Tag: flaring

Yale Climate Connection, June 4, 2021

Articles include: A climate-change-inspired video road-trip across the U.S.; Key readings on IEA’s ‘Net Zero by 2050’ report; Tips: How to weatherize your home; Talking climate with those holding different worldviews; New Mexico imposes strict rule to prevent venting, flaring of natural gas; Can fossil-fuel-dependent Wyoming build a more diverse economy?; Swiss utilities used a simple tactic to get customers to buy renewable energy; Foresters use fire and goats to care for Missouri’s Mark Twain National Forest; Youth-led Sunrise Movement calls for national job guarantee

The Daily Climate, April 2,2021

Articles include: climate change stunting farm production; activists doubt transportation plan; Arctic sea ice loss and major snowstorms; coal mining in Canada; EV sales; cheaper and cheaper solar power; California drought and wildfires; Australia fire and flood; reversing efficiency rules; Texas activists fighting natural gas project overseas.

Drillers Burned Off Gas at a Staggering Rate as Winter Storm Hit Texas

New York Times: Drillers Burned Off Gas at a Staggering Rate as Winter Storm Hit Texas. Frigid temperatures last month froze pipelines and forced companies to flare vast amounts of planet-warming gases that they suddenly had nowhere to send.

As Texas was crippled last month by frigid temperatures that killed more than 100 people and triggered widespread blackouts, drilling companies in the state’s largest oil field were forced to burn off an extraordinary amount of natural gas — on the worst day, an amount that could have powered tens of thousands of homes for at least a year.

The need to intentionally burn off, or flare, an estimated 1.6 billion cubic feet of gas in a single day — a fivefold increase from rates seen before the crisis, according to satellite analysis — came as the state’s power plants went offline and pipelines froze, so the wells simply had no place to send the natural gas still streaming out of the ground. As a result, the

gas had to be set ablaze, fueling towering flames, the highest of which can reach hundreds of feet into the air.

“This is clearly one of the highest spikes” in flaring ever observed in the Permian Basin, said Mark Omara, a senior researcher at the Environmental Defense Fund who led the analysis, which was based on satellite data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. “And it could be an underestimate,” he said.

The Daily Climate, March 10, 2021

Articles include: One chemical plant emits a super-pollutant that does more climate damage than every car in the city   Is the ‘legacy’ carbon credit market a climate plus or just hype?    Ecuador court orders end to gas flaring by oil industry in Amazon;   California’s big oil wins OK for 40,500 wells. Farmer vows to sue;   Federal courts help Biden quickly dismantle Trump’s climate and environmental legacy;   Twelve states are suing Biden’s administration over executive order on climate change;   Climate change could drive Komodo dragons to extinction;    Republicans’ new favorite study trashes Biden’s climate plans – but who’s behind it?   U.S. judge approves Daimler’s $1.5 billion diesel emissions settlement

DeSmogBlog, February 4, 2021

Articles include: Whistleblower Accuses Exxon of Overvaluing Fracking Assets;  France Found Guilty of Climate Inaction;  U.S. Crude Oil Exports Are Hastening the Demise of the Oil Industry;   Bakken Oil Trains Unsafe;  Oil Industry Flaring in Texas;  New Mexico Families in Oil and Gas ‘Waste Zone’;  Climate Disinformation Database: James Delingpole.

Invisible menace: Methane flares scorching birds at U.S. landfills

National Geographic discusses an Invisible menace: Methane flares scorching birds at U.S. landfills. Waste facilities must dispose of methane gas by burning it off—but birds, particularly hawks and owls, are flying into the colorless flames.

In October, wildlife rehabilitators at the New Mexico Wildlife Center took in a red-tailed hawk with puzzling injuries. The raptor’s wings, normally padded with thick, dark-brown feathers, were so badly burned that they looked skeletal. Its chest and head were also scorched.

“It kind of looked like it ran through fire,” says Hilary DeVries, a wildlife rehabilitator at the center, located in Española. Staff thought the male bird had been electrocuted, perhaps by a power line. But he lacked entry or exit wounds, lesions, or sores—all signs of such an encounter.

What burned the bird, as the New Mexico rescuers soon found out, was methane flaring, a federally mandated practice for disposing of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, in landfills across the United States. Landfills use a device called a methane burner to convert the gas into water and carbon dioxide, which traps less heat in the atmosphere than methane. But as the burner’s flames shoot out of a tall exhaust pipe, or stack, at heights of up to 30 feet, they remain colorless—and birds can fly directly into them without warning. (Read why three billion birds have been lost in North America since 1970.)

While the problem of burned birds, mostly birds of prey, is widespread—documented cases exist in dozens of states, including Oklahoma, Wisconsin, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Colorado—there are no official counts of how many have been injured or killed. New Jersey’s cases have been more publicized, with several raptors treated at the state’s rescue centers.

Study: Babies born near natural gas flaring are 50 percent more likely to be premature

Daily Climate discusses why babies born near natural gas flaring are 50 percent more likely to be premature. Researchers link air pollution from burning off excess natural gas to preterm births for babies; with the most pronounced impacts among Hispanic families.

Living near fracking operations that frequently engage in flaring—the process of burning off excess natural gas—makes expectant parents 50 percent more likely to have a preterm birth, according to a new study.

A birth is considered preterm when a baby arrives before 37 weeks (about eight and a half months) of pregnancy. Preterm births can result in underdeveloped lungs, difficulty regulating body temperature, poor feeding, and slow weight gain in babies.

Fracking, another name for hydraulic fracturing, is a process of extracting oil and gas from the Earth by drilling deep wells and injecting liquid at high pressure. While many studies have established links between living near fracking wells and numerous health effects, including preterm births, this is the first study to specifically investigate the health impacts of flaring.

The study, published today in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives, looked at satellite data showing the location and duration of flares, and at hospital records from 23,487 births for parents living in the rural region of Eagle Ford, Texas between 2012 and 2015. In a previous study, the same researchers estimated that the Eagle Ford shale region, which is home to more than 7,000 fracking wells, had more than 43,000 flaring events between 2012 and 2016.