3 ms·

I just drove on the 10 through the area. They literally have these strange chimney columns with flames shooting out. https://www.nbcnews.com/business/energy/fr

I just drove on the 10 through the area. They literally have these strange chimney columns with flames shooting out. https://www.nbcnews.com/business/energy/fracking-boom-waste-flares-light-prairie-unused-natural-gas-n186946 https://www.nbcnews.com/business/energy/fracking-boom-waste-... The entire area smells like a diesel truck stop.

patagonia 8y ago
That is probably “burn off”. Flying over the fields at night one can get a really good idea of the industrial structure and scale involved. A horizontal scaffolding punctuated by these towers lit up at night by the burnoff creates a grid across the landscape that is beautiful and impressive but scary in its implications.
rory096 8y ago
WSJ wrote an article about flaring this week: https://www.wsj.com/articles/in-booming-oilfield-natural-gas-can-be-free-11545906601 https://www.wsj.com/articles/in-booming-oilfield-natural-gas... Natural gas is so plentiful that spot prices at the West Texas hub turned negative last month. In general they're trading at about half the Louisiana hub. >One option for Permian operators with too much gas is to light it on fire, a practice known as flaring. Flaring levels reached record highs in the Permian last quarter, when companies burned an average of 407 million cubic feet a day, according to analysis of public data compiled by Rystad Energy, an energy consulting firm. >The resulting greenhouse-gas emissions are equivalent to the daily exhaust emitted by about 2.7 million cars, according to estimates from the World Bank and Environmental Protection Agency. >Texas has thus far allowed companies to flare freely. As of the end of November, state regulators hadn't denied a single permit request in more than five years, records show. But flaring isn’t always an option. Companies might not have the needed equipment set up in areas affected by pipeline outages. They also might have to pay landowners royalty payments for the gas they burn. And flaring gas on the spot means drillers miss out on more valuable products that come out of the ground with it, such as ethane, propane and butane, which are often processed out later.
- fromthestart 8y ago
  >The resulting greenhouse-gas emissions are equivalent to the daily exhaust emitted by about 2.7 million cars You know, it sounds scary, but there are more than 1 billion cars in the world[1], so it's a bit of a drop in the bucket. Still a shame to be so wasteful though. 1. https://www.wardsauto.com/news-analysis/world-vehicle-population-tops-1-billion-units https://www.wardsauto.com/news-analysis/world-vehicle-popula...
- pjc50 8y ago
  Flaring needs to be banned globally. It's absolutely horrendous that when we have a finite amount of carbon that can safely be put into the atmosphere, we're wasting both an energy source and a carbon allowance like that.
  - clomond 8y ago
    Unfortunately, you can't just do that. What is worse than burning off fuel / wasting the energy and releasing the carbon? Releasing the methane directly which has a GHG effect 15-35 times worse than C02. Oh, so you are going to legislate that all of the gas is captured, transported and moved to market and then used in all instances? Now your legislation just got SUPER expensive and SUPER complicated. And/or a bunch of rigs would just not be built, given that in so many instances gases are co-existing with the liquid which is the target resource. Realistically, legislating a carbon tax and a removal of direct and indirect subsidies would not just be significantly cheaper, but also much more simple and way more politically palatable. (but as we can see, still very difficult and non-trivial).
    - pjc50 8y ago
      > a bunch of rigs would just not be built, given that in so many instances gases are co-existing with the liquid which is the target resource. Yeah, that's a feature not a bug. Carbon-taxing the methane flaring would be a decent compromise to start with though, but I'm not sure whether it would be pricey enough to make a difference and (as you point out) it's quite easy to evade when flaring gas at the point of production. It's also a strangely non-joined-up market when one set of people are performing fracking specifically to get at the gas and another set of people are flaring it as a worthless byproduct. Perhaps there should be a moratorium on gas exploration until it's not worthless? (A key point to remember in exploration: just because it's there doesn't mean it has to be extracted now. Obviously the individual firm is going to want to do it immediately, but for the planet as a whole or even the individual extracting country the priority is not the same)

patagonia 8y ago

That is probably “burn off”. Flying over the fields at night one can get a really good idea of the industrial structure and scale involved. A horizontal scaffolding punctuated by these towers lit up at night by the burnoff creates a grid across the landscape that is beautiful and impressive but scary in its implications.

rory096 8y ago

WSJ wrote an article about flaring this week: https://www.wsj.com/articles/in-booming-oilfield-natural-gas-can-be-free-11545906601 https://www.wsj.com/articles/in-booming-oilfield-natural-gas... Natural gas is so plentiful that spot prices at the West Texas hub turned negative last month. In general they're trading at about half the Louisiana hub. >One option for Permian operators with too much gas is to light it on fire, a practice known as flaring. Flaring levels reached record highs in the Permian last quarter, when companies burned an average of 407 million cubic feet a day, according to analysis of public data compiled by Rystad Energy, an energy consulting firm. >The resulting greenhouse-gas emissions are equivalent to the daily exhaust emitted by about 2.7 million cars, according to estimates from the World Bank and Environmental Protection Agency. >Texas has thus far allowed companies to flare freely. As of the end of November, state regulators hadn't denied a single permit request in more than five years, records show. But flaring isn’t always an option. Companies might not have the needed equipment set up in areas affected by pipeline outages. They also might have to pay landowners royalty payments for the gas they burn. And flaring gas on the spot means drillers miss out on more valuable products that come out of the ground with it, such as ethane, propane and butane, which are often processed out later.

fromthestart 8y ago
>The resulting greenhouse-gas emissions are equivalent to the daily exhaust emitted by about 2.7 million cars You know, it sounds scary, but there are more than 1 billion cars in the world[1], so it's a bit of a drop in the bucket. Still a shame to be so wasteful though. 1. https://www.wardsauto.com/news-analysis/world-vehicle-population-tops-1-billion-units https://www.wardsauto.com/news-analysis/world-vehicle-popula...
pjc50 8y ago
Flaring needs to be banned globally. It's absolutely horrendous that when we have a finite amount of carbon that can safely be put into the atmosphere, we're wasting both an energy source and a carbon allowance like that.
- clomond 8y ago
  Unfortunately, you can't just do that. What is worse than burning off fuel / wasting the energy and releasing the carbon? Releasing the methane directly which has a GHG effect 15-35 times worse than C02. Oh, so you are going to legislate that all of the gas is captured, transported and moved to market and then used in all instances? Now your legislation just got SUPER expensive and SUPER complicated. And/or a bunch of rigs would just not be built, given that in so many instances gases are co-existing with the liquid which is the target resource. Realistically, legislating a carbon tax and a removal of direct and indirect subsidies would not just be significantly cheaper, but also much more simple and way more politically palatable. (but as we can see, still very difficult and non-trivial).
  - pjc50 8y ago
    > a bunch of rigs would just not be built, given that in so many instances gases are co-existing with the liquid which is the target resource. Yeah, that's a feature not a bug. Carbon-taxing the methane flaring would be a decent compromise to start with though, but I'm not sure whether it would be pricey enough to make a difference and (as you point out) it's quite easy to evade when flaring gas at the point of production. It's also a strangely non-joined-up market when one set of people are performing fracking specifically to get at the gas and another set of people are flaring it as a worthless byproduct. Perhaps there should be a moratorium on gas exploration until it's not worthless? (A key point to remember in exploration: just because it's there doesn't mean it has to be extracted now. Obviously the individual firm is going to want to do it immediately, but for the planet as a whole or even the individual extracting country the priority is not the same)