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Sounds a lot like the Paradox of Plenty [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_curse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_curse]. ND is fixated on the oil i

by Steltek 13y ago

Sounds a lot like the Paradox of Plenty [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_curse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_curse]. ND is fixated on the oil industry to the detriment of absolutely everything else. Hell, aren't they just burning all the extracted natural gas because it's basically a distraction from the liquid crude? There was an terribly sad update of the "Earth at Night" satellite image showing ND lit up like a Christmas Tree.

hueving 13y ago
> There was an terribly sad update of the "Earth at Night" satellite image showing ND lit up like a Christmas Tree Why is it sad? The light is from lights in towns, etc, not gas fires.
- thaumasiotes 13y ago
  Parent is presumably rooting for North Korea over South Korea based on the famous nighttime photos. ;)
- cpeterso 13y ago
  GP might be referring to this NASA satellite image, which the article says are burning gas flares of fracking rigs: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy/fracking/10463494/Fracking-lights-up-the-North-Dakota-sky.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy/fracking/10463494/Fr...
w1ntermute 13y ago
They need to send some people to Norway to learn how it's done: http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/99680a04-92a0-11de-b63b-00144feabdc0.html http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/99680a04-92a0-11de-b63b-00144... (Google the URL and click on the link to bypass the paywall, or read it here: http://pastebin.com/055t6hiM http://pastebin.com/055t6hiM).
650REDHAIR 13y ago
From my limited understanding it's not profitable enough to capture and transport the burn off.
- fennecfoxen 13y ago
  Transport of the gas would itself require either some sort of pipelines, or gas liquefaction and transport via rail. Neither are particularly cheap, and natural gas prices are, for the moment, near all-time lows. (Storage, of course, is wildly implausible. Leaving the gas for extraction later at more profitable prices probably wouldn't be worth the time-value-of-money adjusted profits you could make by immediate extraction.)
protomyth 13y ago
They're trying to capture the gas now, ND issued some new rules on it. ND is not just fixated on oil, farming is just as big as ever. Look at the number of crops ND is first or second in the nation at delivering. Lord knows the words this spring will be "flood control" in the east.
pilom 13y ago
My understanding was they were extracting natural gas and burning off methane. Methane is much more difficult to transport (because the molecules are so small it leaks out of everything as a gas and its very difficult to get it cold enough to be a liquid). Eventually they'll have methane transport capabilities but for the moment it just gets burned off.
- mapt 13y ago
  Natural gas is perhaps 80% +- 15% methane. The rest is a variety of gasses, some of which constitute useful fuels in themselves, like propane and butane: these may be incorporated into the finished product (which is why we don't sell it as "methane"), or fractionated out. Historically, one saw 'stranded natural gas' flared from oil wells that produced too little natural gas or were in too remote a place to make a pipeline economical. Compressed natural gas is so low-energy-density that it's rarely economical to transport it outside the context of a pipeline - though this has changed in the last few decades with the adoption of liquified natural gas tanker ships and terminals to serve them; Still, the percentage of the value consumed by transportation is an order of magnitude higher than for oil tankers.

by Steltek 13y ago

hueving 13y ago

> There was an terribly sad update of the "Earth at Night" satellite image showing ND lit up like a Christmas Tree Why is it sad? The light is from lights in towns, etc, not gas fires.

thaumasiotes 13y ago
Parent is presumably rooting for North Korea over South Korea based on the famous nighttime photos. ;)
cpeterso 13y ago
GP might be referring to this NASA satellite image, which the article says are burning gas flares of fracking rigs: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy/fracking/10463494/Fracking-lights-up-the-North-Dakota-sky.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy/fracking/10463494/Fr...

w1ntermute 13y ago

They need to send some people to Norway to learn how it's done: http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/99680a04-92a0-11de-b63b-00144feabdc0.html http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/99680a04-92a0-11de-b63b-00144... (Google the URL and click on the link to bypass the paywall, or read it here: http://pastebin.com/055t6hiM http://pastebin.com/055t6hiM).

650REDHAIR 13y ago

From my limited understanding it's not profitable enough to capture and transport the burn off.

fennecfoxen 13y ago
Transport of the gas would itself require either some sort of pipelines, or gas liquefaction and transport via rail. Neither are particularly cheap, and natural gas prices are, for the moment, near all-time lows. (Storage, of course, is wildly implausible. Leaving the gas for extraction later at more profitable prices probably wouldn't be worth the time-value-of-money adjusted profits you could make by immediate extraction.)

protomyth 13y ago

They're trying to capture the gas now, ND issued some new rules on it. ND is not just fixated on oil, farming is just as big as ever. Look at the number of crops ND is first or second in the nation at delivering. Lord knows the words this spring will be "flood control" in the east.

pilom 13y ago

My understanding was they were extracting natural gas and burning off methane. Methane is much more difficult to transport (because the molecules are so small it leaks out of everything as a gas and its very difficult to get it cold enough to be a liquid). Eventually they'll have methane transport capabilities but for the moment it just gets burned off.

mapt 13y ago
Natural gas is perhaps 80% +- 15% methane. The rest is a variety of gasses, some of which constitute useful fuels in themselves, like propane and butane: these may be incorporated into the finished product (which is why we don't sell it as "methane"), or fractionated out. Historically, one saw 'stranded natural gas' flared from oil wells that produced too little natural gas or were in too remote a place to make a pipeline economical. Compressed natural gas is so low-energy-density that it's rarely economical to transport it outside the context of a pipeline - though this has changed in the last few decades with the adoption of liquified natural gas tanker ships and terminals to serve them; Still, the percentage of the value consumed by transportation is an order of magnitude higher than for oil tankers.