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The Dead Sea of West Texas
- divbzero 5y agoCalling a toxic artificial body of water the “dead sea” seems to give the actual Dead Sea a bad name. The Dead Sea while salty is a natural formation that supports some microbial life [1]. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Sea#Fauna_and_flora https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Sea#Fauna_and_flora
- rektide 5y agoPersonally it feels the other way around to me? The Dead Sea happened into it naturally, long ago, but the idea of un-aerated water, or toxic water, a sea that has fallen into a lifeless husk, seems pretty general & deserving of the scorn & harshness of the name "dead sea", regardless of cause.
- fastball 5y agoThen the problem is that the Dead Sea is a misnomer.
- paulryanrogers 5y agoToxic sea?
- scythe 5y agoThere's a definite "if that wasn't a bad idea it would be done already" attached to this, but my first thought would be to put a few hundred kilograms of explosives down the well and let gravity do the rest.
- throwaway0a5e 5y agoSeems like a sensible thing to try but unfortunately it's the 2020s and not 1970s.
- dylan604 5y agoThe only other sensible thing would be to take off and nuke it from orbit. It's west Texas, I doubt anyone would notice a difference ;-)
- monkeybutton 5y agoThe Soviets did close at least one oil well with a nuke, so the idea isn't entirely detached from reality.
- tuatoru 5y agoLet gravity do what, exactly? The water is flowing out of the well because its internal pressure is enough to overcome gravity. Increasing the well-bottom surface area would increase the flow rate.
- foota 5y agoI think the idea is to collapse the well walls.
- klyrs 5y agoPressurized water isn't stopped by rubble, it's stopped by solid materials. Explosions turn solid material into rubble. Seems like a terrible idea.
- odonnellryan 5y agoWell, this had been a valid way to deal with oil wells that couldn't be capped. Why wouldn't it work for water?
- trembonator 5y agoThe Dead Sea of East Texas would be the Gulf of Mexico then
- 14 5y agoAs a Canadian this reminds me of Alberta. They will have an abandoned well problem to deal with but are in denial. They are also in denial about their tailing ponds from the tar sands. They love to show their one example of how the cleaned up an area and made it grow grass again but the fact is they never dealt with the mess they simply moved it to other ponds far away from sight and put some fresh dirt on top and called it a success. But in reality they are growing more and more and I am willing to bet once the oil industry fails and it becomes no longer profitable these companies will bail ship leaving clean up to future generations. The only way these companies are profitable is at the expense of the environment. A lot of people from Alberta are in denial and will criticize any talk of such things. Here is just one of many articles that outline the billions it will take to clean up the sands and the problems around it. https://theconversation.com/how-plants-can-help-clean-up-oilsands-tailing-ponds-148158 https://theconversation.com/how-plants-can-help-clean-up-oil... Albertans know that without the oil industry they have no jobs so turn a blind eye.
- selimthegrim 5y agoSomeone wrote an entire book about how the oil industry bought out the Alberta govt: https://www.amazon.com/Oils-Deep-State-petroleum-undermines/dp/1459409973 https://www.amazon.com/Oils-Deep-State-petroleum-undermines/...
- cmrdporcupine 5y agoNot all Albertans. Just a vocal and powerful portion of the population. (Grew up there, family is still there.)
- refurb 5y agoAlberta is doing just fine thanks. Oil sands are opening new reserves. Old wells are being shut down. It’s helping make North America oil independent from the Middle East which is a good thing not a bad thing. Alberta will continue to provide the energy the rest of country needs for a lot longer.
- 14 5y agoWith approx. 71,000 abandoned wells and 91,000 inactive wells even if you closed 500 a month, and let me tell you this is no where near the rate of how many are being closed, it would take 27 years. The fact is however that even more are being created annually. Alberta is not doing fine they have a future crisis that will be abandoned as soon as it becomes unprofitable leaving the burden up to future generations Long after we stop burning fossil fuels.
- mkl 5y agoIs the Google Earth timelapse link working for anyone else? It just takes me to the globe, spinning.
- aaron695 5y agoThe "Lake" is 400m by 600m - https://www.google.com/maps/place/Lake+Boehmer/@31.2231045,-102.7380172,4268m https://www.google.com/maps/place/Lake+Boehmer/@31.2231045,-... Near by "Lakes" / Seas are orders of magnitude larger. There really needs to be an add on for morons to see their news stories on Google Maps (It's great they actually linked to Google Earth, unlike the normal gate-keeping media) If it was the 50's we'd do something cool with it. But instead the future got unimagative bleating sheep, scared at every turn.
- c_o_n_v_e_x 5y agoWhat makes plugging and abandoning a well so expensive?
- pjc50 5y ago> about $3 million plugging about 120 wells So about $25,000 .. seems ballpark reasonable for anything that requires specialists and heavy construction equipment. The wells are pressurized, so you can't just dump concrete on it and call it a day.
- bandushrew 5y agoWhy are there so many absent landowners?
- ac29 5y agoMuch of West Texas is barren wasteland not suitable for human habitation.
- bsder 5y agoIt's a trapdoor function--intentionally so. Ownership is buried beneath layers and layers of transfers in the hope that you can't reverse the chain if liability pops up. Of course, if something like, say, the fracking boom in Pennsylvania comes along instead, suddenly all the owners magically appear and start asserting their ownership rights.