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600 Million Cubic/ft of Gas Burning at Iraq Oil Wells Every Day
by David Sassoon - Feb 17th, 2008
Marianne Lavelle over at Beyond the Barrel sheds some light on the question: what is Iraq's carbon footprint?
She zeros in on one enormous source of greenhouse gas emissions, visible from 500 miles up in space: the burning off of natural gas at Iraq's oil wells.
Here's the situation in a nutshell.
It's wasting a fuel that can be used to generate electricity, at a time when Iraq is generating only half of the power it needs to meet demand. The amount of gas Iraq is throwing away is equal to the natural gas consumption of countries like Syria, Norway, and Singapore.
If valued at the wellhead price for natural gas in the United States over the past couple of years ($6.40 per thousand cubic feet), it would be worth $1.4 billion a year. And by burning the gas, it is releasing millions of tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere annually.
Lavelle points out that the only way to solve the problem and stop the waste is to develop infrastructure -- pipelines, power plants -- and for oil companies, most likely, to make the investments, reap the profits.
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Gas saving
This is why oil prices are increasing. This is why we need to save gas and also research about alternative energy sources. Most people already did hydrogen gas saver cars as an alternative means of transportation.
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