Our view: We call on OU researchers to investigate more environmentally sustainable ways to produce oil and natural gas.
Oklahoma is a state built on oil: in 2013 Oklahoma ranked fifth in the country in crude oil production and accounted for 7.1 percent of gross natural gas production. In fact, the U.S. oil industry has grown rapidly in recent years with the adoption of extraction methods that make it easier to remove oil and gas. But Oklahoma’s increased reliance on oil and gas production has coincided with an unnatural spike in earthquakes occurring across the state.
The Oklahoma Geological Survey released its “Statement on Oklahoma Seismicity” on Tuesday that attributes extraction methods involving the injection of wastewater in disposal wells as the likely cause of the majority of recent earthquakes in Oklahoma. As one of the nation’s premier research universities, we call on OU to research the environmental impacts of wastewater injection in the production of oil and gas.
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We know Oklahoma depends on the oil industry and we know oil and natural gas companies are some of the largest recruiters of OU grads. However, the popularity of petroleum engineering and energy management majors at OU should not hold OU researchers back from investigating.
Extraction methods involving the injection of produced water in disposal wells have made oil and gas more readily accessible, but at an apparent high environmental cost. Produced water is “naturally occurring water within the Earth that is often high in salinity and coexists with oil and gas in the subsurface,” according to the Oklahoma Geological Survey report.
It’s a popular misconception that hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking” as it’s commonly known, is the probable cause of Oklahoma’s increase in earthquakes. Hydraulic fracturing refers to the use of pressurized liquid to fracture rock, but as the report explains, it’s actually the injection of wastewater back deep into the ground after oil and gas is produced that has likely attributed to the spike in earthquakes.
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We implore OU researchers to look into less environmentally traumatic ways to produce oil and gas. We have no illusions that Oklahoma or the U.S. will end its dependence on oil and natural gas anytime soon, but we cannot sit idly by as multiple earthquakes occur daily in our state.
