When my employees tell me that, I just laugh. It actually doesn't bother me that much, but it makes their job much harder because there are often times when I have information that they need to make their job easier, and if I don't have a way to get hold of them quickly, sucks to be them. Almost needless to say, the only person who hasn't given me his or her number is the die hard in the bunch, and I'll bet he'll change his mind when he realizes he works an extra hour a week that his co-workers avoid...

On a related note, I don't think I've ever had an employee complain that I called them at home to let them know something was canceled, and they can sleep in if they want... Maybe I just have weird employees.

-=Geoskd

No, that's about it. More than likely, the issue comes from the foundations of the buildings being close to the right size and shape to resonate. Possibly the flooring, or maybe its a local rock shelf, or a single vein of rock. A good way to test the whole theory is to use a seismometer and check a grid pattern around the well head. If the pattern is uniform, then there is obviously some amplifying effect relating to the local geology. That would be a pretty good argument to stop the fracking. I think you'll find the distribution to be either highly local, or unrelated to the fracking, or both. Also, get the vibration frequency. Frequencies don't just come from nowhere, so it should be pretty easy to correlate the frequency from the seismometer with something from the fracking process that is causing it. If there is no correlation, then it becomes less and less likely that the fracking is the cause.

-=Geoskd

Yeah, I didn't list that because conservation is not a source of energy. Realistically speaking, Nuclear is the only option I listed. Its the only one with a fuel source measured in millennium instead of years. Nuclear cant handle the load right now because the infrastructure isnt there yet. The real question is when will we be ready to implement 100% nuclear, and what do we do in the mean time. Everything else is just political window dressing to keep the NIMBYs at bay.

The issue is that all of the renewable energy sources together aren't good enough and, without a significant (read unpredictable) breakthrough, never will be. Anyone who tells you different probably isn't qualified to have an opinion in the matter.

Odds are that eventually someone will come up with something good enough other than nuclear. The trouble is that it might be tomorrow, or it might be 10,000 years down the road. Only the desperate or the monumentally stupid would gamble our immediate future on something we don't already have in our hands. Renewable energy isn't an incremental improvement on existing technology, its a revolutionary new idea that hasn't happened yet. Good luck with that.

-=Geoskd

Solar power has about 0.44 deaths per TWh

Granted thats better than the 4.0 for Natural Gas, but Solar is not viable for other reasons.

-=Geoskd

Actually, no. In theory, it is impossible to reduce all nuclear accidents to zero. Theory states quite simply that it is a game of chance, and that we can alter the odds, but cannot render them all the way to zero. We simply have to pay our money and make our bet.

Competently done, engineering will always improve the odds, making things safer, but perfect safety is theoretically impossible.

-=Geoskd

To do the process right, you test the cement job when it is done, and if it doesn't pass, you seal the well and start over. This is expensive, and companies are loathe to do it. Thats how we got the deepwater horizon mess. The regulation needs to be in place. The person who makes the decision to go ahead with a well needs to be in a position of having little to gain from letting a well go ahead, but everything to loose form approving an imperfect well.

-=Geoskd

There is, and it has. Its called taking shortcuts to save time and money. It caused the deep water horizon screw up, and it will happen over and over without proper regulation.

-=Geoskd

That doesn't necescarily require as much energy as you think. Those rock formations could easily provide natural waveguides for different frequency wave fronts, channeling the relatively small energy wave in specific directions. It is most likely a simple function of natural harmonics that some random place nearby will happen to shake when the fracking is done, At the higher frequency vibrations, the energy involved can be downright trivial. Remember, a 400 watt sub woofer can vibrate a man out of his skull at 10 Hz from 30 feet away. Imagine what a 2 magawatt diesel motor can do if all the energy happens to be channeled in one direction.

-=Geoskd

Ok, lets do that, Lets look at the alternatives. (Notice I said look at, not look for. That's because we need a solution today, not some pie in the sky solution tomorrow.)

Option 1:) Oil. Wow, It's been a bad idea since it was conceived, and makes fracking look like the safest thing ever.

Option 2:) Coal. Yeah, that's real safe, and clean too

Option 3:) Nuclear. Probably wouldn't be so bad if someone could come up with a design that didn't require active safety measures. Truth be told, however, putting that much power in one place gets hairy. Mini reactors might be a better bet...

Option 4:) Fracking. Not terribly bad if done right. Pretty clean burning fuel. Needs massive regulatory oversight.

Option 5:) Solar. Short of discovering an unprecedented supply of raw materials for making solar panels and being prepared to cover 200,000 Square miles of land somewhere, this is a pipe dream.

Option 6:) Wind. There just isn't enough of it, except from the environmental lobby.

Option 7:) Breakthrough technology. This is probably what we'll end up with in a millennium or so, but breakthroughs are unpredictable, so don't count on it, or you'll be alone in the dark with your fingers crossed.

Seriously, for the immediate future, Gas Fracking is the least problematic option. Anything else has geopolitical or environmental ramifications that dwarf fracking in scale and nastiness. For the longer term future, some variation on nuclear is the smart pick. 20 years from now, the Germans are gonna regret closing all those nukes when they buy 90% of their power from France, and France decides they don't want to sell... Now all we have to do is keep the damn things from melting.

-=Geoskd