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"Anyway" from what reference point? The gas stayed in the ground for millions of years before we poked a bunch of wells into the reservoir. If the wells are shu
by mattbk1 5y ago
"Anyway" from what reference point? The gas stayed in the ground for millions of years before we poked a bunch of wells into the reservoir. If the wells are shut in correctly, they shouldn't leak appreciably. As the comment above notes, the more pipes you have, the more gas is going to leak.
Unfortunately, in many places you can't produce oil without producing gas, and with so much gas right now, there's not a lot of financial incentive to capture it all. If we reduce the need for oil, we'll reduce gas leak emissions as well.
- Kye 5y agoThat's the question. How much makes it to the surface? Oil used to pop up everywhere before humans sucked up all the easy to reach surface sources. There's still a little that comes up from the ocean floor without any human help. https://response.restoration.noaa.gov/oil-and-chemical-spills/oil-spills/resources/what-are-natural-oil-seeps.html https://response.restoration.noaa.gov/oil-and-chemical-spill... Why would it be different for other things created by the same processes? And do the pipes let less leak out than if we just left it in the ground?
- mattbk1 5y agoThis source suggests that geological methane emissions are about 40% of total emissions: https://phys.org/news/2021-03-natural-geological-methane-emissions-larger.html https://phys.org/news/2021-03-natural-geological-methane-emi... Oil and gas seeps notwithstanding, the vast majority of reservoirs are stable and likely to remain so over human timescales unless we stick wells into them and start piping fluids around on the surface.