One US Oil Field a Key Culprit In Global Ethane Gas Increase
An anonymous reader writes: According to scientists, a single U.S. shale oil field is responsible for much of the past decade's increase in global atmospheric levels of ethane, a gas that can damage air quality and impact climate. The Bakken Formation, an oil and gas field in North Dakota and Montana is spewing nearly 2% of the globe's ethane. That translates to about 250,000 tons each year. "Two percent might not sound like a lot, but the emissions we observed in this single region are 10 to 100 times larger than reported in inventories. They directly impact air quality across North America. And they're sufficient to explain much of the global shift in ethane concentrations," said Eric Kort, U-M assistant professor of climate and space sciences and engineering.The Washington Post has more details (paywalled; alternatively you can read this Gizmodo report)
Happens every year between March until August.
I thought the idea was to get to the gas to burn it, not to just spew it into the air?
who make it 10,000% harder to lay the pipelines required to collect and harvest the gas. This resulted in the producers taking the option to flare the gas off. It's a valuable product, but harvest made uneconomical by stupid lawmakers.
I''m sure it's coincidence that this is about the single largest expansion of oil reserves in what the last 50+ years, and is the USs trump card in energy independence from the Middle East?
Yeah, complete coincidence.
-Styopa
...but 100 parts per billion is pretty much business as usual in the big Californian cities.
And 50 ppb is what the best-ranked ones produce.
Before you complain about the chemical being ethane, note that ethane + air + sunlight = ozone.
Really? Source please.
Deport all the illegals, gang bangers, druggies, and welfare leeches to the third world where they belong, let only productive people live in the United States.
Make America great again. Basically like it was in the 1950s
If you want that, you can start by reversing globalization ("free trade"). You can't have that kind of productive America when you eliminate your own manufacturing base. Soon you won't have a middle class at all if the status quo doesn't reverse itself. Eventually the wealthy elite will have to figure out that they can't stay rich without a thriving middle class to buy all the shit they sell.
Bleep happens. Live and Learn to avoid it again.
Table-ized A.I.
The nice thing about the "Church of Climatology" as opposed to those others is that they have actual physical evidence to back up their scriptures.
You mean like the Holy Hockeystick?
ALL PRAISE the DIVINE CONSENSUS
Looks like the Church of Climatology is jealous of the levels of esteem & high regard held for the Church of Scientology and the Westboro Baptist Church, and are exerting maximum effort towards correcting that discrepancy.
Can't fault the CoC for lack of effort in that regard.
The Church of Climatology: The US Progressive/Liberal version of the bastard-child of the Westboro Baptist Church and the Church of Scientology if they bred. Even the tactics they use against their critics are nearly indistinguishable.
Fascinating, I've apparently missed all of the climate scientists going around picketing funerals while sending out private investigators to stalk and blackmail their opponents.
I stole this Sig
Thanks for the slap!
That's the Holy Hockeysticks, thank you very much. There are over a dozen different ones now and they all show pretty much the same thing.
Consensus is not something that scientists pay attention to to any great degree. Rather it is something useful for the layman in understanding where the science is in the field. For scientists consensus amounts to something they pretty much agree on and don't argue about any more.
Ozone from this source is clearly not something to worry about. There may be other reasons for worrying about ethane release, but this certainly isn't it.
http://www.ozoneapplications.c...
offers some information about the use of Ozone as a pesticide for crops!
I have to blame online advertising.
"Lies, damned lies, and statistics..."
If there is some kind of huge ethane leak from the Bakken, you can be sure there is a huge methane leak as well.
Ethane makes up 10% mole percent of LNG at most, the other 90% is mostly methane.
Methane is a very significant global warming gas, more so than CO2, although its half-life in the atmosphere is much shorter than CO2.
Fascinating, I've apparently missed all of the climate scientists going around picketing funerals
They didn't do that. Why would they?
sending out private investigators to stalk and blackmail their opponents.
Yes, you did miss it. Maybe because it wasn't actual climate scientists, but the church's parishioners that claim to speak for them.
Fascinating, I've apparently missed all of the climate scientists going around picketing funerals
They didn't do that. Why would they?
They wouldn't. I was pointing out that it was a stupid comparison.
sending out private investigators to stalk and blackmail their opponents.
Yes, you did miss it. Maybe because it wasn't actual climate scientists, but the church's parishioners that claim to speak for them.
Probably not a road you want to go down considering the continuous witch hunts and slanderous accusations thrown at climate scientists.
I stole this Sig
Washington Post is completely readable for me. Maybe only paywalled in the US?
Hardly a field. It covers two Northern US States. That is why it's named the Bakken Formation.
Its friday night, can't one of you americans just crack a few beers, jump in the truck, drive over and shut it off?
Thanks in advanced.
-The World
Before this field could go into production, and EIS/EIR needed to be reviewed and presented to those making the decisions. My Questions? What level of emissions did the EIS/EIR review project? Where they accurate at the time, based on best science? Where there remedial or mitigation efforts proposed. The responsible agency, if they find out that facts presented were erroneous, even if the errors were not the fault of the sponsor/developer may decide it would be in the best interest to shut own production until adequate controls are in place to mitigate these emissions, I tried to find the EIR/EIS but to no avail.
Most likely if the Gov tries to intercede we ill see lawsuits that mat drag on for years, and probably allow the field to produce during that time.
Don't worry, if the Sun goes into a period similar to the Maunder Minimum at most it delays the warming by a decade or so. There is no mini ice age or real ice age in the offing.
lol. Seriously? Welcome to global warming season where they say nonsense every year.
You're going to be in for a shock when you learn about there being people working in the construction field all over the world. ;-)
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
that the U.S would point fingers about and demand fines citing violation of international laws and what not, had it been Russia, China, India, or any country in South America. But when they do it themselves...
Its all chinese faults.
Probably not a road you want to go down considering the continuous witch hunts and slanderous accusations thrown at climate scientists.
Yeah, it's not like climate alarmists have seriously proposed rounding up and prosecuting "climate change denialists".
Oh wait...
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
Don't worry, we're not after run-of-the-mill climate change denialists like you, just the ones who continued to spread disinformation, even though they knew better, to dupe people like you.
... disinformation...
Who decides what is or is not "disinformation"?
If the evidence is so overwhelming would it not be a much more sane and rational route to simply publicly prove them wrong instead of limiting free speech?
Why must you jump immediately to abridging the free speech rights of an otherwise law abiding person or group of like-minded people? What other rights do you think this fully-politicized agenda trumps?
To me it more closely resembles the old Catholic Church of the 1600s and Heliocentrism versus the Church's official Geocentric views.
About every decade or three or four, there's been some new impending climate doom predicted. Seriously, I've been around a good while and I've heard and watched this all before. The only difference is that the marketing's gotten slicker and shriller, and schools don't really teach crap anymore, they're babysitters.
It's all about wealth transfer. Every single international climate proposal, treaty, etc etc that I've ever heard of, when boiled down, was at it's core a transfer of wealth. Follow the money. *Always* follow the money.
Speaking of following the money, check out "The Creature From Jekyll Island" by G. Edward Griffin for an eye-opener on the US Federal Reserve and how it was born, why, and by whom it was designed and created.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
Who decides what is or is not "disinformation"?
If it's disinformation about science then science gets to decide. If you can use science to show that it's not disinformation then more power to you.
If the evidence is so overwhelming would it not be a much more sane and rational route to simply publicly prove them wrong instead of limiting free speech?
Pretty much everything the climate science deniers have brought up has been proven wrong and on the rare occasions when they had something right or a valid point it has quickly been incorporated into the science.
The only one I know of that's being investigated for supporting disinformation is Exxon-Mobile. Their own internal scientists told them back in the 1970s about the potential for increased CO2 to cause global warming.
About every decade or three or four, there's been some new impending climate doom predicted. Seriously, I've been around a good while and I've heard and watched this all before. The only difference is that the marketing's gotten slicker and shriller, and schools don't really teach crap anymore, they're babysitters.
The problem with anthropogenic global warming is that it's a slow disaster. The changes from year to year are mostly subtle. By the time the effects become to obvious for most people to ignore it's way to late to stop them. So warning about the potential for global warming in the 1980s made sense. The sooner something is done the less drastic the ultimate effects will be.
It's all about wealth transfer.
Ah, now I think we get to the meat of your objection. If worrying about money colors your perception of the science you're in trouble because you can't change the real world that science studies. Have you ever stopped to think about how much it might cost you if some of the predictions of climate science come true. If it gets bad enough it could cost us much of our civilization.