Comment by westurner | Hacker News Reader

Comment by westurner | Hacker News Reader

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Is there a way to IDK 3d earthen print a geodesic dome over the site and capture the waste methane (natural gas) into local tanks?

TIL about CBG: Cleaner Burning Gasoline

From https://twitter.com/westurner/status/1564443689623195650 :

> In September 2021 we covered a new "green gasoline" concept from @NaceroCo [in Penwell, TX] that involves constructing gasoline hydrocarbons by assembling smaller #methane molecules from natural gas

From https://www.houstonchronicle.com/opinion/outlook/article/Opi... :

> The Inflation Reduction Act imposes a fee of [$900/ton] of methane starting in 2024 — this is roughly twice the current record-high price of natural gas and five times the average price of natural gas in 2020.

> These high fees present a strong incentive

... "Argonne invents reusable [polyurethane] sponge that soaks up oil, could revolutionize oil spill and diesel cleanup" (2017) https://www.anl.gov/article/argonne-invents-reusable-sponge-...

FWIU, heat engines are useful with all thermal gradients: pipes, engines, probably solar panels and attics; "MIT’s new heat engine beats a steam turbine in efficiency" (2022) https://www.freethink.com/environment/heat-engine

I hear what you are saying, and there is a ton of room in the E&P space for improvements of all kinds. You would be shocked at how incredibly we are behind technologically (I remember just last year over hearing someone say, "We just figured out our cloud strategy."). In terms of a dome over fields or units to collect stray methane, that may be an issue. We are loathe to construct "enclosed spaces" for gases as that can be a safety issue. It doesn't take much stray anything to kill you out there. We have all sorts of stories of people going into an enclosed space, passing out and dying, only to have more people die trying to get them out. Sounds bad, I know, but this is coming from someone who has come across a few dead bodies out in the field for various reasons - mostly just being stupid. Fees are funny in oil and gas - we complain about how much money we don't have and then spend it frivolously elsewhere. That inflation act, at the state level there are all sorts of those out there and some companies care and some don't. If you want to see something crazy, check out the NDIC (North Dakota Industrial Commission). In terms of oil and gas data, theirs is the most centralized, easily accessed, and complete in the country (NM isn't bad, CA used to be better, TX is garbage-which is odd, LA is god awful, and PA is meh). The NDIC keeps really good track of flaring, so to see how much natural gas is just burned up at the cost of getting the oil out (not such a great infrastructure for moving gas and historically the price hasn't been a good inducement to build any). To get the well level data, it is $150/year, but well worth it if you are working that basin and also in comparison to all of the data services out there. https://www.dmr.nd.gov/oilgas/stats/statisticsvw.asp

So there only needs to be a bit of concrete in a smaller structure that exceeds bunker-busting bomb specs and 'funnels' (?) the natural gas to a tank or a bladder?

Are there existing methods for capturing methane from insufficiently-capped old wells?

Are the new incentives/fees/fines enough to motivate action thus far in this space?

OpenAPI is one way to specify integrable APIs. An RDFS vocabulary for this data is probably worthwhile; e.g. NASA Earth Science (?) may have a schema that all of the state APIs could voluntarily adopt?

Presumably the CophenHill facility handles waste methane? We should build waste-to-energy facilities in the US, too

FWIU Carbon Credits do not cover methane, which is worse than CO² for #ActOnClimate

Natural gas isn't stored on site, it needs to be piped to the nearest plant to be processed and put into a sales line. Capturing methane from insufficiently capped old wells would not be economic in most cases. If a company was called out on it, they would just go dump more cement in it to make sure the gas is contained. 90% of the time, wells that are plugged are plugged well, the ones that aren't and are just abandoned maybe leak only 1-5 thousand cubic feet per day - nothing worth doing anything about (to the company financially). Fines typically mean nothing to E&P with where they are now - though some have gotten clever about it - example being North Dakota keeps flaring down by whatever you are flaring you have to cut your oil production in some proportionate manner (oil is the more desired product) - though that was rescinded during the last big price down turn and am not sure if that is back in effect. To your statement about APIs - that is one thing the oil industry is terrrrrrible with. Our data collection and cleaning is abysmal. I agree with your statement, and I would be all for it, but E&P companies can't even get their own production numbers right - a good example is if you check out the fracfocus database where companies volunteer up their fracturing job compositions. Generally it is useful, but the people who input the data, similar to who would probably be handling this can barely spell and data cleaning would be a nightmare. waste to energy facilities are great, and there are some interesting things out in the oilfield but, like everything else, there needs to be more financial incentive for companies to build them/use them.

So, in 2022, it's cheaper to dump concrete than to capture it, but the new fines this year aren't enough incentive to solve for: capture to a tank and haul, build unprocessed natural gas pipelines, or process onsite and/or fill tankers onsite?

Data quality: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_quality

... Space -based imaging.

How long should they wait to up the methane fee if it's not enough to incentivize capping closed wells?

It is totally cheaper to dump some cement (it is mostly gel with a topping of cement). To P&A older wells maybe runs $12-25K (assuming, like, a 5-8k ft. depth conventional well)...and I may be running a little high on that number. That gets a small truck out there with a small crew to pull tubing and dump alternating layers of cement and gel (cement goes on the top and across formations that would be ground water bearing). Fun fact, if you have to go back into an abandoned well and you come across red cement at the top, that is indicative of someone losing a nuclear based well tool in there and to call someone before going further. A typical 7.5-10k foot lateral unconventional well (horizontal wells) down that way will run about $7-8 million depending (and 6 wells on average on a well pad), but aren't really the issue, but just giving you some numbers to sort of show that fining someone $100K for something serious isn't that big an expense and not really a deterrent. Natural gas lines are always a big deal to oil and gas companies - if you build it they will come. Most space in pipelines for operators is spoken for before they even dig the first trench.

Options:

A. Privately and/or Publicly grant to P&A wells

    ($25k+  * n_wells)
  + ($7-8m+ * m_wells)

B. Build natural gas pipelines that run past those well sites (approval,)

C. increase the incentives/fines/fees

**

Shouldn't it be pretty easy to find such tools with IDK neutron detection and/or imaging at what distance?

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