Posted on 09/07/2007 5:16:50 PM PDT by lduucckkyy
but then how would you sell the electricity from an oil platform?
Onshore, gas is most often flared off when it is associated with gas plants and refineries. The flare essentially serves the same purpose as a safety valve.
Offshore, so-called "associated" gas is flared off because there's no way to recover it without a completely separate pipeline system.
If governments get on this bandwagon, like the enviros would like, all it will accomplish is raising the price of gasoline for your car.
Of course, if refineries switch back to blowdown drums and another explodes killing several or dozens, they will be sued for not flaring.
maybe convert it into hydrogen somehow? Lots of seawater around
Some quick calculations show that the effect of this burnoff is to add about 20 parts per billion of combustion products per year to the atmosphere. Given what volcanoes do, I can’t get too worked up about this.
Usually they only flare for a few days to get an idea about how much gas the well will produce. most of the time the gas will be used to power the pump (if needed), if it is an oil well. But it would be impracticle to bring in a generator for a few days and sell electricity...
convert it to hydrogen and pump it into a blimp and float it back to the states
You've got an economical way to do it?
And an economical use for it?
Why in the world would the oil industry "burn off" $40 billion in profits if there was an economical way to recover it and a market for it which would allow them to profit?
Use the electricity to run the oil platform.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.