I don't work in the oil and gas industry. This lede from Bloomberg Environment (subscription required)
may not be news to anyone in the industry, but it absolutely blew
me away:
America's hottest oil patch is producing so much natural gas
that by the end of last year producers were burning off more than
enough of the fuel to meet residential demand across the whole of
Texas.
In short, oil companies are flaring more than 500 million cubic
feet/day. That can't even compete with some other countries.
Russia apparently flares almost 20 billion cubic
meters/year.
After stunned amazement, my next reaction was to wonder why any
good engineer wouldn't be horrified as such waste, even aside
from the climate impacts. Then I realized that engineers are
practical people. If there's no economic cost to flaring, then
it's not waste to them.
