There is Nothing More Disgusting Than Wasting Energy...
 

Well actually I can think of about 48 other things that are more disgusting but what gets me pissed is to think that we are still flaring off nat gas. While the fracing production process has become so effective it has driven down the price of nat gas making it a product we can waste due to the economics.

Its just amazing IMO

Yea, I'm pissed off seeing the burning off too. But the fracking, not fracing, is needed for our economy. It's probaly 1/tenth of a billion, per quintenthquadrillionth of 1/100/tenth of 1% of all the gas in this world we will ever use. Have a great warm day.

don't get it..... isn't it 5% globally? could be wrong but I read that somewhere.

Why do they have those flames at the wells?

Called flaring - got to do sump'n with it...if it flows its not good to stick around. Flammability issues and what have you.

BTW - I like fracing, just submitting my 4th book and guess what the topic is? Yup, hydraulic fracturing ;)

when I wuz growin' up half of Baton Rouge was illuminated by light from the NG being flared off at the refineries

yes, it is wasteful

I used to think Fracking was a good idea, until it was in my back yard.

We produce hydrogen and oxygen from water (radiolysis) here and blow it out a stack. Maybe we should capture that. ;)

It is definitely a mixed blessing. Eagle-Ford in S. Texas is making a lot of people rich and generating a lot of jobs but is forever altering that area in many not so good ways that may well come back to haunt it.

The Cline shell formation in N. Central TX is just beginning to start up and this formation is supposed to contain much more oil and gas than Bakken or Eagle Ford. That area (from west of Abilene to the Permian Basin (Odessa - famous or infamous for "Friday Night Lights") has already seen more than it's share of oil booms and busts. The difference this time: where are they going to get the massive amounts of water required by fracking? That area (and most of TX) is well into our second year of historic drought conditions and even in the best of times water is always a big issue in S, W and N TX. This issue is not only protecting what little ground water there is from getting polluted - it may come to do you use your water to frack or to drink ??

I suspect we will indeed end up capturing and using the gasses now being flared.

Don't forget; in the early days of the petrochemical industry in Pennsylvania one of the by-products (gasoline)was dumped into the creeks because there wasn't a use for it.

We'll get there.
Les

I thought there was an international moratorium to reduce flare gas emissions?

In some environmentally sensitive off shore platforms I had been on the flare gas was re injected into the ground until a market was found and a liquefaction plant was completed.

I'm not going to comment about flaring NG at remote wells, but in oil refineries flares are not burned just to get rid of unwanted gas. they are safety features used to help control the processes.
All vessels, tanks, and piping in a refinery is rated for a a maximum pressure and protected by relief valves. When a pressure gets too high the relief valve lifts and sends the product to flare. Understand that a typical oil refinery has a mind-boggling complexity that can't really be comprehended until you've worked inside one for a while. Hundreds of miles of piping, hundreds of thousands of valves.

All refineries would recover all that gas and use it to fire their heaters and boilers, if they could. But that is not easy to do.

In Southern California it is illegal to flare under most circumstances.
If a refinery here flares off gasses it gets hit with a really big fine. Really big.
There are some exceptions but even they usually include a FEE.

The process required to capture all excess gasses to keep them out of the flare during process upsets (like a power outage for example) is very complex and expensive which increases the cost to refine, which eventually hits the consumer at least a little.
The capability to recover all that gas does not exist in many places but eventually they'll all be required to upgrade to do it (or close down if they can't afford to do it).

Here's a pic of the 5 liquid ring compressors we installed several years ago as part of a flare gas recovery project that I was the lead mechanical engineer on (the compressors cost a half mil each, this part of the project cost around $40 mil IIRC).

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1362585681.jpg

What is the big flame I see on the west side of the 405 around the Torrance area? I always assumed it was the safety measure you described.

When visiting people, if waste comes up as a topic, I tell everyone I'm the greenest guy you'll ever meet as I make the extra effort to piss in their sinks.

We are working on something to utilize gas that is normally flared off from wells. It's not all that simple... the gas is dirty and the supply is not necessarily steady.

Around here in the late fifties & very early sixties it was the very sour gas - loaded with sulphur - & was disposed of by flaring. Good thing times have changed a little bit.
Cheers
JB

If you see a flame near the 405 in Torrance, that's exonmobil paying fines.
Their flare should not be going off $$$$$$$$.

If anyone wants to read the SCAQMD rule 1118 on industrial flaring, here's the link although I bet no one gets past page 4 before being bored to tears:

http://www.aqmd.gov/rules/reg/reg11/r1118.pdf

haven't got'n your check yet huh? Funny thing, of all the folks I interviewed for my book, all the ones that were opposed to fracing do not get a royality check. I have not met a single sould who gets a check and complains that fracing is a bad idea....imagine that...