6 ms·

About about using the $1 Billion in natural gas they burn off every year in North Dakota for electricity instead of just heating the atmosphere. http://www.dai

by ck2 13y ago

About about using the $1 Billion in natural gas they burn off every year in North Dakota for electricity instead of just heating the atmosphere. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2269517/The-picture-space-shows-U-S-oil-field-burning-gas-power-Chicago-AND-Washington-cheaper-selling-it.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2269517/The-picture-... http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/27/business/energy-environment/in-north-dakota-wasted-natural-gas-flickers-against-the-sky.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/27/business/energy-environmen...

dredmorbius 13y ago
The challenge with natural gas is capture and transport. Gas is, well, a gas. It doesn't stay put, and it takes considerable infrastructure to convert it to a more manageable form (compressed or liquified). Both of which are states it doesn't particularly seem inclined to remain in. There've been enough issues transporting oil from new drilling zones. Transporting gas (by truck, rail, or pipeline) is even more complex. That's among the reasons oil (and coal) are so useful as fuels sources: they're very convenient. Oil most especially, though even coal can be moved in pipelines (as slurry). Mind: for both environmental (AGW) and resource limitations (peak oil/gas) reasons we'll have to shift off of them. But the practicality of both coal and oil means that that transition will carry with it immense costs.
- toomuchtodo 13y ago
  Burn it on site for electricity. Imagine it like distributed solar, just with natgas as the power source. Power lines, even low voltage (120-480V), are everywhere. Worried about cost? Sell carbon credits for the destruction of the greenhouse gas, and use the funds to pay for the generation equipment. Want someone to manage this huge distributed system of generators? Call SolarCity. They already manage an enormous fleet for distributed solar generation installations.
  - dredmorbius 13y ago
    Low-voltage power lines have high transmission losses (though I'd have to look up just what that is). The reason for high-voltage lines is that it reduces the total current transmitted, which reduces transmission losses. Building out T&D infrastructure is expensive and a concern for distributed generation methods (solar, wind).
    - toomuchtodo 13y ago
      If I were to have free access to the flaring output, I'd implement this myself out of my own pocket.
      - Zigurd 13y ago
        You will need a deep pocket. I suspect the cash flow hole between turning a flare into feedstock for electricity generation or any other potentially productive use and getting paid for that product is wide and deep.
        toomuchtodo 13y ago
        Wouldn't have suggested it unless I had deep pockets.
        marshray 13y ago
        J. Random HN commenter hereby gives you permission to begin disruption.
- LargeWu 13y ago
  I don't think anybody disputes that it is expensive to capture and transport natural gas, but it's a solved problem. The state has taken a completely hands-off approach, letting oil companies operate in a manner that maximizes their immediate profits. Since it's cheaper to just burn off the gas, they do that, environmental consequences be damned. You don't see the rate of flaring in other states because other states have much stricter regulations about how long each well can do this. North Dakota's leadership (which is generally from the eastern part of the state) is too busy counting money and patting themselves on the back for all the economic activity they 'created' to be concerned about the welfare of anybody who actually lives in or around the patch.
tokenadult 13y ago
I seem to be one of the few persons commenting so far who actually lives in the region and regularly reads local reporting on issues in North Dakota (a state neighboring my state). Western North Dakota, where the Bakken Shale oil boom is occurring, is very sparsely populated and historically had minimal infrastructure. It takes TIME to build pipelines to move the natural gas brought up by oil drilling operations to natural gas customers. Pipeline proposals are currently in regulatory review. There isn't even pipeline infrastructure in place yet for all of the petroleum production in North Dakota--much of the oil produced there is brought to broader markets in tanker trucks, and the truck traffic volumes are putting a lot of stress on highway roadbeds until the highways can be upgraded. Right now there is a boom economy in western North Dakota, with extremely high wages, low unemployment, a shortage of single women, http://www.twincities.com/national/ci_22382285/north-dakota-oil-boom-unsettles-gender-balance-some http://www.twincities.com/national/ci_22382285/north-dakota-... and established businesses in the region importing workers from as far away as Illinois just to keep up normal operations as workers quit to join oil field crews. There hasn't been time to build infrastructure yet to move away the natural gas to markets that will pay for the gas--especially because the price of natural gas all over the United States has crashed because of the huge increase in production in the last few years. But given time, yes, there will be infrastructure in place to transport Bakken Shale gas to other markets, and I'm sure that we here in Minnesota will be as glad to have North Dakotan natural gas to supplement our nuclear-powered energy grid as we already are to have North Dakotan petroleum brought in by truck. Once more pipelines are built, the entire United States energy economy will become more flexible. Still to be figured out is the economics of converting natural gas deliquefaction terminals (those cost BILLIONS of dollars and years to build or convert) along the Gulf Coast into liquefaction terminals, so that the United States can get into the business of exporting liquified natural gas. It could happen. North Africa and the Arabian Peninsula used to flare off all of their natural gas incidentally brought up during petroleum production--there was no local market for it. It took a long time to develop natural gas liquefaction; now there is international trade in natural gas that was undreamed of when I was growing up.
- revelation 13y ago
  I don't get it. If you don't have the capacity to transport what you are producing, you can't be producing. Or put very simply: you can not be allowed to burn off unwanted gas. The cost is certainly not zero, it is an enormous sum that dwarfs whatever profit they could hope to get from selling it, and it is failed states only that would allow this massive negative externality. There seems to be no learning in the American midwest. Every other time some novel way of destroying the environment comes along, disenfranchised states quickly clear out all regulatory law to make place for the new boom, and when it's over they are left with unemployed single men with a bunch of new trucks and a wrecked environment while the companies made off with the profit.

by ck2 13y ago

dredmorbius 13y ago

The challenge with natural gas is capture and transport. Gas is, well, a gas. It doesn't stay put, and it takes considerable infrastructure to convert it to a more manageable form (compressed or liquified). Both of which are states it doesn't particularly seem inclined to remain in. There've been enough issues transporting oil from new drilling zones. Transporting gas (by truck, rail, or pipeline) is even more complex. That's among the reasons oil (and coal) are so useful as fuels sources: they're very convenient. Oil most especially, though even coal can be moved in pipelines (as slurry). Mind: for both environmental (AGW) and resource limitations (peak oil/gas) reasons we'll have to shift off of them. But the practicality of both coal and oil means that that transition will carry with it immense costs.

toomuchtodo 13y ago
Burn it on site for electricity. Imagine it like distributed solar, just with natgas as the power source. Power lines, even low voltage (120-480V), are everywhere. Worried about cost? Sell carbon credits for the destruction of the greenhouse gas, and use the funds to pay for the generation equipment. Want someone to manage this huge distributed system of generators? Call SolarCity. They already manage an enormous fleet for distributed solar generation installations.
- dredmorbius 13y ago
  Low-voltage power lines have high transmission losses (though I'd have to look up just what that is). The reason for high-voltage lines is that it reduces the total current transmitted, which reduces transmission losses. Building out T&D infrastructure is expensive and a concern for distributed generation methods (solar, wind).
  - toomuchtodo 13y ago
    If I were to have free access to the flaring output, I'd implement this myself out of my own pocket.
    - Zigurd 13y ago
      You will need a deep pocket. I suspect the cash flow hole between turning a flare into feedstock for electricity generation or any other potentially productive use and getting paid for that product is wide and deep.
      - toomuchtodo 13y ago
        Wouldn't have suggested it unless I had deep pockets.
        marshray 13y ago
        J. Random HN commenter hereby gives you permission to begin disruption.
LargeWu 13y ago
I don't think anybody disputes that it is expensive to capture and transport natural gas, but it's a solved problem. The state has taken a completely hands-off approach, letting oil companies operate in a manner that maximizes their immediate profits. Since it's cheaper to just burn off the gas, they do that, environmental consequences be damned. You don't see the rate of flaring in other states because other states have much stricter regulations about how long each well can do this. North Dakota's leadership (which is generally from the eastern part of the state) is too busy counting money and patting themselves on the back for all the economic activity they 'created' to be concerned about the welfare of anybody who actually lives in or around the patch.

tokenadult 13y ago

I seem to be one of the few persons commenting so far who actually lives in the region and regularly reads local reporting on issues in North Dakota (a state neighboring my state). Western North Dakota, where the Bakken Shale oil boom is occurring, is very sparsely populated and historically had minimal infrastructure. It takes TIME to build pipelines to move the natural gas brought up by oil drilling operations to natural gas customers. Pipeline proposals are currently in regulatory review. There isn't even pipeline infrastructure in place yet for all of the petroleum production in North Dakota--much of the oil produced there is brought to broader markets in tanker trucks, and the truck traffic volumes are putting a lot of stress on highway roadbeds until the highways can be upgraded. Right now there is a boom economy in western North Dakota, with extremely high wages, low unemployment, a shortage of single women, http://www.twincities.com/national/ci_22382285/north-dakota-oil-boom-unsettles-gender-balance-some http://www.twincities.com/national/ci_22382285/north-dakota-... and established businesses in the region importing workers from as far away as Illinois just to keep up normal operations as workers quit to join oil field crews. There hasn't been time to build infrastructure yet to move away the natural gas to markets that will pay for the gas--especially because the price of natural gas all over the United States has crashed because of the huge increase in production in the last few years. But given time, yes, there will be infrastructure in place to transport Bakken Shale gas to other markets, and I'm sure that we here in Minnesota will be as glad to have North Dakotan natural gas to supplement our nuclear-powered energy grid as we already are to have North Dakotan petroleum brought in by truck. Once more pipelines are built, the entire United States energy economy will become more flexible. Still to be figured out is the economics of converting natural gas deliquefaction terminals (those cost BILLIONS of dollars and years to build or convert) along the Gulf Coast into liquefaction terminals, so that the United States can get into the business of exporting liquified natural gas. It could happen. North Africa and the Arabian Peninsula used to flare off all of their natural gas incidentally brought up during petroleum production--there was no local market for it. It took a long time to develop natural gas liquefaction; now there is international trade in natural gas that was undreamed of when I was growing up.

revelation 13y ago
I don't get it. If you don't have the capacity to transport what you are producing, you can't be producing. Or put very simply: you can not be allowed to burn off unwanted gas. The cost is certainly not zero, it is an enormous sum that dwarfs whatever profit they could hope to get from selling it, and it is failed states only that would allow this massive negative externality. There seems to be no learning in the American midwest. Every other time some novel way of destroying the environment comes along, disenfranchised states quickly clear out all regulatory law to make place for the new boom, and when it's over they are left with unemployed single men with a bunch of new trucks and a wrecked environment while the companies made off with the profit.