South Korea accepts geothermal plant probably caused destructive quake.

[NNadir]

I came across this news item in a recent issue of Nature.

Bricks and debris from damaged buildings lie on the ground in front of a damaged car in Pohang, South Korea
A 2017 earthquake in Pohang, South Korea has been linked to a geothermal plant.Credit: Yonhap/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock

A South Korean government panel has concluded that a magnitude-5.4 earthquake that struck the city of Pohang on 15 November 2017 was probably caused by an experimental geothermal power plant. The panel was convened under presidential orders and released its findings on 20 March.

Unlike conventional geothermal plants, which extract energy directly from hot underground water or rock, the Pohang power plant injected fluid at high pressure into the ground to fracture the rock and release heat — a technology known as an enhanced geothermal system. This pressure caused small earthquakes that affected nearby faults, and eventually triggered the bigger 2017 quake, the panel found.

The quake was the nation’s second strongest and its most destructive on modern record — it injured 135 people and caused an estimated 300 billion won (US$290 million) in damage...

...Earthquakes have been linked to geothermal power plant in other parts of the world. But the Pohang quake is by far the strongest ever tied to this kind of plant — 1,000 times mightier than a magnitude-3.4 quake triggered by a plant in Basel, Switzerland, in 2006.

The full brief news item seems to be open sourced, since I didn't need to log in to read it:

Nature News 22Mar19.

Have a pleasant Sunday.

[eppur_se_muova]

1. Korea must not have a folk tale comparable to "the goose that laid golden eggs" ... nt

http://www.read.gov/aesop/091.html