Oh. TBH, with regard to the leak comment, I might have been thinking about the difficulties of transporting ethanol compared to petroleum. Either way, I wasn’t referring to the safety or environmental aspect of leakage, since they’re just venting and flaring it now, anyway!
Transporting natural gas in its gaseous form is not difficult at all - it just takes a lot of time and money to build the pipelines (plus you need to get siting licesnes).
We’ve got a ton here in the US:
And we’re building more all of the time: http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-09-26/natural-gas-pipelines-to-expand-u-dot-s-dot-supply-glut-energy-markets
LNG is really expensive (the capital costs are monstrous - look up the Cheniere facility if you’re interested) - but its necessary if you want to transport across the ocean - otherwise the energy density is just too low.
Basically, the infrastructure (and demand) hasn’t caught up to the supply of natural gas in the US. In a lot of places this means that the gas just stays put (we call it tap and cap).
But oil prcies have climibed to the point where 2 things happen:
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we have what we call ‘wet gas’ - where the natural gas has what are galled natural gas liquids - many of these can be synthesized into RBOB, the gasoline precursor, very easily. This makes the entire ‘play’ valuable enough to justify exploration, even with very low prices of natural gas
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a lot of oil has what is called ‘associated gas’ - this is what you see in ND. Oil and gas typically occur in geological traps and depending on the age, heat and depth of the formation, you get a different mix of oil and gas. Here, the oil is valuable enough to justify the exploration - even to the point of flaring the natural gas.
Anyway - the challenge here is the time and money required to build the transport. And, of course, the economic incentive to do some unenvironmental stuff. This is really a case where the gov should be stepping in - you can blame the corporations for wanting to make money, but, well, good luck with that.
If you’re interested in seeing how the money has shifted the focus from gas to oil, take a look at these rig counts. This is one thing we watch a lot in the industry.
When folks first started planning around going after all of this natural gas a few years back, we were coming out of 8 and 10 dollar natural gas, with prices, with prices around 6 dollars in 09 and 10 and expectation of future increases. The recent glut along with the lower than expected economic growth pushed those prices down below 3 dollars last year, and they have mostly hovered between 3 and 4 for the last year (this is at Henry Hub, the most liquid trading point - spot prices can climb much higher, especially when looking at delivered prices in ‘consumptio’ areas like the northeast).
So, obviosuly, those kinds of changes in prices are going to have some pretty big impacts on what you do with the resource.
As far as how flaring the gas compares to other uses - when it’s burned at a Combustion Turbine or a Combined Cycle plant, it has the vast majority of particulate emissions and SO2 removed via various controls. So flaring is considerably worse.
The problem is that we, as a society, may well have to pay for it eventually. The producer is externalizing the cost by venting. If at some point we have to remove carbon from the atmosphere or energy costs rise to reflect the real cost of production/consumption/remediation, we the inhabitants of this planet, will be stuck with the bill.
Just to clarify, there is a difference between flaring and venting. Flaring is combusting the gas, whereas venting just releases it to the atmosphere. Two completely different things.
One hesitates to ask, but which is worse, Earth-wise?
I just had a chat today with a gentleman from EPA who was bemoaning the poor combustion efficiency of flares. Seemed a bit silly; we know how to make fire, right? It seems the gas flow coming out is pretty uneven and will often have pockets of inert gases or water. Thus a lot of methane does get vented.
For readers at home who might wonder why this is important, CO2 emissions have dropped in part due to the shift from coal to NG. But depending on how much methane we lose getting it from ground to end user, we may actually have greater GHG emissions.
Venting is worse, flaring is ‘better’, as long as it’s full combustion of the gases, as Ruken points out.
I know things work differently in the US, but here in Alberta the rules and regulations around flaring and venting are pretty tight. Venting is a HUGE no no, and you’ll be fined and issued a high risk enforcement order if you vent gases when combustion is feasible. Flaring is closely monitored as well to ensure full combustion, however I am sure there are cases where it does not occur, as Ruken suggests.
The other risk is fugitive emissions, which is where gases leak through flanges, seams, connections, etc., and again, here there are fugitive emission programs and fancy camera’s designed to identify where fugitive emissions are occurring and fix them. Fugitive emission management is usually a significant internal program for the majority of the big players too, as companies can lose millions of dollars in profit a year through these little leaks.
Many regions (including here) have specific requirements for exit velocity, heating values, smoke emissions, ignition, etc. to mitigate incomplete combustion. I’m not sure how strict the requirements are in the US. Is flaring a federal or state regulated event?
Honestly, the US is a bit behind regulation-wise than some other Western countries that are developing oil and gas.
That was most excellent. Brava!
From the first cite:
Anyway, North Dakota really should have known better. It has been over 100 years since Spindletop- it is well known that smart resource management can prevent huge amounts of waste. Shale drilling in the area is a new development, but it is no secret that the formation extends across 2 American and 2 Canadian states- it is colossal to say the least (I’ve seen estimates as high as 100bn bbl of oil). A little forethought and planning (apparently too much to ask in North Dakota) could easily have been applied to prevent such idiotic wastefulness. But no, let’s just set the resource on fire :smack:
Meanwhile, our friends in Congress propose opening up more federal lands to drilling, from here:
Gee, since these lands have not yet been opened yet, is it possible we can learn from the jackassed example of North Dakota and plan ahead if/when we drill there? If we weren’t wasting our resources elsewhere, maybe we wouldn’t need to drill everything. But watch these lands get developed while making the same half-witted mistakes. I’d bet money they’ll screw it up- again and again.
We already have solutions. The problem is, in these particular circumstances, the solutions currently cost more than they would grant in revenue. From a pure corporate perspective, sure, it makes sense to just vent/flare them at that point. From the perspective of literally burning a non-renewable resource, it’s a fucking stupid idea, even outside of any emissions/climate change type of worry.
Yes, if they were required to contain/transport it, the cost would cut into the oil profits of those wells. It might even make those wells currently unprofitable to run. That’s fine, it’s not exactly uncommon for some wells to be turned off and on based on market values, technology, etc.
And I don’t really see how it’s particularly different than forcing, say, factories to put scrubbers on their smokestacks or requiring them to treat their wastewater–both are things that increase the cost of running a factory with no real tangible benefit to the factory owner, and if the cost of adding them means the factory is no longer profitable, it closes.
A few more quotes to consider from my first cite:
But aw shucks, North Dakota is just so rural, so far out of the way, there’s no way this could have been prevented! Again from the same source:
Sounds sensible, right? What is the corresponding policy in our (literally) shining city on the hill up there in North Dakota?
Meanwhile here in the US, voices likethis continue to be influential:
I’ve heard this line from other sources too… anyway, that’s what you hear when they’re begging you to let them drill. They lie to the proles to get them to exert pressure and help them get their way, but once they get what they want it all goes out the window, and they* set it the fuck on fire!*
I don’t suppose they could at least burn the stuff in a generator to produce electricity?
It’s pretty short-sighted to say we’re justified in burning something as a waste product today because it hasn’t yet reached a market value making it worth selling.
What’s your plan for when it does reach that price? Un-burn it and sell it?
I sort of understand why it’s difficult to pipe it away and sell it to, say, Mongolia. What I don’t understand is why you can’t at least use it to, you know, help power North Dakota. It seems like even if you just use it to power the plant itself and the towns around, you’d be way ahead.
I would love to see companies required to capture and use associated gas. But even if they did capture it, where would we store it while we find somewhere to use it all? Part of the problem is that there aren’t enough end users for the product in the U.S. (which is why the price is so low, which makes it uneconomical to produce).
The majority (82%) of ND’s power comes from coal, so retrofitting everything to generate electricity from natural gas will take decades. It’s certainly a long term option, but not short term.
I think part of the problem is that, while suggestions for what to do with the natural gas are good, people expect immediate changes. Things take time, and by time, I mean decades. It takes the involvement and buy in of the government, industry, and the people who live there. In an ideal world, even if all these things line up, making it happen takes a very long time.
And this oil that they’re extracting where they can’t do anything with the natural gas but burn it–is it absolutely necessary that we go get this oil right now, or is it just being extracted because a few companies are making a quick buck while the getting’s good?
Jesus Christ, when did this place turn into fucking Reddit Junior? I thought this board mostly attracted full-grown adults. Are you trying to connect with your teenage kids by using this ridiculous 4chan language? You look like a CEO who grows dreadlocks and tries to “rap” with an investors’ meeting. You’re embarrassing yourselves.
Sure, but it’s a matter of building it first, which takes a number of years. And then building up infrastructure (transmission lines - often requiring purchasing rights of way) to connect the plant to the rest of the country.
Plants and power lines don’t come cheap or fast.
It’s the Pit. Lighten up, Francis.