Oil And Gas Companies Drill For Oil

Oil and natural gas companies have developed a way to drill for natural gas, a process called hydraulic fracturing, also known as fracking. Natural gas is a flammable gas mixture consisting of methane and several other hydrocarbons that occur naturally underground. Natural gas is used as fuel for heating, cooking, and even in some automobiles like the “RideOn” buses. This technique has only recently become economically feasible with the rising prices of fossil fuels, and there is much potential for recovering natural gas through fracking. However, fracking has many waste products and unusual side effects caused by the unnatural forces and materials used. Fracking has a detrimental effect on the surrounding environment through

Senator Everett Dirksen once noted “The oilcan is mightier than the sword”. In today’s world, it is easy to see why oil can be considered the most important resource to hold. Without oil, many of the common day occurrences we take for granted would be impossible. Oil is used for almost everything; from the fuel used to drive our vehicles, to the plastics used in every facet of life, and providing the heat needed to live through the winter. In fact, the United States depends so much on oil that as a nation it uses over 20 million barrels a day. Importing oil increases the total costs because of the need to transport it from around the world. It is estimated

Offshore drilling has become an essential part of today’s oil production and demand for energy. With the growth of population comes the increasing demand for oil. The oil industry today, is one of the most used providers of energy. Today in the 20th century the majority of the population in America has a car and cars needs gas to run. The oil reserves in the earth that are easily accessible via land are starting to run dry and are becoming harder to find. This is why we have begun to see more and more offshore oil drills. Although there are benefits of offshore drilling such as profit, lower gas prices, and becoming less dependent on foreign oil. There are also many drawbacks in which if something were to go wrong, the mistake would be catastrophic impacting the environment, the nature, and have trickling effects all around the world.

Natural gas is a fossil fuel that plays a critical role in the demand and supply of energy in the United States. It is considered to be a clean burning transition fuel. Compared to coal and oil, natural gas combustion does not generate as much pollution and is therefore considered an ideal partner for renewable energy resources. Natural gas is extracted from shale formations underground that require horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing – “hydrofracking” or “fracking”. This drilling and extraction method is currently considered a global widespread issue due to the rapid increase in the amount of new gas wells that threatens the quality of water around the source (Entriken, Evans-White, Johnson & Hagenbuch, 2011).

Safe natural gas fracturing or “fracking” is on the rise and our country is benefiting from in on several levels. From meeting energy needs to creating jobs and helping the economy, natural gas is an invisible miracle. Many precautions are taken during the fracking process in order to ensure it is safe as possible. Natural gas is something I work around every day due to the fact I work in the oilfield and the work I do is carried out during a “frac.” Many environmentalist and various people from different scientific fields argue that the benefits are not worth the risk.

Did you know that oil companies are demolishing North Dakota’s environment by dumping drilling waste onto the land and in waterways? First, oil companies are taking truckloads full of drilling waste at a time and just dumping it to the side of the road illegally! This is mainly happening in the western corner of North Dakota but will most likely affect all of North Dakota. Eventually, this will affect all of North Dakota, by the drilling waste killing the animals or plants that other animals need to eat to survive. Then, oil companies also go and dump the drilling waste into the waterways. So, pretty soon all the western corner of North Dakota won’t have freshwater lakes and rivers. They have been doing this since 2014, so who knows what

Although oil companies uphold the idea that fracking is a cheaper and efficient, fracking damages the local water, air and soil in the surrounding cities. According to the Science of Total Environment, scientists speculate that wells require up to 5 million gallons of fluid per extraction event, which would require tons of chemicals including benzene, carbon monoxide, and nitrogen oxides to unconventionally bring out the shale gas (Werner et al. 2014). The lengthy list of air pollutants, most of which are combustible, suggests that both human health and the environment are at risk and the surrounding water aquifers located near the horizontal wells could also be damaged. The amount of water needed for extraction also demonstrates the strain the process of fracking has on the environment and local water supply. Similarly, the potency of methane is 20 times worse than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas, which is further aggravated by the process of flaring (Weinhold 2012). Thus, flaring and fracking serves not only as a nuisance to the community through the health hazards and water pollution, but can worsen the status of global climate

Majority of the data available online is either too biased or not peer reviewed and hence misleading to the readers. Natural gas is a very valuable resource and can be combined with engineering innovations to vastly improve human life. For instance, natural gas can help enhance energy efficiency by making the methane and ethane conversion process more effectual and economic. Also, natural gas can be used to generate hybrid high-temperature fluids for cleaner sources of energy such as solar thermal as well as natural gas powered systems for effective cooling and heating applications.3 In this age of technology, it is extremely important to discover ways to augment the potential of natural gas while taking the environmental implications into consideration. Sustainable ways should be developed to generate cleaner and more efficient energy while still embracing the economics benefits of the industry. While considering economic benefits of the hydraulic fracturing industry, it is also of utmost importance to consider those who are residing in areas of current or future shale gas operations for detrimental effects to their health and

As a usable energy source, natural gas really only has one disadvantage when compared to oil, gas or coal, but it is a major disadvantage. It is very difficult to store and transport due to its low density (“Uses”). If the transport or storage system is not properly sealed off, there can be risks of a leak. Additionally, since natural gas is a non-renewable energy fossil fuel, its availability is limited, its extraction is also damaging to the environment as it leaves large, unsightly craters (“Advantages and Disadvantages of Natural Gas”). Finally, although it may emit less carbon dioxide than other sources of energy, it still emits a substantial amount compared to

With the supply of fossil fuels steadily declining, gas and oil is becoming harder to harvest which means it is getting more expensive. Fossil fuels take millions of years to be naturally produced, yet each person burns gallons of gas per day (Maehlum par. 5). Though fossil fuels are produced naturally, when burned they release nitrogen oxides gases into the atmosphere, which contributes to the formation of smog and acid rain. According to the EPA, major sources of these nitrogen oxide emissions come from cars and trucks, coal-fire powered plants, large industrial operations, and ships and airplanes (EPA par 3). By reducing the number of gas powered cars on the road, we can reduce the amount of harmful chemicals we are releasing into our atmosphere.

‘Peak oil’ refers to the prime of any field’s production, after which goes into terminal decline. Most major US oil fields are beyond peak oil. The largest US oil field, Prudhoe Bay, has been depleting since 1979 (Prudhoe, 2012). The US Energy Information Administration indicates much production, particularly in the Alaskan North Slope, depends on world oil prices (Energy, 2012). Geophysicists and politicians debate over specifications regarding overall US peak oil, arguing the year in which US peak oil occurred.

Natural gas to power vehicles and machinery has been a big approach that the United States government has made in order to further the advancement of being environmentally green friendly. Burning of natural gas is not as bad as burning real fossil fuel gas which is for that natural gas is the same gas that is used in house for heating, laundry drying, and also cooking. It is the gas that disperses and diminishes faster than original gas. Original gas causes global warming more when natural gas for that natural gas produces no harmful fumes such as carbon monoxide. For some of these vehicle brands have created NGV (Natural Gas Vehicles) like Honda, Chevrolet, Dodge, Ford, and GMC are some of the vehicle that burn natural gas.

Gas flaring is the deliberate and controlled burning of natural gas which is produced from drilling and production operations. According to the World Bank, the countries which flare the most natural gas in descending order include; Russia, Nigeria, Iran, Iraq and most recently the U.S. jumped to number 5 on the list due to the recent oil boom in the Bakken shale in North Dakota and production operations in Wyoming. The rest of the countries that flare gas at an alarming rate include, Algeria, Kazakhstan, Angola, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela. Furthermore, according to the World Bank, oil production plants around the globe burn approximately 140 billion m3 (~4.9 trillion ft3) on an annual basis. This permits more than 300 million tons of CO2 gas to be emitted into the atmosphere. These numbers bring to light the economic and environmental impacts that flaring has on the world today. From an economic perspective, gas flaring is viewed by many as a wasteful form of resource management, as calculations done by the World Bank show that the yearly amount of gas flared makes up about three-quarters of Russia’s gas exports. Putting that into perspective, it is enough gas to feed a third of the EU’s natural gas consumption needs for a year (Ebrahim, et. al, 2013). On an environmental level, gas flaring contributes to the rise of global warming which impacts climate change due to the emissions of CO2, black carbon and other related pollutants. This dire phenomenon

Natural gas is a when layers of buried plants and animals are exposed to intense heat and pressure over thousands of years. The energy that the plants and animals originally obtained from the sun is stored in the form of carbon in natural gas. Natural gas is combusted to generate electricity, enabling this stored energy to be transformed into usable power. Which is why Natural gas is second most used energy source in America, about 29% of the electricity is generated using natural gas (New York Times). The average emissions rates in the United States from natural gas-fired generation are: 1135 lbs/MWh of carbon dioxide, 0.1 lbs/MWh of sulfur dioxide, and 1.7 lbs/MWh of nitrogen oxides. Compared to the average air emissions from coal-fired generation, natural gas produces half as much carbon dioxide, less than a third as much nitrogen oxides, and one percent as much sulfur oxides at the power plant (epa.gov). All of these gases are big part of green gases In addition; the process of extraction, treatment, and transport of the natural gas to the power plant generates additional

Several reports including those by GE, GGFR, IEA, World Bank and others have tried to quantify the economic cost of gas flaring in terms of revenue lost and potential useful gas volumes from U.S importation prices and NOAA reported volumes flared establishing that the world losses billions of dollars each year to the activity (World Bank, 2007; IEG-World Bank, 2009; Elvidge et al., 2009; Svensson et al., 2009; IEA, 2009; IEA, 2010; Labeyrie et al., 2010; GGFR, 2010; NOAA-NGDC, 2010; Farina, 2011; GGFR, 2013)