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Joe Biden just did the rarest thing in US politics: he stood up to the oil industry; The Biden administration suspended new permits for natural gas terminals. Can we see more of this kind of backbone? (www.theguardian.com)
submitted 2 years ago by [M] to c/climate@slrpnk.net
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[–] 8 points 2 years ago (1 child)

Natural gas comes out of the ground naturally, and isn't necessarily a by-product of gasoline refinement. I can't speak from experience on the refinery side of things, but I can speak from experience on the upstream production side of things. The natural gas we use for power generation, and heat at the facility I work at essentially comes straight out of the ground with minimal processing. Any excess is put back in the ground. That's specific to where I work. I imagine other places, the gas is separated out like we do and sent to "the market."

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (1 child)

    Huh, TIL you can put it back in the ground. I was under the impression it had to be burned off.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago

    Yep! There are two types of oil wells, producers and injectors. Producers produce raw production fluids and gas. Those production fluids/gases need to go through a 3-phase separate vessel to separate the oil, water, and gas. The water and gas is sent back into the ground with the injection wells. The reason for this is to maintain the pressure of the reservoir underground, and to dispose of the fluids/gases.

    Some amount of gas is flared (burned) off from the separation facility, and also from refineries. The purpose of the flare is for process safety. If there's an overpressure event, or an equipment shutdown, all the gas production from the field needs to go somewhere while the production wells are shutdown. For that time period, any gas is burned off to prevent a catastrophic failure in the facility.

    The amount of gas being flared is monitored and regulated, and any flare event is recorded and reported to the appropriate agencies, generally the EPA, and Relevant state agencies.

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