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Our locale is the latest oil boom area. They are punching holes in the ground everywhere you look. It would look like spindle top around here if there were more drilling rigs available. Put that is not the problem. As wells are brought into production, often a mix of oil and gas is brought to the
surface.
Natural gas is relatively chaep and difficult to handle as it requires pipe lines and pressure uniformity to produce a workable system. Many wells in the area simply "flare" or burn off the gas and distillates rather than deal with them. That's right, I'm putting in compact florescent bulbs in my house and a well a mile away flares 1 million cubic feet of natural gas a day. I'm sure this is not expected to be permanent, but it has lasted over a month so far.
So, about time to get to the idea. I propose a modular electrical generator. These could be built to be truck sized for ease of delivery and relocation as necessary. Your well comes in, you rate the gas flow and order your generator sets from the local utility company. They provide the equipment and startup and maintenance at no cost to the well owner in turn they produce electricty at the site to provide their customers. There is still need for a flare at the well site to accomodate the irregular flow of gas and distillate, but the majority of this waste product is cleanly converted into electricity to run my new Leaf.
Do this instead:
http://www.youtube....watch?v=HpovwbPGEoo
but bigger. [MaxwellBuchanan, Jan 21 2011]
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what area is this, praytell? |
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[+] Bun, not only only for using otherwise wasted
fuel, but also for *not* suggesting that some law
be passed requiring that the gas be compressed
and piped away from day one... |
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What's wrong with compressing and piping away
natural gas, you ask? |
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Because, on average, in the US natural gas
infrastructure, there's an estimated 10% loss of gas
due to various and sundry leaks. And unlike flared
natural gas, the stuff which escapes via leaks isn't
merely wasted, but is a potent greenhouse gas. |
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On the other hand, natural gas which is used at
the site of a well is highly unlikely to leak, since
the distance it needs to be piped is very short.
And since it's such a short distance, little or no
compression is needed. |
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The only real downside is that if we require that
gas be converted to electricity at the site of every
well, we're also requiring every well to have
electrical utility lines connected to it, to transport
that power away. |
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This is not always convenient... though it's
*probably* less inconvenient than the compressors
and pipes that would be needed to sell the natural
gas directly. |
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Instead of transporting the electricity, could it not be used to run the plant itself for a time? |
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I think, instead, that the oil rigs should be envosted to do
something more interesting with the flared gas, perhaps with
a competition to find the most imaginative. BP might go for
a mooning 150ft oilworker with the flame emerging
strategically. Others might create the worlds largest
hannukah thingy. Or perhaps one of those gizmos that
displays sound waves as flames. |
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// gizmos that displays sound waves as flames // |
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What, a sort of hyperbaric airburst device ? Sounds good ... |
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Like this <link>, only really a lot much bigger. |
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//oil rigs should be envosted// You mean, boarded and
captured by the varsity offshore sailing team of the US Naval
Acadmy? |
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No no no. "Envostature" is one of the few words to have
slipped into the English language from Hungarian, whilst
adopting a Romanesque formation. To "envost" (the first
related word to be used in English, and itself already quite
far adapted from the Hungarian) meant "to compell a
sheep driver to prevent his animals straying onto private
lands whilst being driven, not by means of legal sanctions
but by means of public ridicule". |
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(Incidentally, 'envost' is unrelated to the word 'enveigh' - a
coincidental convergent evolution.) |
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Over the centuries, this meaning became broadened to
something like "imposing a social norm in a lighthearted
but forceful way". Thus, a man failing to wear a hat or a
dinguard in 17th century England might be "envosted" until
he complied with this social norm. |
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Envosting, however, could get out of hand, with the
envosted party being subjected to supposedly humourous,
but actually rather vicious, abuse. For example, the Times
of the period carries a piece about a group of young boys
who siezed a foreign businessman and painted his beard
(which was considered inappropriate) with "tarre and with
dunge". When challenged, they said "We were only
'vosting him for wearing a sojier's bearde." |
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Laws were therefore laid down governing the process of
envosting. This brought it under the auspices of the law,
and eventually led to its becoming a quasi-legal method of
enforcement of social norms, particularly in cases where
these norms had not been embodied in laws with a
statutory penalty. |
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Envosting fell out of disuse some time around the mid
1800's, when it came to be seen as an arbitrary and
capricious punishment. Over a period of about thirty
years, most of the "quasi laws" which were enforced by
envosting were either set aside, or were incorporated into
official law with defined punishments. However,
envosting is still a legal defense for some forms of abuse
and coercion, at least in theory*. These days, when social
norms change faster than the law can adapt, envostature
could be usefully resurrected as a means of imposing
them. |
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*EDIT and, apparently, in practice. In 1991 a group of
women in the Scottish town of Dungallin were charged
with harrassing a local teenager who insisted on wearing
very provocative clothing in what was an extremely
conservative rural community. Their defence was the
right of envostature (actually, in Scots law "the leagch of
envost"). They were convicted, but not without a
prolonged consideration of their defence. |
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EDIT AGAIN A little research turned up some interesting facts. Many
British Oversease Territories still have envostature acts (ie, acts
which allow envostature as a defense for certain actions). Anguilla,
for example, recently voted to retain envostature during a revision
of its legal framework. The Pitcairn Islands, Turks and Caicos and
Montserrat also retain envostature. In most of the other Territories,
it's hard to tell if envostature still exists in any meaningful form. |
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Many former British-controlled areas also retain envostature. For
instance, the Lipoma Islands (one of the few British territories in
that region to be granted independence amicably) reverted to their
own, pre-colonial legal system, but incorporated envostature from
the British system, and still use it quite widely. The community
there is small and integrated enough that this system of social
justice doesn't get out of hand. Likewise, some provinces of Malaysia
(Selangor, for instance) retain envostature, as do the Clove Islands. |
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Ah yes. The higher bollocks. My grudging respect, [MB]. |
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Well, Day 34 and the flare is out, guess the gas stopped, or the pipeline got there. |
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I like the idea of doing something spectacular with the gas (saving it up for a big celebration comes to mind), but I was frustrated when I got my electric bill and did a rough calculation of the energy in 30 million cubic feet of gas (from a single well). |
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We are sitting about the middle of the Eagle Ford Shale formation in South Texas. There is not a motel room, RV space or house for rent available in 3 counties. |
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I'm sure it's a priority, those are profits just burning away. |
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I always wondered about the wasteful flaring myself, and thought they could at least shove it through a small gas turbine to generate electricity for the plant.
I think the usual excuse is "We couldn't be bothered". Even inefficient power is better than no power. There's examples of the same 'burn-off' wastage at some landfill-gas-producing landfills. |
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I suppose it comes down to a question of the costs of
wasting that initial flare of gas, versus the costs of installing
and maintaining a gas generator, given that other power
sources will be needed once the flaring is done. |
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