Methane flaring has environmental consequences

Flaring is short for the burning of methane, or natural gas in flare stacks while extracting or refining volatile petroleum products.Associated petroleum gas is considered a waste product when the well field is in a remote location on land or offshore where pipelines cannot get the gas to markets.Throughout the world, APG is vented from the wells to just recover crude oil and other more lucrative liquid petroleum products.The United States trails only Russia, Nigeria, Iran and Iraq as the leading offender of wasting methane. At first, about 30 percent of the natural gas in North Dakota was being wasted.At a recent energy conference in Houston, even the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) Secretary Ryan Zinke called gas flaring wasteful. Yet, the DOI rolled back rules limiting releases on Tribal and Federal lands. He suggested reduced royalty fees when companies refrain from the practice. Should it really be necessary to pay them to do what's right?The Ohio EPA considers the flaring of methane better than allowing the venting of raw gas with all of its contaminants into the atmosphere. They also acknowledge the need to flare for safety reasons, such as to control pipeline pressures and prevent explosions.Methane flaring releases as much pollution as one million automobiles, according to a Washington State University newsletter. Methane is a 25 times more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. Burning of the methane not only releases carbon dioxide, but over 50 other chemicals including hydrogen sulfide, benzene, formaldehyde and toluene to name just a few of the most recognizable ones.To exploit the Bakken Oil play, North Dakota elected officials eagerly sold out their clean air, watersheds, landscape, abundant wildlife and quiet evenings to the industry in exchange for temporary jobs, overcrowding, inflation, crime and filth.Thousands of fracking-related spills totaling tens of millions of gallons of oil have been documented there; wildlife is being killed by poachers and by the endless heavy truck traffic on their highways; water thefts occur from public waterways; tent cities leave behind human waste and trash litters roadsides.The abundant burning flare stacks in the Bakken Oil fields in North Dakota can be seen from space. From her campsite in Little Missouri State Park in North Dakota, one reporter recalls counting 28 stacks flaring one night. Gone is anyone's opportunity to stargaze or experience the northern lights.ODNR, which regulates oil and gas mining permits, and Parks and Forestry developed a public relations plan in 2012 to strategize how to present their intentions to allow fracking to occur under two state parks and a state forest.Politicians were first convinced by the industry lobbyists to embrace fracking with campaign contributions and the exaggerated promises of hundreds of thousands of jobs.We were encouraged to support it as a vital pathway to energy independence and lower prices. Not mentioned were the environmental and social costs.While drilling-related equipment manufacturers and local service industries temporarily benefit, the highly paid drilling teams come from out-of-state, get the job done and leave in a matter of a few years.As expected, the race to get it out of the ground caused a glut of natural gas and crude oil and allowed global prices to fall, briefly providing some relief to the American consumer.After this short honeymoon, the oil industry complained about the federal ban restricting more lucrative overseas sales, where prevailing prices were multiple times higher. Of course, federal legislators quickly approved this because of generous campaign contributions to both parties that the industry makes at our expense.So, now the limited petroleum products are being pumped out of the ground faster again to supply wider world markets, which mean higher prices, more widespread environmental damages and a quicker depletion of the petroleum reserves here.With such high environmental and social price tags, no petroleum products should ever be wasted.Frackers:— Consume billions of gallons of public fresh water.— Pollute our soil and streams with spills.— Expose neighbors to toxic, secret proprietary chemicals— Contaminate wells and groundwater.— Release radioactive elements,— Kill waterfowl and other wildlife in oil evaporation pools.— Introduce exotic species.— Add to the risk of earthquakes.— Overload our roads, railways, housing, schools, wastewater plants and other infrastructure.— Overwhelm medical facilities, social service agencies and law enforcement.— Sicken livestock.— Damage crops with road dust.— Cause soil erosion.Despite original industry forecasts of a 100-year domestic natural gas supply being provided by using fracking technology, some revised estimates warn that because of unexpected, quickly fading well pressures, recoverable reserves could be exhausted in 10-to-24 years at current consumption rates.Then what?