4 ms·
"hardly anyone could oppose regulating the wells involved." This issue has been going on for a long time, even without fracking. The issue always is access to
by abernard1 7y ago
"hardly anyone could oppose regulating the wells involved."
This issue has been going on for a long time, even without fracking.
The issue always is access to natural gas pipelines. The natural gas comes up with oil production no matter what. Absent access to a pipeline, the well is "flared" and the natural gas is burned off.
This has been happening in Nigeria and other countries internationally for decades to due to gas rights disputes.
The question people should ask themselves is why oil & gas companies would voluntarily leave money on the table, and the answer is "they wouldn't." However, if you look at New York right now, and natural gas policy over the last 10 years, it has been actively hostile to building the pipelines that would prevent this resource from being wasted. The reality is the people "opposed" to fixing this problem are the people who force the oil production to happen without allowing the resource to be consumed.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- sitkack 7y agoIf they can't store it, they shouldn't be allowed to vent or flare it, plain and simple.
- abernard1 7y agoYou are effectively saying oil drilling should be banned in America. Gas is a natural byproduct of drilling, and currently it is the U.S. government preventing this byproduct from being used and exported due to pipeline bans. Gazprom--the Russian gas giant--has no such desire to set perfectly good resources on fire (literally), and has captured the European market because of it. Edit: for those who have not quite made this connection yet, the "natural" in "natural gas" is because there's nothing you can actually do to prevent the gaseous mixture from escaping from the ground (due to depressurization) with liquefied oil drilling. It is just "naturally" there. If it can't be contained under pressure in a pipeline, it either has to be released or set on fire.
- greglindahl 7y agoVenting it and flaring it have wildly different environmental impacts.
- CalRobert 7y agoIf the state refuses to let me sail trash barges in the river that hardly means it's their fault I decided to dump all the trash in the river.
- chii 7y agopeople are incentivized to do the most profitable thing they could that pushes up to the legal edge. Pipelines running across the mountains forests might look unsightly, but if they help utilize existing resources more efficiently, they should be allowed. Otherwise, wastage is even worse than the pipeline's costs. The option where the oil remains unextracted in the ground won't/can't exist, no matter how much these people who refuse pipelines want.
- anigbrowl 7y agothe people who force the oil production to happen Pipeline opponents are not 'forcing oil production to happen'.
- MertsA 7y agoFlaring it isn't even the main problem. If it's burned up, it's just CO2, releases of Methane are much more problematic as it's a much more potent greenhouse gas.