
Ohio gas well blowout leaked more than many countries do in a year - erentz
https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/12/ohio-gas-well-accident-last-year-released-surprising-amount-of-methane/
======
imroot
I grew up in Noble County, Ohio (next to Belmont County) and still get the
weekly newspaper delivered to me via mail.

There were exactly zero write-ups of this in the local papers.

The Radio stations in the area are generally owned by one entity (AVC
Communications), and there really isn't a lot on their website about it: not
really surprising, because 25+ years ago they went Satellite Only and only
someone in the news room from 6A-4P.

My biggest complaints about the Oil and Gas industry taking the SE Ohio area
and turning it into a cash cow are two-fold: 1.) We're basically treating
nature like a resource and stripping it all back to nothing (like AEP did in
the 60's and 70's), and 2.) this has basically zero benefit to the locals:
most of the jobs in the Oil and Gas industry are specialized and workers
imported (leading to stories of welders making $140/hour in Ohio: just simply
not true).

I could go on and on about growing up in the second poorest county in Ohio,
but, I'll just leave it at this: not surprised that it happened but very
surprised that nobody has really reported on this until now.

~~~
pstuart
But to even question this in today's political world makes you a liberal
agitator. I wish I knew how we could reframe these issues as "proper
stewardship of our commons" vs. "but we need the jobs now!"

~~~
vmchale
In American politics you don't even need to deliver on the jobs. You can just
make some shit up and blame everybody's problems on something else (e.g. free
trade, immigrants) and then whip up a frenzy and never deliver. But even after
consistently never delivering you're still on the side of the people. Somehow.

~~~
bamboozled
It would be cool if there was a (website?) which clearly showed the amount of
promises a politician actually keeps. It would be nice to see it put together
in a nice, visual way too so everyone can understand it.

Ie, verified number of jobs delivered to said community etc.

It would be also nice to have donations clearly labelled against a politicians
profile.

The major issue for me is there is a major lack of transparency and
accountability in politics right now, globally.

Honestly, I feel like the old four year term system is just way too out of
date with the current crisis we need to solve.

~~~
lotsofpulp
It’s not possible because it’s simply not easy to measure many complicated
things, such as job growth over many years due to specific actions or
infrastructure development that takes a decade or more, but politicians go in
and out quicker and voters minds don’t pay attention for that long.

------
manfredo
"Leaked more than many countries do in a year" is an interesting way of
expressing the scale. Many countries have little to no petroleum industry.

> Or, for another kind of context, the researchers point out that this Ohio
> well released more methane in 20 days than the oil and gas activities in
> most nations around Europe do in an entire year—save only the UK, Germany,
> and Italy.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_oil_produ...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_oil_production)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_natural_g...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_natural_gas_production)

Most European countries other than Norway have orders of magnitude smaller
petroleum industries than the US, and many have near zero production. While
leaking oil and gas is bad, this kind of journalistic sleight of hand is
neither necessary nor productive.

To better put this leak in perspective, the US alone apparently leaks 13
million tons of natural gas yearly [1], and 440 million tons are annually
leaked world wide from both human and natural sources [2]. So this leak
accounted for 0.5% of nation-wide gas leaking in a given year and 0.014% of
global methane emissions in a given year.

1\. [https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/oil-and-gas-
facil...](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/oil-and-gas-facilities-
leak-more-methane-than-previously-thought/)

2\. [https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/methane-
siberia-c...](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/methane-siberia-
climate-change/)

~~~
take_a_breath
==Most European countries other than Norway have orders of magnitude smaller
petroleum industries than the US, and many have near zero production. While
leaking oil and gas is bad, this kind of journalistic sleight of hand is
neither necessary nor productive.==

Isn't your comment an equal slight of hand? The article isn't about total
leaks in the US compared to other countries. This is about one specific gas
leak in Ohio, which they compare to other countries.

~~~
manfredo
The point is, leaking _any_ amount of oil is sufficient to exceed the
petroleum leaks of many countries that have no petroleum production
whatsoever.

> Isn't your comment an equal slight of hand? The article isn't about total
> leaks in the US compared to other countries. This is about one specific gas
> leak in Ohio, which they compare to other countries

The comparison to other countries, many of which have little to no petroleum
industry, _is_ the sleight of hand I'm addressing.

Putting this leak in respect to the total amount of natural gas leakage in the
country and the world is a straightforward was of representing the
contribution of this leak to total natural gas leakage.

~~~
take_a_breath
==The comparison to other countries, many of which have little to no petroleum
industry, is the sleight of hand I'm addressing.==

My point is that failing to mention that they are comparing 20 days of leakage
to an entire year, is also a slight of hand.

20 days is about 5% of a year, so the comparison still works for any country
producing even 5% of the amount of oil & gas as Ohio. Ohio drills about 88k
barrels/day [1]. 5% of that is 4.4k.

European countries that produce more than 4.4k barrels/day, according to your
Wikipedia link, are: Croatia, Hungary, France, Netherlands, Ukraine, Romania,
Denmark, Poland, Serbia, Austria, Albania and Belarus (along with Norway, UK,
Germany and Italy already mentioned).

[1]
[https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=M...](https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=MCRFPOH2&f=M)

~~~
manfredo
I'm not sure I follow. You're counting nation-wide petroleum production of
these countries against 1/20th of the oil production of one US state, which
only produces a fraction of the 15 million barrels of oil produced daily in
the US. How is that a better comparison?

Let me make my point even clearer: go pour a glass of gasoline out in your
yard (hypothetically, don't actually do this). You have now polluted more than
over a hundred countries' oil production industries. Because out of the ~200
countries on Earth, only 96 have oil industries. I could turn around and
write, "one man contributed more oil spills than the oil industries of
hundreds of countries!" and in a purely factual sense this is correct. But
anyone who bothers to scrutinize this statement will see that it is very
misleading.

------
Keverw
I guess this is related to fracking? I seen something before that Pennsylvania
doesn't allow certain waste, so the companies put it in trucks and pay to put
it in injection wells in Ohio by the barrel. Pretty sad Ohio accepts money to
dump other states waste.

Looked it up to confirm about how waste from Pennsylvania gets dumped in Ohio:

[https://environmentohiocenter.org/programs/ohc/ohio-
fracking...](https://environmentohiocenter.org/programs/ohc/ohio-fracking-
waste-dumping-ground)

Even caused a earthquake in Youngstown, which isn't where you'd typically
expect earthquakes.
[https://stateimpact.npr.org/pennsylvania/2018/10/12/fracking...](https://stateimpact.npr.org/pennsylvania/2018/10/12/fracking-
wastewater-from-pa-usually-ends-up-in-ohio-some-residents-say-theyve-had-
enough/)

Then it gets into the water supply too. [https://www.nrdc.org/stories/ohio-
communities-are-becoming-d...](https://www.nrdc.org/stories/ohio-communities-
are-becoming-dumping-ground-fracking-industry)

Remember seeing a video once where someone could light the water coming out of
their kitchen sink facet on fire.
[https://youtu.be/4LBjSXWQRV8](https://youtu.be/4LBjSXWQRV8)

I don't know why state leadership allow this stuff to happen. Then you have
the brain drain problem, Ohio is losing highly educated residents to other
states with more opportunities, especially when it comes to tech. I feel like
Ohio is moving backwards and not innovating. Maybe in Columbus or Cincinnati,
things are better but still probably dwarfs in comparison to opportunities in
Silicon Valley or Austin.

~~~
jtbayly
That "confirmation" link in no way confirms that this leak was related in any
way to fracking or dumping.

If I were to bet, it is unrelated. Methane and natural gas are not the waste
products you would be pumping into an old well.

~~~
Keverw
Was talking in general about allowing dumping, but clarified my post.

------
minikites
Incidents like this is why we're not going to save the planet with individual
actions. I could spend my entire life eating vegan, recycling, and bicycling
everywhere and that entire gain is dwarfed by one incident like this.

The only thing that will save us is decisive and collective action. Think
about that when you think about your vote in the next election in your area.

I particularly like the suggestion in one of the comments on the original
article:

>I wonder if it would have taken 20 days to stop if they were being fined by
the pound.

~~~
jacquesm
Yes, but without you doing all that it would be _even worse_.

~~~
jellicle
No, it wouldn't. The commenter's actions make no difference at all on a global
scale. Zero.

That's the point: understanding that individual virtue does absolutely,
totally, precisely nothing. Only collective actions count. At all.

Understanding orders of magnitude is not something that comes easily to humans
but it must be understood to work on large problems.

~~~
jacquesm
The commenters actions make a difference _to them_ and in turn may influence
people around them.

Collective actions start out as individual actions and like that they set the
stage for change that is real and measurable.

By your reading Rosa Parks should have just shut up and sat in the back of the
bus because 'individual virtue does absolutely, totally, precisely nothing'.

Understanding orders of magnitude is _indeed_ not something that comes easily
to humans but it _must_ be understood to work on large problems, right
alongside understanding how social change is engendered.

~~~
inimino
There is a difference between individual action leading to social change (such
as political activism or civil disobedience) and individual action that makes
the individual feel better and satisfies the need to "do something" while
having no measurable effect.

If you take one less flight this year, you've considerably lowered your carbon
footprint. Congrats. If every single person that flies reduced their carbon
footprint by one flight this year like you did... it would make absolutely no
meaningful difference with respect to climate change. You might as well
whistle in the wind. On the other hand, if all of those people had actually
taken political action, meaningful change would be practically inevitable.

The narrative that encourages recycling, buying green brands, and generally
expressing how much you care about the earth by how you choose to shop (making
your environmentalism part of your identity _as a consumer_ rather than as a
citizen) serves only the status quo, and dissipates energy that might
otherwise be channelled into making an actual difference.

------
krupan
Yet we don't use nuclear energy because of its "risks"

~~~
tstrimple
I believe that we don't use nuclear energy because it's not economically
feasible in a private energy market. Startup costs and operation costs are
very high compared to natural gas, solar and wind. We saw how energy companies
plowed right through public outcry and resistance in the Dakota Access
Pipeline. I think it's silly to assume they wouldn't do the same with nuclear
power if they saw a profit in it. Even with federal subsidies and loan
guarantees energy companies aren't biting.

~~~
vmchale
> We saw how energy companies plowed right through public outcry and
> resistance in the Dakota Access Pipeline.

In the US it got blown into something completely different, about sticking it
to the libs or whatnot. So we went ahead and did it because our president has
the personality of a toddler.

~~~
briandear
The president doesn't make decisions on pipelines. And as far as public outcry
-- showing up to a protest doesn't make that the representative voice of the
public. I support that pipeline because it's better than sending trucks and
trains overland to ship energy. But was my voice counted? Not if using
protests as a proxy for public opinion is how it's done.

The oil company could use Star Trek teleportation technology and people would
still protest it. They don't oppose the pipeline, they oppose what runs
through it. Yet, they didn't all get to those protests in electric cars on on
bicycles. They didn't tweet about it on stone tablets -- they use the very
product they don't want people to use.

Don't like oil? Stop benefiting from it while simultaneously hating it.

~~~
minikites
>Don't like oil? Stop benefiting from it while simultaneously hating it.

You don't have a particularly compelling argument, as illustrated in this
humorous cartoon: [https://thenib.com/mister-
gotcha](https://thenib.com/mister-gotcha)

------
RandomBacon
Sensationalist title, as Ohio is larger than many countries.

~~~
RandomBacon
I think the leak is bad, but we should be fair, even with things we don't
like, right?

