Think-Dash: Wasted: Natural gas flaring emits same amount of CO2 as 77 million vehicles

Wasted: Natural gas flaring emits same amount of CO2 as 77 million vehicles: "

General Electric's newly released study - Flare Gas Reduction: Recent Global Trends and Policy Considerations - estimates that five percent of global natural gas production is wasted due to flaring each year. Natural gas flaring, according to GE, emits 400 million metric tons of CO2 annually, the same as 77 million automobiles. Here's the real problem: gas flaring doesn't produce useful energy, electricity or heat. This means that worldwide, billions of cubic meters of natural gas are wasted every year, typically as a by-product of oil extraction.

Adding insult to injury, the study found that the technologies required to solve this problem already exist. Depending on the region, these solutions may include power generation, gas re-injection, pipeline development and distributed energy solutions. By utilizing these technologies, nearly $20 billion in wasted natural gas could be used to generate electricity.

Michael Farina, program manager at GE Energy, had this to say regarding the wasted gas:

Gas flaring can be dealt with today through a variety of existing technologies at reasonable cost...However, often regional political complexities and lack of gas infrastructure systems drive the decision to flare gas.

Ain't that a shame. Hat tip to lne937s!

[Source: General Electric | Image: sirdle - C.C. License 2.0]

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Wasted: Natural gas flaring emits same amount of CO2 as 77 million vehicles originally appeared on Autoblog Green on Thu, 07 Apr 2011 14:53:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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