North Dakota Bakken Gas Flaring Visible From Space;1/3 Of All Gas Extracted Flared

[hatrack]

Ed. - its the cluster at the upper left of the image.

When looking at images of the Earth at night captured by NASA, you expect to see more light in densely populated areas and less light in more rural areas. That's normal. Our cities aren't very good yet at keeping light pollution to a minimum, and a lot of light escapes skyward. But as NPR points out, you can also find a big cluster of lights in an area of what should be mostly empty Western plains. What's the deal?

The light blob on the top left of the image above is located in North-Dakota, near the Canadian border, and it is caused by the oil & gas industry there. It is a relatively recent development, and wouldn't have been visible 6 years ago.

NPR writes:

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. (source)

A lot of this light is caused by natural gas flaring. Indeed, not all gas is captured for whatever reasons, and since this terribly wasteful practice of just burning the extra gas is legal there, around 1/3 of all gas extracted is flared.


EDIT

http://www.treehugger.com/environmental-policy/what-wastes-enough-energy-power-25-million-cars-and-can-be-seen-space.html

[Nihil]

1. Ban drilling for gas until this flaring is stopped

> since this terribly wasteful practice of just burning the extra gas is legal there,
> around 1/3 of all gas extracted is flared.

No more extraction licences to be issued while there is flaring going on.

JFDI.

[joshcryer]

2. That is fucking insane.

[wtmusic]

4. +1

Word.

[NickB79]

3. This might actually be a good thing

Now bear with me, because I know that's a crazy thing to say at first glance.

Say we capture all this gas, pipe it across the US, and use it for home heating. The process of moving all this gas will not be lossless; a lot of methane will leak along the way, entering the atmosphere. And as we all know, a little methane goes a long way being 20X as powerful a greenhouse gas as CO2. Once that gas is burned for home heating, it will release the same amount of CO2 it would release being burned on the plains of North Dakota.

Being burned on-site, however, means that virtually all of the methane is immediately converted to CO2. This *might* imply that it is actually better for the environment to maintain these flares.

Is this insane, or does it actually make sense in a crazy sort of way?

[wtmusic]

5. Better burned than leaked

but better not leaked at all.

How unconscionably wasteful.

[joshcryer]

7. Oh, you're absolutely on target.

It just shows, in essence, the total waste provided by these systems. They're flaring it because there's not demand for it. Not enough intermittent renewable resources wanting it or not enough transmission ability to provide it. Either way it's a damning proposition. It's the purist form of waste you can imagine. Burning stuff in the air. Insanity.

[toddmiller]

8. A few more disturbing details

The light as seen from the ground is so intense that workers believe it's the morning sun and have been know to drive in the wrong direction.

In the 1970s in Alaska when Nixon created the EPA, they forced them to pump the methane back into the ground.

Actually what they're doing is illegal but the EPA gave them one-year renewable permissions to do it anyway.

Finally, it's not that much more expensive to recapture it. It's just the almighty God of profit doesn't allow one to think about what's best for humanity but only for corporate profits.

Reference

[joshcryer]

9. UNBELIEVABLE. Beyond anything I can imagine!

Indescribable! Wow.

[lonestarnot]

6. So are they going to blow up North Dakota?

[wtmusic]

10. Kick nt