[kstrauser]

> Natural gas from fracking does not cause burning tap water.

I'll take a step back from "burning", because that seems hard to prove, but it most certainly does contaminate ground water: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fracking-can-cont...

> Fracking-related earthquakes are either minimal or bebeficial

That's the most insane claim I've read on the Internet this week. You should be ashamed for saying that.

Beneficial earthquakes. Now I think I've heard everything.

I know it's against Hacker News rules to assume bad intent in posts, but I cannot believe that you're saying these things in good faith. It's just not possible.

[samatman]

It's possible. I have no clue if fracking does so, and the link doesn't support this, but hear me out:

If you can choose between, say, five Richter 3 earthquakes, or one Richter 7, you definitely want the five small ones.

IF fracking induced small earthquakes and IF those small earthquakes relieved pressure such that a big one didn't happen, then those small earthquakes would be beneficial.

This is comparable to deliberately lighting small brushfires to use up fuel and prevent destructive wildfires.

It would be a remarkable coincidence if fracking only caused such beneficent and salubrious earthquakes, and never triggered worse ones. But were it so, it would be good.

[kstrauser]

The Richter scale is log(10), so a 7 quake is 10,000 times stronger than a 3. A lot of Bay Area residents had thought the same you mentioned over the years (it's not a crazy idea! I mean, it seems at least plausible on paper!) but that's generally accepted as untrue now; see https://www.sfgate.com/earthquakes/article/do-minor-quakes-p... for example.

[newswriter99]

> I'll take a step back from "burning", because that seems hard to prove, but it most certainly does contaminate ground water

Fracking wastes (the sluice of water, sand and a scant amount of chems) does not equal natural gas.

Natural gas does NOT contaminate water. Fuck off.