By Michael Biesecker and Matthew Brown
To left is the Bakken oil and gas fields.
Washington (AP) — An oil and natural gas field (click here) in the western United States is largely responsible for a global uptick of the air pollutant ethane, according to a new study.
The team led by researchers at the University of Michigan found that fossil fuel production at the Bakken Formation in North Dakota and Montana is emitting roughly 2 percent of the ethane detected in the Earth’s atmosphere.
That was 2 percent of the entire Earth's atmosphere. That is a lot of ethane from one source. It is an international crime to add ANY danger to the people of this planet. Just because this is a gas and an emission doesn't mean it is any less dangerous than dangerous dictators. It is ultimately killing of people even if with skin cancer alone.
This is international and settled law to protect life on Earth. Get serious about the polluters.
A flagrant violation that allows this level of emission is gross negligence of a first world country and the State of North Dakota Governors. If the time period is 2000 going forward, that would be John Hoeven, Jack Dalrymple and Doug Burgum.
This increase of ethane occurred under the management of the CEOs of Whiting Petroleum, Continental Resources, Hess, ExxonMobil and EOG Resources (click here).
This added danger to Earth's troposphere is all preventable. Enough! The cancer rates of the people that live and work in those fields is probably ridiculous.
This is international and settled law to protect life on Earth. Get serious about the polluters.
A flagrant violation that allows this level of emission is gross negligence of a first world country and the State of North Dakota Governors. If the time period is 2000 going forward, that would be John Hoeven, Jack Dalrymple and Doug Burgum.
This increase of ethane occurred under the management of the CEOs of Whiting Petroleum, Continental Resources, Hess, ExxonMobil and EOG Resources (click here).
This added danger to Earth's troposphere is all preventable. Enough! The cancer rates of the people that live and work in those fields is probably ridiculous.
Along with its chemical cousin methane, ethane is a hydrocarbon that is a significant component of natural gas. Once in the atmosphere, ethane reacts with sunlight to form ozone, which can trigger asthma attacks and other respiratory problems, especially in children and the elderly. Ethane pollution can also harm agricultural crops. Ozone also ranks as the third-largest contributor to human-caused global warming after carbon dioxide and methane.
“We didn’t expect one region to have such a global influence,” said Eric Kort, lead author of the study and an assistant professor of climatic science at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.
The study was launched after a mountaintop sensor in the European Alps began registering surprising spikes in ethane concentrations in the atmosphere starting in 2010, following decades of declines. The increase, which has continued over the last five years, was noted at the same time new horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing techniques were fueling a boom of oil and gas production from previously inaccessible shale rock formations in the United States....
Ethane is a volatile organic compound. It is dangerous to human health in North Dakota and it forms CFCs in the upper atmosphere that effects the ozone layer.
Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs): when derived from methane and ethane these compounds have the formulae CClmF4-m and C2ClmF6-m, where m is nonzero.
Hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs): when derived from methane and ethane these compounds have the formulae CClmFnH4-m-n and C2ClxFyH6-x-y, where m, n, x, and y are nonzero.
