported the idea that human activities are altering Earth’s climate. “It’s pretty much case closed for any meaningful public conversation about the reality of human-caused climate change,” said Mark Lynas, a visiting fellow at Cornell's Alliance for Science and first author of the study, which published Oct. 19 in the journal Environmental Research Letters.

Another paper in the journal reveals that very few meteorologists and economic geologists remain skeptical that humans have caused most climate change. The 2019 survey showed that geologists had the lowest level of consensus, with 84.1% agreeing, but that was way up from 47% in 2009. Likewise, meteorologists' agreement rose from 64% to 91% in the 2019 study.

"Scientific support for the link between human activity and climate change has strengthened to the extent that there is now near universal agreement," says the Institute of Physics. "In 1996, reports hedged statements with phrases such as 'the balance of evidence suggests'. This evolved to 'It is extremely likely that human influence has been the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century' and the more recent observation that 'Human influence on the climate system is now an established fact'," as stated by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Of the 10,929 earth scientists invited to take the survey, 2,780 responded, and 91 said the Earth is getting warmer mostly because of human activity. In 2009, those saying so were 80%. "All of the most actively publishing climate experts – those who had published 20 or more climate papers each between 2015 and 2019 – accept that global warming is human-caused," the Institute of Physics said.

"In spite of such results, public opinion polls as well as opinions of politicians and public representatives point to false beliefs and claims that a significant debate still exists among scientists over the true cause of climate change. In 2016, the Pew Research Center found that only 27% of U.S. adults believe 'almost all' scientists agreed climate change is due to human activity, according to the paper. A 2021 Gallup poll pointed to a deepening partisan divide in American politics on whether Earth’s rising observed temperatures since the Industrial Revolution were primarily caused by humans."

In significant Pa. ruling on fracking, appeals court clears way for trespassing claims against gas companies

A Pennsylvania appeals court ruled this week that three siblings can proceed with a lawsuit alleging that Southwestern Energy Production Co. trespassed on their property by extracting natural gas from their land through a hydraulic fracturing well (presumably horizontal) on adjacent property. The ruling "negates a legal principle in oil and gas law that allows companies to siphon natural resources from beneath land they do not own without compensating the landowner," Terrie Morgan-Besecker reports for the Scranton Times-Tribune.

Adam Briggs filed the lawsuit in 2015 regarding 11 acres in Harford Township owned by him, his brother and his sister. Southwestern has operated two fracked wells since 2011 on adjacent property, and Briggs says his family has never been compensated.

A judge dismissed the lawsuit because of a legal principle called the "rule of capture," which "allows companies to drain a natural resource, including oil, gas or water, from beneath property they do not own as long as they do not trespass on the land," Morgan-Besecker reports. The principle behind the rule is that gas and oil migrate across property lines, especially when a well changes pressure in the rock formation. Based on the rule, courts have ruled that companies can extract oil and gas without having to compensate adjoining property owners.

The Briggses' attorney argued the shouldn't apply to gas extracted through fracking because the gas in deep, "tight" formations like the Marcellus Shale doesn't freely migrate, and is freed only through fracking. The state Superior Court agreed, saying "Unlike oil and gas originating in a common reservoir, natural gas, when trapped in a shale formation, is nonmigratory in nature."

It's not known if Southwestern will appeal the decision. If it doesn't, the ruling would set a precedent that would impact similar disputes in Pennsylvania, Morgan-Besecker reports.

Race meant more in Alabama's election than the rural-urban divide, which the result bridged

The rural-urban divide in yesterday's special election in Alabama for a U.S. Senate seat wasn’t as important as race, a demographic that bridged the rural-urban divide that looms large in American politics.

Washington Post charts; click to enlarge

Exit polls showed Democrat Doug Jones got 96 percent of the vote among African Americans, who are concentrated in urban areas and the Black Belt, a swath of land that was named for its soil. The largest plantations were concentrated there, and many freed slaves hung on as sharecroppers after the Civil War.

In his race with former judge Roy Moore, Jones won only one of the exit poll's four regions, Birmingham and South Central, the latter being roughly analogous to the Black Belt — the buckle of which is Dallas County, where the seat is Selma, epicenter of the battle for the Voting Rights Act of 1965. "A county where African Americans make up 70 percent of the population gave 75 percent of the vote to Doug Jones," John Nichols writes for The Nation. "That brought the Democrat 7,000 votes closer to victory. And as more votes from more predominately African-American counties came in, Jones moved into the lead."

Higher black turnout was also important. African-Americans make up 26 percent of Alabama's population, but the exit poll determined that they made up 30 percent of the vote yesterday.

Alabama is the ninth most rural state, with 41 percent of the population living in rural areas, but it's becoming more urban. First map below, by Strange Maps contributor Mark Root-Willey, via The Vigorous North blog, reveals the Black Belt by way of distribution of cotton production (2,000 bales per dot) in 1860, just before the beginning of the Civil War (colors of counties indicate their vote in the 2008 presidential election). Second map, showing vote by county, is adapted from CNN. Newly blue counties include Madison (Huntsville), on the Tennessee border, and Tuscaloosa and Talladega, west and east of Birmingham. Dallas County overlaps the "ontgo" in "Montgomery."

Physicist on 'CBS This Morning' misstates the process of hydraulic fracturing and earthquakes

Michio Kaku, Ph.D.

Dr. Michio Kaku, who often discusses science on CBS News programs, is a brilliant physicist. But today on "CBS This Morning" he wandered off base as he discussed earthquakes and hydraulic fracturing.

Kaku, a professor at City University of New York, said there is evidence that a swarm of small earthquakes in Oklahoma is being caused by "hydraulic fracking," specifically the injection of wastewater to free gas and oil from dense, deep shales.

Whoa, Professor. Yes, fracking does involve the injection of wastewater, but not to produce oil and gas. The process injects a mixture of water, chemicals and sand, and results in wastewater that must be disposed of -- in separate injection wells, the type of wells that have been associated with quakes.

Perhaps Kaku was condensing information into the time CBS gave him, but he was also off base on a bit of geography. He said the largest quake ever in the U.S. was near New Madrid, on the border of Missouri and Tennessee. Actually, New Madrid, Mo., sits across the Mississippi River from a bit of Kentucky that is separated from the rest of the state by the bending river.

Oklahoma surpasses California in earthquakes; scientists point to injection wells as likely cause

Oklahoma has far surpassed California in number of earthquakes, and state and federal scientists say "deep injection of wastewater from oil and gas production is a 'likely contributing factor'," Mike Soraghan reports for EnergyWire. Since October, Oklahoma has had 189 earthquakes of magnitude 3.0 or higher, compared to 139 in California; in 2014 the Sooner State has had 147 such quakes, compared to 70 in the Golden State. From 1978 to 2008, before the recent oil and gas boom hit Oklahoma, the state only averaged two earthquakes per year. (EnergyWire graphic) 

The U.S. Geological Survey and the Oklahoma Geological Survey "have linked much of the increase in Oklahoma to deep injection of waste fluid from oil and gas production in the drilling-heavy state," Soraghan writes. The agencies issued a warning Monday "that the risk of a damaging magnitude-5.5 or larger quake has gone up 'significantly'."

A study by the USGS, Cornell University and Columbia University blames injection wells for the increase in quakes. Last week Cornell geophysicist Katie Keranen said at the annual meeting of the Seismological Society of America that a cluster of four high-volume wastewater injection wells in Oklahoma City "triggered quakes up to 30 miles" away and have since "spread farther outward, as fluids migrate farther from the massive injection wells."

"Seismologists have also linked earthquakes in Arkansas, Colorado, Ohio and Texas to injection of wastewater from oil and gas production," Soraghan writes. (Read more)

Geologists say injection wells can cause earthquakes 30 miles away; USGS to estimate national risk

Injection wells to dispose of hydraulic fracturing fluids can trigger earthquakes as far as 30 miles away, researchers said Friday at the annual meeting of the Seismological Society of America in Anchorage, Alaska, Becky Oskin report for LiveScience. Lead author Katie Keranen, a geophysicist at Cornell University, said that in the Oklahoma City area "a cluster of four high-volume wastewater injection wells triggered quakes up to 30 miles" away and have since "spread farther outward, as fluids migrate farther from the massive injection wells."

Since 2009, when the fracking boom came to Oklahoma, the state has been second in earthquakes, trailing only California. Keranen said, "These are some of the biggest wells in the state. The pressure is high enough from the injected fluids to trigger earthquakes."

Keranen's study was one of several presented that linked fracking to earthquake. Justin Rubinstein, a geophysicist with the U.S. Geological Survey, said the agency, for the first time, "plans to estimate the national shaking risk from 'induced seismicity'," Oskin writes. He told  her, "We've never done this before. These earthquakes of larger magnitude really demonstrate that [induced earthquakes] are a significant hazard." (Read more)

Computer model disputes presumption that impermeable rock layers will keep fracking fluids away from water

Chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing of oil and gas wells could migrate toward drinking-water supplies more quickly than previously thought, according to a study funded by two upstate New York organizations opposed to drilling and fracking in the Marcellus Shale region. Using computer modeling, the study found that natural faults and fractures in the ground, exacerbated by fracking, could allow chemicals to reach the surface in a few years.

Scientists have presumed some layers of rock were impermeable and would keep fracking chemicals trapped almost far below the surface. This view has been a "cornerstone of the industry's argument that fracking poses minimal threats to the environment," reports Abraham Lustgarten of ProPublica. The study's lead author, Tom Myers, said that view was false. "The Marcellus Shale is being fracked into a very high permeability. Fluids could move from most any injection process," he said.

The study was published in the journal Ground Water. It did not use sampling or case histories to assess contamination risks. It relied on a computer model to determine how fluids would move through the rock over time. The models predict that fracking will "dramatically speed up the movement of chemicals injected into the ground." It showed that fluids traveled distances in 100 years that would naturally take thousands of years. (Read more)

Fracking forum hopes to better inform Kentuckians about technique for gas drilling

The University of Kentucky Appalachian Center will host a panel discussion Thursday night about hydraulic fracturing as a method of natural-gas extraction in Kentucky. Fracking has received much attention as state governments and citizens rush to keep up with the booming industry. A moratorium on it in New York is set to expire soon, and residents of Pennsylvania and Wyoming are blaming it for damage to underground water supplies. Geologists have said minor earthquakes in Ohio could have been caused by the method.

In Eastern Kentucky, fracking is not as deep, expensive and complicated as in other areas of Appalachia, and generally does not use the chemicals used there, but drillers have the freedom to frack without special permits and don't have to notify the state about it until after the well is completed. Al Cross, director of the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues at UK and moderator of the discussion, said "As fracking expands to fill our energy needs, landowners and other citizens need to know more about the topic."

Appalachian Center Director Ann Kingsolver said the panel follows the university's land-grant mission by providing information to citizens. "As decisions are being made across the state about hydraulic fracturing, we organized this panel to help Kentucky’s citizens have more in-depth information to make individual and collective decisions on this key topic for the state’s future," she said. The panelists "represent a variety of relevant areas of expertise," the release says. They are Pat Banks, director of environmental group Kentucky Riverkeeper; Kim Collings, director of the state Division of Oil and Gas; Rick Bender, former oil and gas director and current vice president of BlackRidge Resource Partners; Melissa Dlieckmann, Eastern Kentucky University geology professor; Frank Ettensohn, director of the UK Honors Program and geology professor; and, Brandon Nuttall, senior geologist with the Kentucky Geological Survey.

The event will be held Thursday, Feb. 23, from 7 to 9 p.m. in Room 106 of the White Hall Classroom Building near the center of the UK campus in Lexington. It is free and open to the public. For more information, contact Shane Barton at 859-257-3948 or shane.barton@uky.edu.

Quake's impact depended on location, geology; cats had inkling; rural nuclear plant had close call

The rare earthquake that rattled the Eastern U.S. Tuesday was felt by some and not by others, but cats seemed to get a hint of it in advance, according to news reports in the rural mid-Ohio Valley (southeast Ohio and west-central West Virginia).

A staffer at the West Virginia University extension office in Parkersburg, W.Va., told the News & Sentinel newspaper, "I thought my world was coming to an end. ... Everything was shaking, our chairs moved and other things moved." Another local person was taking a late lunch in the highlands just southeast of the city center, and said, "

I was up on Blennerhassett Heights and didn't feel a thing."

A geology teacher at Marietta College, just upriver from Parkersburg on the Ohio side, told the paper that whether someone felt the quake depended on the geology under their particular building. "It's a function of the geologic material under a building," geologist Wendy Bartlett said. "Most of Marietta is built above bedrock, so the quake would be felt less than in an area like Parkersburg that's mostly located over floodplain material."

It seems the "some felt it, some didn't" phenomenon wasn't just among human residents of the region. The director of the local humane society in Parkersburg, Mary Ann Hollis, said the cats at the shelter started acting strange prior to the quake, but not the dogs. "The cats about an hour before were freaking out," Hollis said. "I really do think the cats picked it up." (Read more)

Blogger Paxus Calta, who lives in the Twin Oaks community just five miles southwest of the quake's epicenter of Mineral, Va., in Louisa County (Wikipedia map), writes: "I have lived in San Francisco and Santa Cruz for almost 10 years and this was the wildest ride I have had. The community rallies in these types of circumstances. We form effective little committees, the first of which went around and made sure all the members were accounted for and that everyone was okay."

The Central Virginian, the weekly newspaper in the county seat of Louisa, reports that schools in the county "are closed until after Labor Day to assess damage sustained at each school." The paper paraphrased Dominion Power officials as saying "that the two reactors at North Anna Power Station have been safely shut down. In March, they cited the earthquake rating of the plant at approximately 6.0." The quake was rated at 5.8 or 5.9. The nuclear facility (at upper right of MapQuest image) was built in conjunction with the impoundment of Lake Anna. It is about five miles from the epicenter near Mineral (purple pin on map; click on map for larger version). UPDATE, Sept. 1: Reuters reports the quake rattled and moved nuclear-waste containers at the plant, recalling warnings that environmental groups made when the plant was proposed in the late 1960s, Peter Galuszka of the Bacon's Rebellion blog writes on The Washington Post's website.