Astounding Reason North Dakota Is Lit Up So Brightly You Can See it From Space

[xchrom]

http://www.alternet.org/speakeasy/tara-lohan/astounding-reason-north-dakota-lit-so-brightly-you-can-see-it-space



I’ve been told by people living near fracking operations that the lights coming from the rigs are so bright they have trouble sleeping at night. They aren’t exaggerating. A photo from the NASA Earth Observatory shows a view of the U.S at night — the brightest spots that glow on the map come from big cities. The Plains states and the West are the darkest, with small spots of light scatter between darkness.

Except, oddly enough, there’s a big glow out in North Dakota — a state with no cities sizable enough to create that much light. Robert Krulwich writes for NPR:

It turns out, yes, that's not a city. And those lights weren't there six years ago.

What we have here is an immense and startlingly new oil and gas field — nighttime evidence of an oil boom created by a technology called fracking. Those lights are rigs, hundreds of them, lit at night, or fiery flares of natural gas. One hundred fifty oil companies, big ones, little ones, wildcatters, have flooded this region, drilling up to eight new wells every day on what is called the Bakken formation. Altogether, they are now producing 660,000 barrels a day — double the output two years ago — so that in no time at all, North Dakota is now the second-largest oil producing state in America. Only Texas produces more, and those lights are a sign that this region is now on fire ... to a disturbing degree. Literally.

[RC]

1. The excuse being that it would cost too much to build pipelines to collect the natural gas.

When pressed by people that know better, the excuses turn to the gas being too dirty to be cost effective to clean up.
Both reasons are pure bullshit.

If nothing else, the could use the gas at the site to run generators to power the wells, instead of building transmission lines to each well. Apparently free fuel costs too much to do that.

[Surya Gayatri]

2. Hell on Earth...

Medieval artists imagined it, but only modern engineers have been able to realize it...Hell on Earth.

To rephrase Douglas Adams: "So long Mother Earth and thanks for all the oil..."

Edit: to correct author reference.

[demwing]

3. Did you mean Douglas Adams?

So Long and Thanks For All The Fish ...

[IthinkThereforeIAM]

4. That is why the dolphins seem to be laughing at us...

... they have tried to warn us for centuries.

[Surya Gayatri]

5. We crossed posts--I was just on the point of editing to correct the reference.

Of course, the nod is to Hitchhiker's Guide and not Vonnegut's "So it goes" from Slaughterhouse Five.

Well spotted, demwing!

[demwing]

10. Loved the Hitchhiker novels, and miss Adam's voice

and btw, you have a very cool user ID

Om Bhaskarai vidmahe Divakarai dhimahi tanno surya prachodyat

[Surya Gayatri]

12. Me too--he was an eccentric but visionary genius. And thanks for

noticing my Ganesh (Mûshika Vâhana) avatar!

Om Shrî Bhâskarâya Vidmahe
Sayi Devâya Dhîmahi
Tannah Surya Prachodayât
(One version of the sacred Sûrya Gayâtri)

Namaskar and Pranâm to you!

[another_liberal]

6. We get some more oil . . .

We get a little more oil for ten or fifteen years, and the ground water resources are poisoned for the rest of eternity. That is a very bad bargain for the people of North Dakota.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

7. Picture here

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/NaturalHazards/view.php?id=79810

[img][/img]

[RockaFowler]

9. Crazy picture

Are the lights in Montana the same thing??

I'm not familiar with the area, but I'm aware that Montana is just as densely populated

[n2doc]

8. And we move closer and closer to global warming hell n/t

[maryland native]

11. Light Pollution

The light pollution portends the groundwater pollution..

Grim times ahead.

[Divernan]

13. Coming soon to Pittsburgh - 24/7, just like the noise pollution of the compressor stations.

Thanks to our GOP Governor, One Term Tom Corbett, who sold out the state to Big Fracking, and sweetened the deal by gutting the State Department of Environmental Protection.

[Stonepounder]

14. I figure we humans have another 50-100 years.

At the rate we are destroying the biosphere, I see civilization collapsing within the next coupe of generations. There will be no significant response to global warming. At best it will get lip service from the big polluters, but no real effort will be made to curb it until it is way too late. All the burning of the natural gas in North Dakota is just adding more pollution to the air. And couple this with the fact that the bankers and the corporations own not just the US but, in point of fact the world, their greed will keep any government from making any significant reforms. To them money is more important than survival.

[BlancheSplanchnik]

15. .

[Cali_Democrat]

16. Here's another picture:

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-t_vwSnHpo_4/UOXD_j44m4I/AAAAAAAAX90/DQbTW95McTs/s640/fracking+from+space.jpg