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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)

84 comments

  1. Global Warming season by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    Happens every year between March until August.

    1. Re:Global Warming season by Fragnet · · Score: 0

      Spot on.

    2. Re:Global Warming season by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      Only in the northern hemisphere. From March until August the southern hemisphere experiences something nobody is talking about called global cooling.

    3. Re:Global Warming season by pr0fessor · · Score: 1

      Climate didn't even come to mind my thought was why would they let 250,000 tons of ethane waste how much is it going for? even at $0.10 a gallon that's around $18 million.

    4. Re:Global Warming season by riverat1 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Meanwhile the Earth continues to warm, as predicted. Ice continues to melt, as predicted. Sea level continues to rise, as predicted. The oceans continue to acidify, as predicted.

    5. Re: Global Warming season by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You are still dumb and should continue feeling dumb for being dumb.

    6. Re:Global Warming season by inode_buddha · · Score: 2

      ... and this entire thread went to shit, as predicted.

      --
      C|N>K
    7. Re:Global Warming season by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No one had said you have to fellate Obama. That is some stupid bullshit you think you have to do. So tell us why sucking big black cock is on your mind?

    8. Re:Global Warming season by Livius · · Score: 1

      Hemispherist!

    9. Re: Global Warming season by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You just can't stop acting dumb nor feeling for being dumb.

    10. Re:Global Warming season by rtb61 · · Score: 1

      Quite simply because due to the nature of fracking it is impossible to stop. They knew that from the start, which is exactly why laws were drawn up to protect the polluting frackers from justice, whilst of course the general public are not protected from the frackers, profits first, people last.

      --
      Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
    11. Re:Global Warming season by quenda · · Score: 1

      Enough of the evil North-South dichotomy. Three billion people live in the tropics, where summer and winter do not exist.

    12. Re:Global Warming season by Brett+Buck · · Score: 1

      You guys just never give up, do you? Nothing is happening as "predicted" - the trends are almost all out of the 3-sigma band of error and headed rapidly towards 6 sigma. Fail.

    13. Re:Global Warming season by riverat1 · · Score: 1

      Temperatures are well within the 2 sigma range of temperatures projected by climate models. If ice melt is out of the 2 sigma range it's because there has been more melt than predicted, not less. Sea level rise is also above predictions.

    14. Re:Global Warming season by KeensMustard · · Score: 1

      I don't get it. Why would Global warming season happen over winter?

    15. Re:Global Warming season by mwvdlee · · Score: 1

      Whatever happened to 4 sigma and 5 sigma in your story and why not go beyond 6 sigma?

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    16. Re:Global Warming season by KGIII · · Score: 1

      > profits first, people last.

      Which is just the way it should be!

      Do I *really* need the /s in there or is that not obvious? Sadly, there are people who think that it is so binary. Of course, there are people who are just as binary and at the opposing end of the spectrum. They both look good on paper, to some folks, but neither is really very good in reality.

      --
      "So long and thanks for all the fish."
    17. Re:Global Warming season by KGIII · · Score: 1

      Which models should be the next question. Which model, singular, predicted those?

      It's a bit disingenuous to point and say, "The models predicted it!" There have been quite a few models with varied degrees of accuracy. So, seeing as nobody asked... I will!

      What model predicted those, made when, and to that degree of accuracy in all of those values? What percentages of the models made those same predictions? When did they make those predictions?

      --
      "So long and thanks for all the fish."
    18. Re:Global Warming season by Fragnet · · Score: 1

      It's called the tyranny of the discontinuous mind. Apparently economic benefits never outweigh environmental costs.

    19. Re:Global Warming season by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think you don't understand statistics, much less quality control with six-sigma. P-values as implied by your comments are not effects, but are simply measures of how likely interaction is without any consideration of effect size.

    20. Re:Global Warming season by riverat1 · · Score: 1

      When I talk about models I'm mostly talking about the Couple Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP). Different models have different strengths and weaknesses and I'm not sure it's possible to pick any one model that is the best.

      One thing that is possible is to cherry pick individual model runs from an ensemble of runs that happen by coincidence to match real world natural variability (especially of ENSO). when you do that the model output matches the observations quite well.

      Here is an interesting article "Comparing CMIP5 & observations". It shows that observations are within the the ranges of the CMIP5 output although mostly at the lower end of the range but 2015 has pushed observations into the middle of the range.

      One thing that has come up lately that may be an issue with comparing models and observations is that models project the 2 meter air temperature over the globe while observations use the 2 meter air temperature over land but use the sea surface temperature for the ocean area. It sounds like there will be a paper out sometime this year on this issue. It should be interesting.

  2. That's pretty stupid by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I thought the idea was to get to the gas to burn it, not to just spew it into the air?

  3. Blame the regulators by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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.

    1. Re:Blame the regulators by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Enlighten us and tell us what laws are they.

    2. Re:Blame the regulators by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This resulted in the producers taking the option to flare the gas off.

      Flare => burn. As in, if what you are saying is true, ethane would not be released at all.

  4. No other agenda? by argStyopa · · Score: 2

    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
    1. Re:No other agenda? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You misspelled drumpf card

    2. Re:No other agenda? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      #MAKEDONALDDRUMPFAGAIN!

      lamnessfilterislame lamnessfilterislame

    3. Re:No other agenda? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      USs TRUMP card in energy independence from the Middle East?

      I see what you did there!

  5. So, 3 parts per billion of ozone is a crisis... by cirby · · Score: 3, Interesting

    ...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.

    1. Re:So, 3 parts per billion of ozone is a crisis... by riverat1 · · Score: 4, Informative

      Ozone in the stratosphere = good
      It blocks UV radiation from the Sun and without it there wouldn't be life as we know it on the dry land of Earth.

      Ozone in the lower troposphere and at the surface = not so good
      It can have serious health effects mainly respiratory in high enough concentrations.

    2. Re:So, 3 parts per billion of ozone is a crisis... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You're conflating two different problems: 1) Accumulation of ozone in a particular area 2) Creation of ozone due to ethane leakage.

      This thing is making lots of ozone, although it is not accumulating because it is being spread out. It's still creating a huge amount of ozone however, which is going to contribute to the global rise in ozone production.

      Your comment boils down to "Well, my house is on fire. Might as well pour gasoline on the whole neighborhood.". Why make a bad problem worse, especially when the cause is so readily identified?

    3. Re:So, 3 parts per billion of ozone is a crisis... by cirby · · Score: 1

      Actually, what you claim isn't really true. They try to make it seem scary in the article, but there's a helluva lot of handwaving to get from "the ethane releases are causing big ozone issues."

      The normal ozone concentration at ground level - worldwide - is about 50 parts per billion.

      They make a big deal (the red color in the scale in the article) of THREE parts per billion from the Bakken area.

      Do the math.

    4. Re:So, 3 parts per billion of ozone is a crisis... by rossdee · · Score: 1

      "note that ethane + air + sunlight = ozone."

      So where did the Carbon and Hydrogen go?

      Ozone is useful , it blocks UV rays

    5. Re:So, 3 parts per billion of ozone is a crisis... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      CFC's deplete ozone and are heaver than air. So if we go back to R12 as a coolant it should fix the problem :P

    6. Re:So, 3 parts per billion of ozone is a crisis... by riverat1 · · Score: 1

      That might work if we could stop the wind from blowing.

  6. ethane + air + sunlight = ozone by Bruce66423 · · Score: 1

    Really? Source please.

    1. Re:ethane + air + sunlight = ozone by cirby · · Score: 5, Informative

      The source is the article linked above. As in, the article you should have read before commenting.

      "Ethane reacts with sunlight and other molecules in the atmosphere to form ozone, which at the surface can cause respiratory problems, eye irritation and other ailments and damage crops."

    2. Re:ethane + air + sunlight = ozone by St.Creed · · Score: 1

      The source is the article linked above. As in, the article you should have read before commenting.

      Oh come on! Nobody ever does that here!

      --
      Therefore, by the (faulty) logic you're using, you're just a cow with a keyboard - osu-neko (2604)
  7. Re:Bigger problems by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    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.

  8. BHLL by Tablizer · · Score: 1

    Bleep happens. Live and Learn to avoid it again.

    1. Re:BHLL by Gravis+Zero · · Score: 1

      so we are agreed then, all fracking should be halted because that's the only realistic way to avoid this happening again.

      --
      Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
  9. Re:Jealousy... by riverat1 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

  10. Re:Jealousy... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    You mean like the Holy Hockeystick?

    ALL PRAISE the DIVINE CONSENSUS

  11. Re:Jealousy... by quantaman · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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
  12. It's a fair cop by Bruce66423 · · Score: 3, Funny

    Thanks for the slap!

  13. Re:Jealousy... by riverat1 · · Score: 2

    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.

  14. Excellent, thank you. by Bruce66423 · · Score: 1

    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!

  15. Lose 250,000 tons a year with this weird old trick by John.Banister · · Score: 1

    I have to blame online advertising.

  16. Re:Jealousy... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "Lies, damned lies, and statistics..."

  17. What about the Methane???? by TheSync · · Score: 2

    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.

    1. Re:What about the Methane???? by ari_j · · Score: 2

      The wells in that region produce mostly crude oil and natural gas. Crude oil is easy to store in tanks, put into tanker trucks, and otherwise get off the well site to the market in a variety of ways that you can use from day 1 of drilling the well. Natural gas must either go into a pipeline, be vented into the atmosphere, or be flared (burned) into the atmosphere. Pipelines can take years to catch up to drilling (not really due to regulation as others have pointed out, but rather due to rapid drilling for profitable oil outpacing thousands of miles of pipeline construction to sell much less profitable natural gas, along with lack of enforcement of regulations intended to restrict flaring to a certain time period after drilling a new well). So a lot of gas has to be vented or flared. Venting is considered worse than flaring for the atmosphere (because methane is a worse global warming gas than CO2 as you pointed out), so it all gets flared. Perhaps flaring burns the methane but not the ethane, or at least not all of it, which is why ethane is the problem we are focusing on here?

    2. Re:What about the Methane???? by TheSync · · Score: 1

      After further research, if there is a lot of ethane emissions but not methane emissions, the source could be in storage or transfer of natural gas liquids (NGLs) which are often processed from raw natural gas, and include ethane, propane, and butane.

  18. Re:Jealousy... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    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.

  19. Re:Jealousy... by quantaman · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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
  20. What paywall? by evanh · · Score: 1

    Washington Post is completely readable for me. Maybe only paywalled in the US?

  21. A Sngle Oil field? GASP! by Sir+Holo · · Score: 2

    Hardly a field. It covers two Northern US States. That is why it's named the Bakken Formation.

  22. Damn yo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    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

  23. Prior US Gov Approvals. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    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.

  24. Re:Phew! by riverat1 · · Score: 1

    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.

  25. Responsible for "Much"(actually 2%) of Ethane... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    lol. Seriously? Welcome to global warming season where they say nonsense every year.

  26. Re:A Sngle Oil field? GASP! by KGIII · · Score: 1

    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."
  27. This is the kind of stuff by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    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...

  28. Its all chinese faults. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Its all chinese faults.

  29. Re:Jealousy... by BlueStrat · · Score: 1

    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.
  30. Re:Jealousy... by riverat1 · · Score: 1

    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.

  31. Re:Jealousy... by BlueStrat · · Score: 1

    ... 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.
  32. Re:Jealousy... by riverat1 · · Score: 1

    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.