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Oil and gas production in Texas produces twice as much methane as in New Mexico
- bell-cot 3y agoProblem with title: "produces" refers to leakage (into the atmosphere) from oil & gas wells and associated equipment.
- plussed_reader 3y agoAren't those byproducts of 'production'? Same as cow farts, muchacho.
- SoftTalker 3y agoCow farts are less bad as that methane is from current carbon (the grass or grain that the cows eat). It breaks down to water and CO2 in the atmosphere after about a decade at which point it's carbon-neutral. Methane from oil wells is additional carbon even after it breaks down.
- xienze 3y agoArticle doesn't really clarify if this is "twice as much per capita" or just "twice as much." If the latter, I'd say no duh, Texas has a much bigger oil and natural gas industry than New Mexico does.
- auspiv 3y agoNatural gas (which is of course composed primarily of methane) free takeaway capacity from West Texas is super low. Pipelines are booked solid and and 1-2 new ones are being commissioned yearly (google search for 'Permian natural gas pipeline projects'). Oil/gas companies generally never want to straight up vent (i.e. release directly into the atmosphere) natural gas. It gives no economic value. However, natural gas production is an inevitable byproduct of oil production, especially in the Permian basin shale plays, which can lead to either having to shut-in your oil well, or flare, or vent. I work for an oil/gas company that operates in the Permian. Our wells range from ~3000 standard cubic feet per barrel of oil to 10000. Some of our bigger wells produce >1000 barrels of oil per day, which corresponds to 3-10 million cubic feet of natural gas per day. We do not vent unless an emergency situation arises. Even for pigging and other procedures (blow downs, etc.), we capture the natural gas. We do flare if needed, but that is limited. Small amounts of gas gather at the top of oil tanks and rather than risk an explosion (due to lightning and other unpredictable things like that), the small amount of gas is flared. The state of TX has flare limits per day and per month on both a pad and well level. We have also electrified a very large portion of our operations, reducing the amount of natural gas burned to generate electricity (this happens all over the basin). All of our large gathering facilities but one are electric powered. This can be a challenge with gas compressors, which have traditionally been gas powered. Gas compressors are commonly in the 1500-3000 horsepower range each, and there are 4-12 per facility. That's a lot of electricity. One facility does have a gas generator powered component, which can be used to kick-start other facilities to get things going again in case of a major, multi-facility shutdown. Long story short - gas doesn't have a ton of value in the Permian basin. In decreasing order of preference, operators will want to 1) sell gas, 2) use it to run gas compressors or generators, 3) flare it, or 4) vent it. Some enterprising people have constructed trailers with natural gas generators powering bitcoin miners. This option can be appealing to operators who would otherwise be flaring/venting the natural gas. Not sure of the contract commercial terms but presumably it benefits both parties. Straight up burning methane is the same whether it is via flare or generator. Both are better than venting due to the increased greenhouse gas potential of methane vs CO2.
- galangalalgol 3y agoDirect methane fuel cells are in the lab, when they hot production you'll get >90% efficiency in electricity generation. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0378775322005407 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03787...
- brenner100 3y ago[flagged]
- robocat 3y agoSome enterprising people have constructed trailers with natural gas generators powering bitcoin miners. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38195100 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38195100
- kinonionioa 3y agoIt's a pure waste either way.
- quickthrower2 3y ago## Edit: thanks to the that replies spotted it is per unit of production ## --- Feel free to ignore: Per state is not a useful measure. At least say how much oil and meat is produced in each state for comparison. Is it a r/peopleliveincities effect? Or is Texas worse at polluting with methane? Also quite interested in the tech that can measure methane from satellites.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- auspiv 3y agoI had to look through the article twice to find it - "per unit of production"
- nerdponx 3y agoExtracting that part here because it's really buried: > Satellite imaging of methane leaks across the Permian basin, a vast geological feature at the heart of the US oil and gas drilling industry, show that sites in Texas have emitted double the amount of the gas than in New Mexico, per unit of production, since 2019. > Methane is emitted from various activities, such as from the raising of livestock, but oil and gas production is the biggest source of the pollutant in the US ...
- bluGill 3y agoThat still doesn't tell the full picture. Are the quantities of methane the same in both states? I'm sure there are lots of other differences.
- cbb330 3y agoin addition there is a scaling factor. it's easy to control mistakes when you have 1 well. hard to control mistakes when you have 10,000,000 wells. thus the regulation has to be mapped appropriately. also, I'd be interested in seeing p90, p99, etc. to see if outliers affect the average that is reported -- because as texas probably has larger 100x production, average is exposed to more large incidents. i would be MOST interested to compare against other similar "sovereign entity" with comparable production scale and comparable challenges e.g. geography and infra. the US has a huge environmental benefit in producing oil vs entity's like China, Saudi Arabia, because as a transparent democracy we are able to hold our producers accountable to regulation where offshore producers have no transparency and accountability.
- megaman821 3y agoThis is definitely in the EPA's purview to regulate and monitor better. I don't believe the framing at all that this is industry standard venting practices, the excess methane is from leaks. I would bet anything that as we get higher resolution satellite monitoring, most of the excess methane will come from a few "super-leakers" who haven't kept up on their maintenance.
- nerdponx 3y agoAnd before anyone gets all upset about the Commerce Clause and the boundary of the authority of the EPA: air quality does not respect state boundaries, and is therefore a matter of interstate commerce.
- specialist 3y agoAs you know, every single progressive effort begets a much larger reactionary effort to undo it. The EPA in particular has been under continuous assault. Apparently a liveable planet is fractionally less profitable for a handful of incumbents, which is intolerable. When tortured rationalizations (perverting the commerce clause, equal protection, precedent, the actual unambiguous language and stated intent of any given law, and simple logic) prive insufficient, our reactionary SCOTUS will divine nonsensical plot devices like the "major questions doctrine" to get their predetermined outcome.
- andrekandre 3y ago> As you know, every single progressive effort begets a much larger reactionary effort to undo it. so whats the better solution?
- ip26 3y agoFigure out how to make it common sense, if possible. E.g. spending bills tend to fail… except when they obviously save more money than they spend on net.
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- DueDilligence 3y ago[dead]
- tigerstyle 3y agoMy hunch would be that abandoned wells are more responsible for this issue than better regulated new wells. Old wells are more likely to leak, as shown in the link below, are often never checked on, and were often drilled and shut-in when there was a lot less regulation. They can be venting directly to atmosphere, and since natural gas is naturally odorless and wells are often in remote locations, the potential for them to leak a lot of gas for a long time is high. Texas has a lot more historical production of oil and gas, which should result in a lot more old and abandoned wells. That doesn't give them a pass, but if this hypothesis is true, this flaring regulation would not have a major impact. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-drilling-abandoned-specialreport/special-report-millions-of-abandoned-oil-wells-are-leaking-methane-a-climate-menace-idUSKBN23N1NL https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-drilling-abandoned-sp...
- teaearlgraycold 3y agoI’ve wondered how likely you’d be to face legal repercussions for going rogue and fixing old leaky wells. The main non-legal issue would be expertise and equipment. I’m thinking of organizations like wren.co that could do this.
- bluGill 3y agoI'd be more worried about safety. Cattle can be dangerous when they don't know you - most are not, just enough to make you forget to be careful. If you damage anything you are in trouble for it. That said, if you can find the land owner most will be willing to give you permission and warn you about hazards to worry about. Figure out how to do it right and for free - with a good insurance that you won't harm their land and you will have more work where you can get permission than you lifetime will allow you to fix.
- Johnny555 3y agoI'd think that if you touched old wells without permission or government support, you'd end up owning the well caps and future emissions, so if your "fixed" well is discovered to be leaking next year, the owner is going to say "We capped it off properly, those guys must have caused the leak when they "fixed" it, now it's their problem".
- mannyv 3y ago"Better regulated" in this case means "less methane emissions." There are other definitions of "better regulated" that don't include "les emissions." This is the headline bullshit that the guardian always pulls.
- mattnewton 3y agoHuh? No it means there are more regulations that seem to strike a better trade off than Texas; the article claims that New Mexico’s rules don’t seem to cut down on business growth but do result in less methane emissions.
- junofan 3y agoThe article also links to another article that states New Mexico hasn’t funded additional inspectors needed to enforce their rule. A simple analysis would be to tally up granted permits in each state and compare with satellite data to quantify impact and unlawful emissions. If that was done, the data isn’t shared in this article. I don’t think a press release from before a law went into effect is strong enough evidence for the conclusions presented here.
- seventytwo 3y agoHave to associate a cost to this or it’s never going to get fixed. Every bit of pollution put out into the environment should come with a price. You want to emit X tons of pollution? Ok. Pay Y dollars to the government.
- civilized 3y agoWeirdly I'm actually happy to hear about stuff like this. It means there are ways we can slow down the pace of global warming a bit without having to confront the really hard civilizational change issues (which we of course also should, but it's daunting).
- ewgoforth 3y agoI'm all for reducing methane emissions, but Texas is slightly more than twice the area of New Mexico.
- codingdave 3y ago> ...sites in Texas have emitted double the amount of the gas than in New Mexico, per unit of production, since 2019. It isn't measuring the whole state, this is comparing per unit.
- cbb330 3y ago> double the amount of the gas than in New Mexico, per unit of production, since 2019. when we look at data at scale, we use p99 metrics to get more insight into the average. because this article, i'm assuming, is just using average, the metric here does not have enough information. There could be just one incident in texas over 4 year period that affects the average per unit of production. > Despite increasing its own oil production in recent years, New Mexico has no site with repeated methane leaks, unlike in Texas, Why not deep dive into root cause of a few of these abusers? Blameless post mortem to assess what must be changed with very specific examples of issues. Are we wrong to request a higher bar for journalism / research from Kayrros?
- egberts1 3y agoWrong. https://www.nasa.gov/centers-and-facilities/jpl/methane-super-emitters-mapped-by-nasas-new-earth-space-mission/ https://www.nasa.gov/centers-and-facilities/jpl/methane-supe...
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- aa_is_op 3y ago[flagged]
- maerF0x0 3y ago[flagged]
- autoexec 3y ago> Texans generally do not give a shit about anyone but themselves They don't seem to care about themselves either. It's their own land/water/air they pollute by letting corporations exploit them. It's their own people who freeze to death when their shitty power grid can't keep up with extreme weather, or who die from overheating while at work. It's their own family members who die in fertilizer plant explosions. Their own kids who are being mangled at trampoline parks. They're the ones living in the state with the highest population without heath insurance in the country. Companies have convinced Texas that regulations are from the devil so that they can make money hand over fist at the expense of Texans and the people of Texas fell for it. They figured out a lot time ago that if you can convince a Texan that you're giving him freedom from The Man, you can bend that Texan right over and have him thank you for sticking it wherever it pleases you.
- claytongulick 3y agoHave you spent much time in Texas? I lived there for 17 years. Certainly never ran into anyone who feels the way you just described. Or do you have some sort of political viewpoint that's influencing your opinion?
- autoexec 3y agoIf Texas wasn't aggressively anti-regulation they wouldn't constantly suffer from those problems all of which are caused directly by the lack of regulations that would have prevented them. In your 17 years of experience were Texans demanding regulations to protect themselves, their environment, and their families? Were they refusing to elect officials who would allow corporations to exploit them?
- claytongulick 3y agoOk, so political opinion then.
- folla 3y ago[dead]
- sillywalk 3y agoI didn't know Texas had regulations.
- cbb330 3y agoI know the hackernews crowd is very pro-regulation, so before downvoting please consider responding so we can have a discussion and share experience together. "It seems the regulation in New Mexico has had an impact without hurting business" Assuming that oil has some net affect on humanity -- pros and cons. Then we need to consider the net affect of oil produced by texas on humanity, and consider how that net affect is changed with more regulation. Simply saying "yeah it seems like New Mexico doin real good with more laws" is extremely dangerous, because most regulation DOES harm and destroy market affects and competitive businesses. The authors on the study here should AT LEAST report with due diligence on this before requesting for increased regulation and attempting to sway public opinion -- potentially having a net NEGATIVE affect on humanity. One possible example of not considering the net negative affect of regulation, is, for example, if there are many competing energy companies in texas, and there is a consumer demand for more responsible operations, then those competing energy companies are forcing each other to tighten their operations wrt environmental impact. However, if regulation destroys small producers and benefits big corporations, then we would see LESS competition and LESS Priority from companies to tighten their operations, negatively affecting the environment.
- smolder 3y agoI don't think "hackernews is pro-regulation" is accurate, but that might be an easy mistake if you are "anti-regulation". I'm neither thing. I like regulation that works well and dislike it if it doesn't, which I dare say is the rational POV. I'm going to repost my comment from a thread on a recent story flagged as dupe: It's not the amount of regulation that matters, it's the intent. Is it written to benefit a greater good, or written to benefit a political party's benefactor? The same applies to removing regulations. Where did the intent lie? New regulation and repeal are most often shades of grey --bad mixed with good in terms of overall consequences. Many changes disproportionately help a few at some expense to the many. That's what happens when minority interests with a lot of money are overrepresented in government, lobbyists write bills, etc.
- cbb330 3y agoMy conclusion on hackernews being "pro-regulation" is based on observance that posts discussing the downside of regulation are often downvoted. I agree with what you said. Knowing that repealing regulation is much less frequent than producing new regulation -- we should assume all new regulation is high risk, since its' impact is known to have tradeoffs, is to some degree created from perverse incentives and minority interests, and once in place is immutable. Regulation can be good and it can be bad. So if we know that regulation carries high risk, we need to be very apprehensive to anyone calling for more regulation such as this article via "https://www.kayrros.com/ https://www.kayrros.com/". We don't know who they are, what they want, and what their suggested change in policy affects in net to humanity over time. I guess what I want is for companies like "https://www.kayrros.com/ https://www.kayrros.com/" to be held to a higher bar and be more responsible for the outcome of their research and conclusions.
- bparsons 3y agoMitigating fugitive methane emissions isn't a particularly difficult problem to solve. From an emissions reduction point of view, it is really low hanging fruit. The US has said that they are going to do it, but Biden has waited so long to implement the regs, it will likely get rolled back before it comes into effect.
- egberts1 3y agoThe OP article cites "funious" math. According to NASA, New Mexico remains the "super-emitter" of methane in U.S., followed by Los Banos, California (aka Land of Million Shits) Texas doesn't register on the IIS dust emitter detector. https://www.nasa.gov/centers-and-facilities/jpl/methane-super-emitters-mapped-by-nasas-new-earth-space-mission/ https://www.nasa.gov/centers-and-facilities/jpl/methane-supe...
- Aeroi 3y agoCan anyone put into perspective these methane numbers vs. the industrial beef industry in the US?