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True story. I have worked oil and gas for a while and am familiar with this area. It can easily be a well not properly P&A'd (plugged and abandoned) - quite c
by coffeeshopgoth 4y ago
True story. I have worked oil and gas for a while and am familiar with this area. It can easily be a well not properly P&A'd (plugged and abandoned) - quite common down there. It is most likely a Marathon well (HARROUN COM #002), or it could be Eastland Oil (HARROUN A #007). If you want to get a better idea for yourself, you can check the EMNRD - https://ocd-hub-nm-emnrd.hub.arcgis.com/ https://ocd-hub-nm-emnrd.hub.arcgis.com/
- westurner 4y agoIs there a way to IDK 3d earthen print a geodesic dome over the site and capture the waste methane (natural gas) into local tanks? TIL about CBG: Cleaner Burning Gasoline From https://twitter.com/westurner/status/1564443689623195650 https://twitter.com/westurner/status/1564443689623195650 : > In September 2021 we covered a new "green gasoline" concept from @NaceroCo [in Penwell, TX] that involves constructing gasoline hydrocarbons by assembling smaller #methane molecules from natural gas From https://www.houstonchronicle.com/opinion/outlook/article/Opinion-Why-Biden-s-methane-fee-is-good-for-17430657.php https://www.houstonchronicle.com/opinion/outlook/article/Opi... : > The Inflation Reduction Act imposes a fee of [$900/ton] of methane starting in 2024 — this is roughly twice the current record-high price of natural gas and five times the average price of natural gas in 2020. > These high fees present a strong incentive ... "Argonne invents reusable [polyurethane] sponge that soaks up oil, could revolutionize oil spill and diesel cleanup" (2017) https://www.anl.gov/article/argonne-invents-reusable-sponge-that-soaks-up-oil-could-revolutionize-oil-spill-and-diesel-cleanup https://www.anl.gov/article/argonne-invents-reusable-sponge-... FWIU, heat engines are useful with all thermal gradients: pipes, engines, probably solar panels and attics; "MIT’s new heat engine beats a steam turbine in efficiency" (2022) https://www.freethink.com/environment/heat-engine https://www.freethink.com/environment/heat-engine
- coffeeshopgoth 4y agoI hear what you are saying, and there is a ton of room in the E&P space for improvements of all kinds. You would be shocked at how incredibly we are behind technologically (I remember just last year over hearing someone say, "We just figured out our cloud strategy."). In terms of a dome over fields or units to collect stray methane, that may be an issue. We are loathe to construct "enclosed spaces" for gases as that can be a safety issue. It doesn't take much stray anything to kill you out there. We have all sorts of stories of people going into an enclosed space, passing out and dying, only to have more people die trying to get them out. Sounds bad, I know, but this is coming from someone who has come across a few dead bodies out in the field for various reasons - mostly just being stupid. Fees are funny in oil and gas - we complain about how much money we don't have and then spend it frivolously elsewhere. That inflation act, at the state level there are all sorts of those out there and some companies care and some don't. If you want to see something crazy, check out the NDIC (North Dakota Industrial Commission). In terms of oil and gas data, theirs is the most centralized, easily accessed, and complete in the country (NM isn't bad, CA used to be better, TX is garbage-which is odd, LA is god awful, and PA is meh). The NDIC keeps really good track of flaring, so to see how much natural gas is just burned up at the cost of getting the oil out (not such a great infrastructure for moving gas and historically the price hasn't been a good inducement to build any). To get the well level data, it is $150/year, but well worth it if you are working that basin and also in comparison to all of the data services out there. https://www.dmr.nd.gov/oilgas/stats/statisticsvw.asp https://www.dmr.nd.gov/oilgas/stats/statisticsvw.asp
- westurner 4y agoSo there only needs to be a bit of concrete in a smaller structure that exceeds bunker-busting bomb specs and 'funnels' (?) the natural gas to a tank or a bladder? Are there existing methods for capturing methane from insufficiently-capped old wells? Are the new incentives/fees/fines enough to motivate action thus far in this space? OpenAPI is one way to specify integrable APIs. An RDFS vocabulary for this data is probably worthwhile; e.g. NASA Earth Science (?) may have a schema that all of the state APIs could voluntarily adopt? Presumably the CophenHill facility handles waste methane? We should build waste-to-energy facilities in the US, too FWIU Carbon Credits do not cover methane, which is worse than CO² for #ActOnClimate
- coffeeshopgoth 4y agoNatural gas isn't stored on site, it needs to be piped to the nearest plant to be processed and put into a sales line. Capturing methane from insufficiently capped old wells would not be economic in most cases. If a company was called out on it, they would just go dump more cement in it to make sure the gas is contained. 90% of the time, wells that are plugged are plugged well, the ones that aren't and are just abandoned maybe leak only 1-5 thousand cubic feet per day - nothing worth doing anything about (to the company financially). Fines typically mean nothing to E&P with where they are now - though some have gotten clever about it - example being North Dakota keeps flaring down by whatever you are flaring you have to cut your oil production in some proportionate manner (oil is the more desired product) - though that was rescinded during the last big price down turn and am not sure if that is back in effect. To your statement about APIs - that is one thing the oil industry is terrrrrrible with. Our data collection and cleaning is abysmal. I agree with your statement, and I would be all for it, but E&P companies can't even get their own production numbers right - a good example is if you check out the fracfocus database where companies volunteer up their fracturing job compositions. Generally it is useful, but the people who input the data, similar to who would probably be handling this can barely spell and data cleaning would be a nightmare. waste to energy facilities are great, and there are some interesting things out in the oilfield but, like everything else, there needs to be more financial incentive for companies to build them/use them.