In North Dakota, Flames of Wasted Natural Gas Light the Prairie

[alp227]

Source: The New York Times

NEW TOWN, N.D. — Across western North Dakota, hundreds of fires rise above fields of wheat and sunflowers and bales of hay. At night, they illuminate the prairie skies like giant fireflies.

They are not wildfires caused by lightning strikes or other acts of nature, but the deliberate burning of natural gas by oil companies rushing to extract oil from the Bakken shale field and take advantage of the high price of crude. The gas bubbles up alongside the far more valuable oil, and with less economic incentive to capture it, the drillers treat the gas as waste and simply burn it.

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.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/27/business/energy-environment/in-north-dakota-wasted-natural-gas-flickers-against-the-sky.html?pagewanted=all

[Evasporque]

1. drill baby drill...burn baby burn...wacko inferno...nt

[CrispyQ]

2. Penny wise, pound foolish.

more...

All told, 30 percent of the natural gas produced in North Dakota is burned as waste. No other major domestic oil field currently flares close to that much, though the practice is still common in countries like Russia, Nigeria and Iran.

With few government regulations that limit the flaring, more burning is also taking place in the Eagle Ford shale field in Texas, and some environmentalists and industry executives say that it could happen in Oklahoma, Arkansas and Ohio, too, as drilling expands in new fields there unlocked by techniques like hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling.

“North Dakota is not as bad as Kazakhstan, but this is not what you would expect a civilized, efficient society to do: to flare off a perfectly good product just because it’s expensive to bring to market,” said Michael E. Webber, associate director of the Center for International Energy and Environmental Policy at the University of Texas at Austin.

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So sad, what we are doing to our Mother - consuming our ecosystem, for the profit of a few.

A sad K&R.

[Blue_Tires]

6. bunch of morons chasing the quick buck while we all pay in the long run

[bobalew]

8. There is a Limit on how long they can flare

In North Dakota, There is a one year limit to flaring. After that, they must capture, and transport it for sale. It should be a much shorter period, but with that said, there is a limit, and it must be strictly adhered to, or there is a hefty fine. Over the last year there has been a an increase in new wells. This is why there is so much of this going on at once. I think it's time ND legislature tightened this time period to 3 months, or less. That would equal more Gas jobs, too.

[Hoosier Daddy]

3. Something of interest happened in North Dakota?

I kid, I kid! K&R

[Submariner]

4. That's been happening 24/7 at Prudhoe Bay since about 1980

and they have the atmospheric inversion (along with diesel exhaust) to prove it.

[Arctic Dave]

7. Uh, totally false.

Prudhoe Bay and the surrounding fields do have flares but they are used for ESD purposes in case of facility upset. The picture you are showing is a full flare event. What is normal is a small "fire" that is used for ignition.

[SoapBox]

5. Ya know...there are only 672,591 (2010) persons in the whole state.

SO...hows about we set up a LOT of manufacturing in the state (they would like the jobs)...rebuild
our train system through that part of the country (for shipping and distribution)...and get back to
being self supporting.

Oh ya...FREE TRADE...translates to, America loses all it's jobs.

Stop Free Trade and make it Fair Trade.

[AlbertCat]

9. The era of fossil fuels needs to END.