Shale is a huge source of domestic oil, but the release of natural gas is part of the process. That sounds like a good thing to me, but the companies burn off this natural gas because the market price is so low, it's not economical as a production commodity. I'm all for economic autonomy of companies, but burning off all our natural gas by "flaring" in order to keep the prices high is a horrible domestic energy policy.....
From ft.com -- The rapid increase has made the US one of the world’s worst countries for gas flaring. The volume of gas flared in the US has tripled in just five years, according to World Bank estimates and is now fifth highest in the world, behind Russia, Nigeria, Iran and Iraq.
The flaring is a result, in large part, of the low price of natural gas in North America, which can make it uneconomic to build pipelines and tanks to handle the gas released by oil production. Flaring is often the safest way to dispose of it.
The lights of the flares burning in the Bakken and Texas’ Eagle Ford shale fields can clearly be seen in night-time satellite photography.
Just at these two shale drilling sites, enough natural gas is flared off to power all the houses in Chicago and Washington, DC combined, indefinitely. Look, can natural gas not be stockpiled, or shipped, or used somehow......anything but burning it off? We are desperate for domestic energy production, but we destroy the cheapest form of it? Unbelievable!
No comments:
Post a Comment