Thread by @AlexEpstein

The widely-condemned "flaring" of natural gas is a vital safety measure that decreases the energy efficiency of US drilling by less than 1%. And that number would be far lower without the infrastructure-blocking of anti-fossil fuel activists who claim to oppose flaring.

THREAD

Opponents of fossil fuels like to pretend that they're not opposed to fossil fuels, including natural gas, just "wasteful" practices like flaring. They call for shutting down any oil/gas production that engages in flaring. Such a policy would have terrible consequences.

What is flaring? Flaring is the practice of burning natural gas, often emerging as part of oil production, that cannot be cost-effectively brought to customers. Flaring that gas prevents it from exploding, protecting workers and communities.

Why do companies flare gas instead of bringing it to customers? The #1 cause is: lack of infrastructure to bring it to market. And the #1 cause of lack of infrastructure is that anti-fossil fuel activists are gleefully blocking infrastructure development.

From the US Energy Information Administration: “As crude oil production has outpaced the construction of necessary infrastructure to transport the natural gas extracted during oil production...it has been increasingly vented and flared.” Blame the anti-fossil fuel activists.

Examples of activists increasing flaring: anti-fossil fuel activists have opposed the Permian Highway Pipeline that would reduce flaring by bringing natural gas from Texas oil-and-gas fields to the Gulf Coast.

A Bloomberg headline captures the difficulty of building the pipeline infrastructure building that would dramatically reduce flaring: "Grim Day for Pipelines Shows They're Almost Impossible to Build".

Despite the pro-flaring actions of the anti-pipeline movement, the US oil and gas industry is highly efficient, losing less than 1% of the energy they produce to flaring. That's 40% less than the global average.

If US flaring were totally eliminated it would increase the energy efficiency of drilling by 1%--the difference between a car that gets 30 miles per gallon and a car that gets 30.3 miles per gallon. The idea that we're losing massive amounts of energy is absurd.

Because the US oil and gas industry loses 40% less energy from flaring than the global average, stopping US production in the name of flaring would increase global flaring.

Anyone who complains about US flaring but opposes US pipeline-building reveals that their goal is to destroy the use of fossil fuels, not to prevent the wasting of fossil fuels.

The US does need need new restrictions on flaring, it needs to liberate infrastructure-building from anti-fossil fuel activists so that the highly efficient US oil and gas industry can become even more efficient.

The US does *not* need new restrictions on flaring, it needs to liberate infrastructure-building from anti-fossil fuel activists so that the highly efficient US oil and gas industry can become even more efficient.