Texas produces twice as much methane as better regulated neighbor, study finds

Re:Texas produces twice as much methane as better regulated ... by tigerstyle on Wednesday November 08, 2023 @02:52PM (#38195973)

My hunch would be that abandoned wells are more responsible for this issue than better regulated new wells. Old wells are more likely to leak, as shown in the link below, are often never checked on, and were often drilled and shut-in when there was a lot less regulation. They can be venting directly to atmosphere, and since natural gas is naturally odorless and wells are often in remote locations, the potential for them to leak a lot of gas for a long time is high.

Texas has a lot more historical production of oil and gas, which should result in a lot more old and abandoned wells. That doesn't give them a pass, but if this hypothesis is true, this flaring regulation would not have a major impact.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-drilling-abandoned-sp...

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Re:Texas produces twice as much methane as better regulated ... by teaearlgraycold on Wednesday November 08, 2023 @03:02PM (#38196120)

I’ve wondered how likely you’d be to face legal repercussions for going rogue and fixing old leaky wells. The main non-legal issue would be expertise and equipment. I’m thinking of organizations like wren.co that could do this.

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Re:Texas produces twice as much methane as better regulated ... by bluGill on Wednesday November 08, 2023 @03:29PM (#38196482)

I'd be more worried about safety. Cattle can be dangerous when they don't know you - most are not, just enough to make you forget to be careful. If you damage anything you are in trouble for it.

That said, if you can find the land owner most will be willing to give you permission and warn you about hazards to worry about. Figure out how to do it right and for free - with a good insurance that you won't harm their land and you will have more work where you can get permission than you lifetime will allow you to fix.

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Re:Texas produces twice as much methane as better regulated ... by Johnny555 on Wednesday November 08, 2023 @04:15PM (#38197159)

I'd think that if you touched old wells without permission or government support, you'd end up owning the well caps and future emissions, so if your "fixed" well is discovered to be leaking next year, the owner is going to say "We capped it off properly, those guys must have caused the leak when they "fixed" it, now it's their problem".

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Re:Texas produces twice as much methane as better regulated ... by auspiv on Wednesday November 08, 2023 @04:31PM (#38197393)

Properly "fixing" leaking wells involves getting a workover rig on site and pumping 10-1000 barrels of cement. Not to mention developing a plan and submitting it to the state for the well work permit, which hopefully comes before the rig gets on site. Rigs will not do work without a valid permit. I used to be a PM for well abandonment.

Minimum cost would be in the $80k-100k range. Double or triple that if you run into any issues. My most expensive abandonment was around $400k, which was for a simple, vertical 5000ft well.

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Re:Texas produces twice as much methane as better regulated ... by Bluecobra on Wednesday November 08, 2023 @07:16PM (#38199195)

Would it make sense to force new wells to pay a $500K deposit (can vary depending on size) to be held in escrow by the state/federal government in case of abandonment?

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Re:Texas produces twice as much methane as better regulated ... by verall on Wednesday November 08, 2023 @07:26PM (#38199264)

Good luck putting up any barriers to natgas extraction in texas, even if it would make sense.

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Re:Texas produces twice as much methane as better regulated ... by dylan604 on Wednesday November 08, 2023 @08:08PM (#38199608)

Make sense to whom? The human race, or the profit seeking oil tycoons and the government benefiting from them?

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Re:Texas produces twice as much methane as better regulated ... by jofer on Wednesday November 08, 2023 @11:20PM (#38201157)

That's already required, fwiw. Yes even in Texas. It's not the full costs, in practice, and ownership often gets tricky, but there are regulations to the effect. You have to put up a bond to operate oil and gas wells in TX and many other cases. That bond is seized and supposedly used to properly plug and abandon wells if you fail to do so, but it's not always sufficient.

Also, old infrastructure is really old. It's not things from 20 years ago. It's 50-100 years ago. The law requiring escrow or insurance (it has some holes) dates from the 70's.

Finally, it often isn't done properly. Either way, there are a ton of improperly plugged and abandoned wells and other leaky infrastructure that goes undetected.

The regulations you're describing have existed for a long time, but that's not enough to fix the full issue.

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Re:Texas produces twice as much methane as better regulated ... by Bluecobra on Wednesday November 08, 2023 @11:55PM (#38201327)

Thanks for the informative reply. It’s a real shame that this has gone on for so long.

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Re:Texas produces twice as much methane as better regulated ... by ZeroGravitas on Wednesday November 08, 2023 @08:14PM (#38199648)

There's a non-profit that does this:

https://welldonefoundation.org/faq/

Seems like the old wells effectively get defaulted to state ownership once the last owner goes bust.

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Re:Texas produces twice as much methane as better regulated ... by xyst on Wednesday November 08, 2023 @03:54PM (#38196833)

Without the raw data from “Kayrros” to compare whether or not the methane emissions they found via satellite imagery is from active sites or abandoned wells. This is just pure speculation.

The photos depicted in The Guardian article show some site in Midland County, TX that appear active to me, but the images do not bear any road markings or distinct physical landmarks to logically place an address and cross reference with local and state data to determine if it’s an active site or not.

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Re:Texas produces twice as much methane as better regulated ... by jofer on Wednesday November 08, 2023 @11:16PM (#38201127)

Midland is a great example of tons of old and abandoned wells with active production right beside them, fwiw. The same can be said of Bakersfield, CA, though, and a direct comparison of those could be quite interesting.

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Re:Texas produces twice as much methane as better regulated ... by toomuchtodo on Wednesday November 08, 2023 @11:38PM (#38201246)

https://www.mrt.com/business/oil/article/RRC-unveils-map-of-... ("Railroad Commission unveils map of well plugging sites")

https://www.rrc.texas.gov/resource-center/data-visualization... ("Federally Funded (IIJA) Well Plugging")

https://www.houstonchronicle.com/projects/2023/orphan-wells-... ("Are there orphan wells near your home? Map shows locations around Houston")

https://www.edf.org/sites/default/files/2021-10/Orphan%20Wel... ("Mapping Orphan Wells in Texas")

(Texas Railroad Commission has lat long of all wells, should be straightforward to overlay methane emission data with these points)

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Re:Texas produces twice as much methane as better regulated ... by googl-free on Wednesday November 08, 2023 @05:36PM (#38198202)

unfortunately this isn't really the case. the industry knows its throwing away massive amounts of methane from the active fracking based wells. texas railroad commissioner is on the record defending it as carbon neutral because if you leak it or capture and burn it, it adds the same carbon footprint. methane flares are permitted at huge volumes. and if you drive i-10 between el paso and san antonio, its starkly clear

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Re:Texas produces twice as much methane as better regulated ... by snewman on Wednesday November 08, 2023 @05:41PM (#38198258)

And to be clear (for anyone who doesn't know), this "carbon neutrality" argument is entirely bogus, because one molecule of methane has far more climate impact than one molecule of carbon dioxide, even though they each contain a single carbon atom (CH₄ vs. CO₂).

Apparently, the underlying science is basically that "wigglier" molecules have more propensity to intercept photons, and that's why molecules like methane and refrigerants have more impact than the relatively simple CO₂.

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Re:Texas produces twice as much methane as better regulated ... by dtgriscom on Wednesday November 08, 2023 @05:57PM (#38198457)

> "wigglier" molecules

Don't get technical with me.

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Re:Texas produces twice as much methane as better regulated ... by hkt on Wednesday November 08, 2023 @06:00PM (#38198479)

The proper "exchange rate" between CO2 and other molecules is known as the GWP, Global Warming Potential: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming_potential

Methane is 25x worse than carbon dioxide - despite having the same amount of carbon.

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Re:Texas produces twice as much methane as better regulated ... by dylan604 on Wednesday November 08, 2023 @08:06PM (#38199573)

And to be even more clear, if it is a statement about global warming, climate change, green energy or any thing along those lines coming from an official from Texas, you know it is just going to be "wigglier" than any molecule.

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Re:Texas produces twice as much methane as better regulated ... by JohnFen on Wednesday November 08, 2023 @06:31PM (#38198785)

> carbon neutral because if you leak it or capture and burn it, it adds the same carbon footprint.

That's a very... ummm... interesting definition of "carbon neutral".

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Re:Texas produces twice as much methane as better regulated ... by mturmon on Wednesday November 08, 2023 @06:53PM (#38198976)

Agree, and furthermore, the tech to detect these large point leaks is very available to those who care. Unlike diffuse sources, these concentrated leaks show up readily to ground, airborne or remote sensing instruments.

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Re:Texas produces twice as much methane as better regulated ... by coding123 on Wednesday November 08, 2023 @07:04PM (#38199079)

Yes driving the i10 down there is straight out of some apocalyptic sci-fi world, but it's happening.

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Re:Texas produces twice as much methane as better regulated ... by lurquer on Thursday November 09, 2023 @12:48AM (#38201622)

as you are driving, perhaps you should consider what's filling your tank.

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Re:Texas produces twice as much methane as better regulated ... by coding123 on Thursday November 09, 2023 @11:35AM (#38207198)

Oh I do. Just commenting on the visual that is the area. There are better ways to handle it. However pipelines are expensive to build.

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Re:Texas produces twice as much methane as better regulated ... by jofer on Wednesday November 08, 2023 @11:43PM (#38201265)

TX RRC is an elected, political position. Don't confuse who's in that office with anyone actually working in the industry. You might as well say "the TX lt governor" or something similar. It would have the same implication for familiarity with the office they're in, sadly.

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Re:Texas produces twice as much methane as better regulated ... by badrabbit on Thursday November 09, 2023 @04:38AM (#38202913)

Shouldn't this be a federal regulation by the EPA?

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