Upstream | January 25, 2013 | 52 comments

What Wastes Enough Energy to Power 2.5 Million Cars and Can be Seen From Space?

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pjacobs51
When looking at images of the Earth at night captured by NASA, you expect to see more light in densely populated areas and less light in more rural areas. That's normal. Our cities aren't very good yet at keeping light pollution to a minimum, and a lot of light escapes skyward. But as NPR points out, you can also find a big cluster of lights in an area of what should be mostly empty Western plains. What's the deal?

The light blob on the top left of the image above is located in North-Dakota, near the Canadian border, and it is caused by the oil & gas industry there. It is a relatively recent development, and wouldn't have been visible 6 years ago.


NPR writes:

What we have here is an immense and startlingly new oil and gas field — nighttime evidence of an oil boom created by a technology called fracking. Those lights are rigs, hundreds of them, lit at night, or fiery flares of natural gas. One hundred fifty oil companies, big ones, little ones, wildcatters, have flooded this region, drilling up to eight new wells every day on what is called the Bakken formation. Altogether, they are now producing 660,000 barrels a day — double the output two years ago — so that in no time at all, North Dakota is now the second-largest oil producing state in America. Only Texas produces more, and those lights are a sign that this region is now on fire ... to a disturbing degree. Literally.

A lot of this light is caused by natural gas flaring. Indeed, not all gas is captured for whatever reasons, and since this terribly wasteful practice of just burning the extra gas is legal there, around 1/3 of all gas extracted is flared.

The NRDC has the numbers, and they are scary:

There's no regard whatsoever for the climate impacts (the equivalent of 2.5 million cars, according to World Bank estimates) or the fact that, hey, maybe if we’re going to take that much fossil fuel out of the ground, we ought to at least find a way to use all of it. The Times says more than 100 million cubic feet of natural gas is flared this way every day. With that much fuel, you could heat half a million homes.


http://www.treehugger.com/environmental-policy/what-wastes-enough-energy-power-2...
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52 comments // What Wastes Enough Energy to Power 2.5 Million Cars and Can be Seen From Space?

  • wally60
    • +1
      wally60  
    • what happens when they contaminate the ogalla water supply say goodbuy to the food supply but even that wont wake people up to the destruction we are
      doing to the planet

    • 4 months ago
  • Earthwalker
    • +3
      Earthwalker  
    • notice where they are drilling...native americans have been fighting to keep there land in this area...not only that what are they gonna do when they frac the yosetime valley dry and kill the water supply who gave them the rights to do this ... oh and they follow the railroad lines because it doesn't fall under local jurisdiction so complain all you want ..it wont do any good

    • 4 months ago
  • Paratus
    • -1
      Paratus  
    • "What Wastes Enough Energy to Power 2.5 Million Cars and Can be Seen From Space?"

      Ah..........Al Gores 23,000 sq ft mansion? His Gulfstream?

    • 4 months ago
  • hombre76
  • matka
  • hombre76
  • matka
    • +2
      matka  
    • hombre76:

      LOL, Montana one huge undertaking, bot no prob for dis ting. Gonna have
      lots o' digestin' to do though......har.

      I took Amtrak one uglee time and was at the beginning of the state line in a.m.
      by sunset, we were where in ' Whitefish, Montana and by end of night,
      FINALLY trackin' out of it Mostly barren wastelands, well......prairie like.
      is where the track ran.....the upper route to travel to the upper Pacific Northwest.

      But it was winter, so especially interesting to see all the animal footprints and
      hooves that crossed or were alongside the tracks - from tiniest to mightiest I
      was observing. Just de tracks though, gol'darn.

      The Rockie Mountain range was worth the upper route to 'twas sumething' behold.......surreal.

    • 4 months ago
  • hombre76
  • matka
  • Paratus
  • Andover
  • matka
  • jim_b
    • +2
      jim_b  
    • The bad news is the population of humans is so blinded by "right now ... me me me" that we will dig and burn our way off the planet. And I am starting to believe it is too late to turn the tide. The good news is that the earth will see us as a thin layer of carbon scar tissue 100,000 years after we are gone.

    • 4 months ago
  • matka
    • +3
      matka  
    • jim_b:

      That's wot bad news////// good news is okay for earth's sake. Our sake will be in next
      dimension peering thru the mists to watch the rebirth of our once beloved globe.
      And even then there are no guarantees.

    • 4 months ago
  • matka
  • youngdebater
    • +2
      youngdebater  
    • Enough energy to power 2.5 million cars?! About 5% of that gas is wasted. People can actually use that, instead of freezing 24/7. How are corporate people getting away with this?

    • 4 months ago
  • matka
  • YourTaxes_MyPaycheck
    • -3
      YourTaxes_MyPaycheck  
    • Cars need fuel? No they don't. Flick a drop of cold water into a heated skillet sometime then you'll learn sumthin'. When water turns into steam there's an instant 800x volume increase. THAT "IMITATION FUEL" CAN DRIVE EVERY VEHICLE WE GOT AND EVER WILL HAVE.

      80,000%. 80 x 10^3%. 800 times.

      #1 Pump steam into cylinders.
      #2 inject liquid air at 4,361 psi.
      #3 Hope the air bags don't splode.

      #4 ENJOY THE POLLUTION-NEGATIVE ROCKET FUEL PUSHING YOUR CAR DOWN THE BOULEVARD AT 600 MILES PER HOUR = NO FUEL PUMPS WHO CARES DON'T NEED EM NO MO.

    • 4 months ago
  • YourTaxes_MyPaycheck
    • -1
      YourTaxes_MyPaycheck  
    • YourTaxes_MyPaycheck:

      p.s. The heat energy to turn a piddling few drops of H2O into steam is produced by a 2nd car generator + the compression of air well that's a TURBOCHARGER. But the 80,000% VOLUME INCREASE FAR EXCEEDS ENERGY USED.

      This is called a "State Change" from water to steam, but the "Prime Mover" is NOT the steam. Steam is used as a Catalyst to Super-Explode the Liquid Air into full expanded air.

      In other words this is a Fusion-level reactor. Without radiation.
      Your car. Your pickup. Your SUV. Your Motorhome.
      And no more pulling up to a Fuel Pump ever.
      No combustion fuel, no pollution.

    • 4 months ago
  • sedwin
  • Culdee
    • +2
      Culdee  
    • YourTaxes_MyPaycheck:

      "But the 80,000% VOLUME INCREASE FAR EXCEEDS ENERGY USED."

      If only that were possible. Either you don't understand the process you just described, or you are indeed describing a thermodynamically impossible process according to the Law of Energy Conservation.

      And a stable fusion reactor is only theoretical at this point in time.

    • 4 months ago
  • YourTaxes_MyPaycheck
    • 0
      YourTaxes_MyPaycheck  
    • sedwin:

      My solution is built upon the 1997 nitrogen-powered engine made by an expert engineer who helped build the Space Shuttle. He died 2-3 months before I came across his work and completed it.

      My solution has sat dormant since 2003 and will continue sitting dormant because apparently I am the Last Man on Earth to think out of the box. Everybody else gets hung up on last year's engineering manuals burned into their gourds.

      You won't ever get it. I just like writing about it every so often.

      It is my hobby. Good day.

    • 4 months ago
  • YourTaxes_MyPaycheck
    • +1
      YourTaxes_MyPaycheck  
    • sedwin:

      Howsomever, since you have a nice amiable attitude about yourself a car engine has an OVERABUNDANCE OF HEAT TO USE if it wasn't for the big ass radiators some dummies put on them long ago.

      Friction is a Heat Source. :)

      What you would do would be to relegate gasoline to being your auxiliary power source to heat the engine you see and then the steam becomes viable. But it will also work totally without gasoline was my initial solution that failed to catch on (for too much opposition).

      You could take a 4-cylinder engine and use the two on the end to generate Power (+ your Heat for the two inside cylinders to be your Steam Pistons). It would be awesome either way but doing it this way does not need compressed air. This way is a difference engine.

    • 4 months ago
  • YourTaxes_MyPaycheck
    • +1
      YourTaxes_MyPaycheck  
    • Culdee:

      You are confusing the word "fusion". I stated "no radiation" didn't I? This engine is a Physics Fusion of opposed elements whose properties when combined under the proper conditions EXPLODES EXPONENTIALLY.

      It is Fusion => Physical Properties Fusion, one supercold, one superhot.

      You do not recognize it because you've never had it. The powers that be have stopped you from having it for going on 10 YEARS NOW.

    • 4 months ago
  • sedwin
  • YourTaxes_MyPaycheck
    • 0
      YourTaxes_MyPaycheck  
    • sedwin:

      I had picked up you were serious. Think of it this way. A steam engine the steam is your Power but with this one steam is a catalyst to the liquid air. Being "an old sailor" then you KNOW how much power steam had well, this will be much more than that.

      I like to think of it as An Advanced Steam Engine.

      I haven't made much progress with all that other stuff. I've been hit with a number of cancers and more other afflictions than you would want to hear about keeping me busy. I've been on disability since 1989 so I lack the monies to do anything.

      One check a month you see. Then along the way I just got older & older and less loanable than I was to begin with. I'm the old man who is supposed to step out of the way.

      But in 2003 I had only figured out the Process and didn't have an actual Engine Design til 2008. I had somebody working on a 3-d StudioMax working drawing for me but it got complicated and he quit since I didn't have more money to keep him working it.

      It is a very awesome engine. It was only May 2011 when the idea for making 4-cylinder engines into primarily a steamer. Now that one I really like A LOT TOO because existing engines could be quick-converted over (in my opinion once a few had been done speed of conversion would increase).

      In your lingo though I am quite "dead in the water". All that's missing is a German sub fleet with spent torpedo tubes.

    • 4 months ago
  • YourTaxes_MyPaycheck
    • 0
      YourTaxes_MyPaycheck  
    • sedwin:

      I'm not "one of the scientific community" but I have designed many various engine systems and energy sources THAT NONE OF THEM PRODUCES ANY POLLUTANTS.

      As a teen I was very ill having inherited a thyroid that POISONED ME being from the wrong parent. Lots of people have gotten the wrong impression that I turned down college for religious reasons, or was brainwashed into believing 1975 would be the end and so on.

      But the bottom line was I lacked cell energy= MY GAS TANK WAS EMPTY. While in the 9th Grade thru Highschool I was growing a larger heavy frame like Dad's, and as my body needed more & more energy my brain wasn't getting energy, only poison. Forget college I did well to remain Alive. I inherited Mom's thyroid that was producing chemically-incompatible hormones.

      And all the other body parts that make their hormones, + the Immune System, depends on Thyroid to operate. Technically several doctrs have stated years ago that I shouldn't be Alive right now. According to my physicians you've been writing to a Dead Man. My immune system never functioned I fought illnesses on cell energy FUELED BY ADRENALIN as a thyroid replacement.

      One eminent physician stated in 1993 that I shouldn't have the mental capacity to tie my own shoelaces AND that I would require special assistance for the remainder of my lifetime... except what the doctors decided to do was they began withholding medicines and medical help in an attempt to kill me to prevent me filing a malpractice lawsuit against them.

      WHICH WAS DUMB BECAUSE THEY HAVE ALL THE GOOD LAWYERS ON RETAINER. HAHAHA

      But the reason I'm writing this to you today is to let you know that since fixing Dr. Hertzberg's nitrogen engine design from being a 30 MPH POWDERPUFF to being an engine powerful enough to surpass Nuclear I have in fact invented much better engines.

      In February 2005 I used a trick inside the atomic bomb to make an awesome slow-release energy device that will make portable power you can have in your home or take into Outer Space. IMAGINE THAT! Total Comfort, warmth, greenhouse-attached space travel!

      But one in particular from 2007: I was on the Internet and happened to chance across the last papers of Nikolai Tesla detailing the devices he never completed. One was for a flying craft no one has ever figured out. By nightfall (one day) I figured out what he may have had in mind, or perhaps his stuff triggered me to figure out something new I wouldn't know for sure.

      By nightfall I had the theory for a LIGHTNING DRIVE. It would make Anti-Gravity cars and those "flying cars" would also enter Outer Space.

      But, people have enjoyed abusing me of Funds Owed, so as Dennis Weaver as Officer McCloud used ta say => THERE YA GO.

    • 4 months ago
  • Earthwalker
  • Earthwalker
  • YourTaxes_MyPaycheck
    • 0
      YourTaxes_MyPaycheck  
    • Earthwalker:

      I've never said that hydrogen wouldn't work: but a number of people have. They said the molecule is too small & will find any crack in the tank to escape; plus they also said the tank would have to be right strong (= Heavy).

      But there are some using electrolysis, or hydrolysis, something like that, so videos of how to make one of their systems is on YouTube too I think.

      Air is Free. Plus in my system the air is constantly recyled around (re-used) and the water is also re-used. So the engine is closed. Which also means it works out in Space or under water in the oceans.

      Never needing a fuel station, gas pumps, water pumps, air pumps or pump pumps. But air compressors do cause a lot of heat, so after the steam has been condensed by the supercold compressed air it is very cold water. So the supercold water is routed around a water jacket on the air compressors to keep them chilled down plus the air compressor heat is a PRE-HEATER TO THE WATER so that when the water reaches the engine it doesn't require much flash heat in the heater conduit to flash the H2O back into steam.

      It is very complementary & synergetic that way. Hydrogen is an exotic answer. Most people want FUTURISTIC. Air and water are not futuristic=> they're rather Caveman. People were Pavlov dog-ed to want Jetson suits.

      Mine is a hammer. Of course I kind of liked Mike Hammer myself, a good show. We can't have that anymore either.

    • 4 months ago
  • coolplanet
  • matka
    • +1
      matka  
    • coolplanet:

      LOL - how 'truce' coolplanet..... Ornery Hoglets from becoming pampered. Someone
      run get the Pampers while we're at it......many are of infantile thought structure, so
      may need to be diapered as infants are. HAHAhar

    • 4 months ago
  • Des_Akkari
    • +5
      Des_Akkari  
    • Yet there are people freezing in New York area because of no power so oil and gas can make historic profits AND get some of our tax money, the same tax money the Northeast pays. Think about how much of the NY area contributes to the kickbacks the oil and gas industry get. It's like tipping an arson who burnt down your home.....GOD BLESS AMERICA!!!!! Eventually people, you will soon have to realize if changing the politics and politicians is going to take too long....the time for talk is just about done. Yours and my grandchildren should rightfully be ashamed of us for sitting on our collective asses.

    • 4 months ago
  • artemis6
  • matka
    • +2
      matka  
    • Des_Akkari:

      Many viral flu micro-oragnisms thrive better and full-well in cold temps than in
      in warmer. Good view point there.
      As for criminal, definitely. Altho...... one would have to obtain very miniscule
      handcuffs to get the flu pathogens arrested.......naw.....only adding my foolish
      humor to off-set the sober subject here is all.

    • 4 months ago
  • matka
    • +1
      matka  
    • artemis6:

      Oops, sorry artemis 6..........it 'twas actually Your telling Des_Akkari about all

      the flu hard-hitting New York. I beg your pardohn? But the sentiment is the
      de same anyway......statistics never beleaguer the truth.

    • 4 months ago
  • artemis6
  • matka
  • jackhole
  • Culdee
  • jackhole
  • JanforGore
  • YourTaxes_MyPaycheck
  • jackhole
  • WalmartRamen
  • matka
  • mrpuma2u
  • artemis6
    • +5
      artemis6  
    • mrpuma2u:

      This activity produces too many earth quakes around nuclear power plants ... and our time will be up ... All corporations SHOULD have been publicly owned and controlled ...

    • 4 months ago
  • matka
    • 0
      matka  
    • mrpuma2u:

      She is so enduring and forgiving, but we keep on.......relentlessly.
      We will be brought to our knees for all this avarice and "it's-mine-to-have-my-way-
      with, and, do-as-I-please-for-profit' attitude.

      The rainforests themselves, acres per day just bulldozed under with many
      medicinal plants that have never been discovered and could be break-throughs
      in research fighting for solutions to specific diseases/ metaphysical conditions.

    • 4 months ago
  • matka
  • WalmartRamen
  • Vic_Romano
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