flared gas in North Dakota at 650 billion cubit feet a day

You are underestimating their willingness to stick to their dogma.

 

Thanks for starting a fresh thread:

I grew up in Oklahoma and remember the flare gas, the sound of engine powered pumps "pop-pop-pop", and even one case of a 'sour well blow-out' that stopped traffic headed into the hydrogen sulfide gas cloud. I also remember an uncle who was a 'wild catter' and pretty much was living hand-to-mouth. The drillers are not rolling in money and it is one of the more hazardous areas to work.

As recently as five years ago, I visited my Mom in Coffeyville KS and relatives in Stillwater OK. Every working refinery had a gas flare. Some of them still stink of sulfides and other chemicals. It is not and never has been a clean business. Well, I've got a $27 oil royalty check to deposit.


The only thing worse than a gas flare would be to release the gas. Not only is there an explosion hazard, I understand it is worse than CO{2} as a greenhouse gas. It is one reason why the warming of permafrost is likely to dwarf other sources ... that and methane hydrates.

Bob Wilson

 

Thanks or starting the new thread!

We travel across the northern tier several times a year, either driving I94 of US 2 or 12. As I stated earlier, the changes in re net years have been startling. Starting a few years ago, getting a Motel room between Billings and Bismarck is impossible. (same between Minot and Wolf Point!) . The volume of truck traffic, particularly tanker and gravel haulers has increased dramatically. I read somewhere that WatfordCity has seen a 100 fold increase in traffic. A projection that I read this winter was that the oil patch was in track to use more diesel than agriculture this summer, and there were expected to be projected shortages of diesel.

The point of all of this is,, multi fold. There is considerable economic activity in the area, leading to low unemployment. But this comes at a huge price to the locals. Infrastructure stretched to the breaking point, roads falling apart, schools bursting at the seems, police and fire services over stressed, crime rates up etc. When the boom busts,, as they always do, this remote part of the country will be left with crippled infrastructure and little to show for it.

Another aspect is the potential issues with fracking, since that is how most of the oil is being released, and the long term effects on aquifers as a result, local, regional and indeed global air pollution due to the entire process, but exacerbated by the excess flaring.

My broad point is this,,, this is a very living example of how our energy choices are not paying thier externalities. We real the " benefits" of cheap oil ( and gas) but at considerable public, long term cost, both economic and environmental. By producing cheap (first cost) energy, that is heavily subsidized at many levels, makes it all that much harder for more sustainable energy to become "viable".

The fact that we are willing to waste so much energy, because it is so "cheap" today is,, as I said earlier, criminal.

Icarus

PS. Two other points. Refineries need flares, as they serve as a pilot light for safe releases of energy in the case of emergency.

Second, to all those that are convicted that the Obama Admin. has served as a clamp on oil and gas development, and ergo production need only look at the numbers. The amount of exploration (driving) is at or near record levels under the current admin. as is production of finished product. Any conclusion otherwise,, is just plain wrong!

 

More info:


"In an overlooked September 2011 investigation, The New York Times revealed that the oil and gas industry flares roughly 30-percent of the gas fracked from the Bakken Shale.
The Times’ Clifford Krauss wrote:
Every day, more than 100 million cubic feet of natural gas is flared this way—enough energy to heat half a million homes for a day.
The flared gas also spews at least two million tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere every year, as much as 384,000 cars or a medium-size coal-fired power plant would emit, alarming some environmentalists.
Why flare? The industry answer is quite blunt.
“I’ll tell you why people flare—It’s cheap,” said Troy Anderson to The Times, lead operator of a North Dakota gas-processing plant owned by Whiting Petroleum in The Times article.
“Pipelines are expensive: You have to maintain them. You need permits to build them. They are a pain.”

"North Dakota the New Nigeria?
Nigeria has been ravaged at the hands of gas flaring. Will North Dakota’s Bakken and other shale basins go the way of the Niger Delta?
The evidence is a bit ominous.
For example, gas flared in the Bakken, like in Nigeria, can be seen from outer space, a stark portrayal of the vast amount of gas being flared off in North Dakota on a daily basis.
So, kudos to CERES for taking on this fight. If you’re going to drill it, use it. If not, leave it in the ground.
Life for humanity on earth as we know it, after all, depends on it.


The above are quotes from:Investors: No More Flaring of Fracked Oil and Gas in Bakken Shale « EcoWatch: Uniting the Voice of the Grassroots Environmental Movement

I haven't figure out the quote function of the new software yet.


Want to see it from space,,

SkyTruth: Bakken Shale-Oil Drilling and Flaring Lights Up the Night Sky

Icarus

 

That can singe both ways.

So what is the govt. (EPA) supposed to do, halt production until these new collecting measures can be employed?

 

I just did a quick back-of-the-envelope calculation, and in the process discovered that the article is wrong. Off by a factor of 1000.

The article says 650,000 "million cubic feet". That seems like a lot. In fact, that kind of struck me as being larger than US total natural gas production. So I worked through the BTU value of the flared gas, versus the BTU value of the extracted oil (690,000 bbl/day). And the energy of the flared gas was 62x that of the oil.

That's not even remotely plausible.

So I looked up the statistics at the ND Div. Mineral Resources: North Dakota Drilling and Production Statistics

The authors of the article misread MCF as million cubic feet. Not so. MCF is thousand cubic feet. Total daily gas production is 650,000 MCF, not 650,000 million cubic feet.

So the energy value of the flared gas isn't 62x the energy value of the oil, it's 6% of the energy value of the oil.

Which is a pity, but ... given what people drive, and how they drive, and how much they drive ... that the alternative is tar-sands oil, and so on ... just doesn't strike me as a killer statistic.

I doubt they're ever going to collect much of that. Fom that same source, you can see that average output is 90 barrels of oil per well per day. I've read that the typical economic lifetime of a Bakken well is about five years. It's the nature of the beast -- tight oil is recovered via a vast number of tiny, short-lived wells. It's even plausible that the EROI on recovering the gas is negative -- that the energy cost of the steel pipe might exceed the energy value of the flared gas.

Edits:
MCF defined here:
Mcf Definition | Investopedia

Mcf | Define Mcf at Dictionary.com

Note that the NY Times article cited above has the quantities about right. 100 MCF, not 100,000 MCF.

 

...keep in mind too (as far as recovery) I suspect we aren't talking about pure methane.
Likely a mix of C1,C2,C3,C4,C5...CO2, H2S, H2O (corrosive wet gases) etc.
So not necessarily easy-button as far as equipment requirements.
Apparently one of most practical options is re-injection.
Presumably this can be costly with little or no profit.
Not saying that is an excuse for not doing it.
Don't know why making elec for selling to the grid is not more common. Bloom boxes anyone?
One 2009 source says estimated 1.5% of global CO2 is global flaring impact.
This also points up that liquids are easier to store/recover than gases.

 

"So what is the govt. (EPA) supposed to do, halt production until these new collecting measures can be employed?"

Yes!

Icarus.

PS. We're is the quote function in the new software?

 

I just do it manually {quote} to start {/quote} to end where {=[ and }=]

 

The quote button is right after the code and video ones. It is just a ".

 

^Huh? I don't understand.

Icarus

 

In the tool bar of the reply field.

Using the reply link at the bottom and to the right of a post, will auto quote that post.

 

It must display differently in the IPad. I should fire up the lap top to see if it displays differently.

I