Some Southern Californians fear the risks that accompany these clean energy projects might outweigh benefits. The science is far from settled.
Just after midnight on April 30, residents near the Salton Sea were jolted awake by a magnitude 4.3 earthquake. Dozens of people told the U.S. Geological Survey that they felt the shaking, with a couple locals reporting it was strong enough to knock items over or break dishes.
“They always ask about seismicity and earthquakes, and how much of that is natural and how much might be due to geothermal power production,” noted Michael McKibben, a geology research professor from UC Riverside who helped lead that presentation. “We know someday it’s going to pop,” said William Ellsworth, a geophysics professor at Stanford University.
The most comprehensive look at data related to that question is due out this summer, when McKibben’s team releases a long-awaited report on the area’s geothermal field that will compare more than four decades of seismic activity with local geothermal power production. Multiple fault lines, including the San Andreas, run through the area. Those faults allow magma that’s usually trapped a couple dozen miles beneath the Earth’s surface, in the thick mantle layer, flow up to the crust. Once there, the magma heats an aquifer of mineral-rich water that sits 4,000 to 12,000 feet underground to more than 500 degrees.
That lithium boom attracted a third player to the Salton Sea. Australian company Controlled Thermal Resources drilled another well last year and plans toto produce geothermal power and capture lithium and other valuable minerals from the brine. Experts say that is accurate in a strict sense. But they also said there’s no way to know if that’s simply due to unique challenges at play in this seismically active area.When people raise concerns posed by geothermal activities at the Salton Sea, they often cite the well-documented introduction of quakes in once-quiet places like Texas and Oklahoma due to oil fracking.
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