March 11, 2014
Up in Smoke
A Record 36% of North Dakota Fracked Gas Flared in December
by STEVE HORN
The recent March 6 House
Energy & Commerce Subcommittee on Energy and Power hearing titled “Benefits
of and Challenges to Energy Access in the 21st Century: Fuel Supply and
Infrastructure” never had over 100 online viewers watching the
livestream at any point in time. And it unfolded in an essentially empty
room.
But the poor attendance record had no relation to the gravity of the
facts presented by testifiers. Among other things, one presenter
revealed 36 percent of the gas by-product from oil obtained via hydraulic
fracturing (“fracking”) in North Dakota’s Bakken
Shale basin was flared off as waste during a brutally
cold midwest winter with no end in sight.
These damning facts were brought forward by Coalition
for Environmentally Responsible Economies (Ceres) Oil & Gas and
Insurance Programs Director Andrew
Logan, one of eight
people called to testify around topics ranging from domestic propane
markets to fossil fuels-by-rail markets, to pipeline markets and
flaring.
A topic covered
previously by DeSmogBlog, Logan submitted to the Subcommittee that
flaring “is getting worse, not better.”
“Flaring in North Dakota hit 36% in December, a new record,” Logan
told the subcommittee. ”This means that more than 1/3 of all natural
gas produced in the state is going up in smoke, at the same time as
consumers around the country are seeing price spikes from natural gas in
this cold winter, along with actual shortages of propane in many
places.”
Logan also said that wasteful flaring is also a growing quagmire in
Texas, which has seen a 10-fold increase in flaring permits since 2010.
At least one influential Subcommittee member has taken notice.
U.S. Rep. Waxman: Flaring “Wasteful and Unnecessary”
During the question-and-answer portion of the hearing, U.S.
Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) chimed in with his thoughts on flaring,
calling for a follow-up hearing to focus exclusively on this issue.
“The wasteful and unnecessary flaring of natural gas is a serious
problem and has no place in a modern energy infrastructure. I believe
the Subcommittee should a hearing to get the facts regarding flaring and
to develop real solutions to the problem,” said Waxman.
In an interview with DeSmogBlog, Logan said he believed that a hearing
on this issue would go a long way toward tackling the flaring problem.
“Flaring, at least at the level we are currently seeing in the Bakken,
is so obviously indefensible that simply shining a light on the problem
should get us well on the way to a solution,” said Logan. “That being
said, the Republicans obviously control the House — and therefore the
subject of hearings at present — and so I don’t know how likely it is
that we will see hearings anytime soon.”
“Wasteful” is an understatement given how much gas is flared off in the
Bakken Shale. The amount flared off could
heat over half a million homes per day, according to a New York
Times investigation.
“In 2012 alone, flaring resulted in the loss of approximately $1 billion
in fuel and the GHG emissions equivalent of adding one million cars to
the road,” explained Ceres’ July 2013 report titled, “Flaring
up: North Dakota Natural Gas Flaring More Than Doubles in Two Years.”
According to World Bank data, the U.S.
is now one of the top five flarers in the world.
So, what’s being wasted? Not just methane gas, but also “rich [and]
valuable natural gas liquids like propane and butane [which are] about
the last gas you would want to flare,” according
to Logan’s testimony.
The propane is being flared at the same time North
and South Dakota face a propane crisis and accompanying price spike.
“In North and South Dakota, the shortage has become so acute that the
Standing Rock Sioux Tribe has opened shelters to serve its population,
most of whom rely on propane,” explained
The New York Times.
Logan says the situation in the Dakotas epitomizes why strong federal
regulations are needed.
“It’s outrageous that propane is being flared off as a waste product
when Dakotans are shivering in the cold due to artificial propane
shortages,” he said. “The only real solution is regulation that forces
the industry to curtail flaring once and for all.”
“Flaring in North Dakota will only be solved when the regulatory
structure changes so that flaring is no longer the easiest option. For
that to change, the incentive structure needs to change.”
Why Flare? Profits
At the hearing, Waxman asked Logan why he thinks companies choose to
flare at all.
“Well, it’s really all about the relative economics and also the state
of regulation in places like North Dakota. So while it’s profitable to
capture the gas, it’s more profitable to drill the next oil well,” Logan
testified. “So if you’re an oil company with a limited amount of money
to spend — as they all are — it’s a somewhat rational short-term choice
to say, ‘Well look, if I don’t have to capture that gas, I’d rather
spend that money to drill another well.’”
“We think in the long-term that’s very short-sighted and a waste of the
value of that resource, but you can kind of see why the market is
pushing companies in that direction.”
This short-term, profit motive was echoed by an oil and gas industry
representative in a September 2011 story appearing in The New York
Times.
“I’ll tell you why people flare: It’s cheap,” Troy Anderson, lead
operator of a North Dakota gas-processing plant owned by Whiting
Petroleum told
The Times. “Pipelines are expensive: You have to maintain them. You
need permits to build them. They are a pain.”
It also helps the industry that the head of North Dakota’s oil and gas
regulatory body — the Department of
Mineral Resources — is headed by Lynn Helms, a former
employee of industry giants Texaco and Hess.
“Bakken…not going anywhere”
Logan and the over 100 members managing the more than $11 trillion Ceres
represents argue that a time-out is needed to determine how to develop
the Bakken more strategically.
“The Bakken formation has been around for 360 million years. It’s not
going anywhere. If it takes a little extra time to develop the resource
in a thoughtful and deliberate way, it seems to me we should strongly
encourage that,” said
Logan in his concluding remarks to the Subcommittee.
Steve Horn is a Madison, WI-based freelance investigative journalist
and Research Fellow at DeSmogBlog, where
this piece first appeared.
Copyright © CounterPunch
All rights reserved.
counterpunch@counterpunch.org
http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/03/11/a-record-36-of-north-dakota-fracked-gas-flared-in-december/?
|