Just enough to thwart the rollback of Obama's anti-energy agenda.
No, folks this doesn't just affect natural gas, because there is almost always some natural gas dissolved in crude oil. In fact, the less gas is dissolved, the more difficult and expensive it will be to prevent its escape to atmosphere. Some is released as the rocks are drilled, and if in too low concentrations to permit that to be flared, will escape to atmosphere as drilling fluids have solids removed. Higher concentrations can be separated and either flared during drilling, or as the well is completed and put on production, captured as a valuable, or at least economically recoverable by-product of the production of far more valuable oil. Lower concentrations and volumes have been flared in the past because it is cheaper than the infrastructure required to transport the wellhead gas to market.
All I can say is the commenters on that website must be crackheads. It is highly likely that they are all in danger of consuming far more methane they produced themselves while riding in their smartcars and hybrids than a part per billion in the air they breathe being present from any of the wells drilled on BLM land (National Forrest/Grasslands).
The reason the flaring rates were higher for methane on BLM land than on private land is that the permitting process required to lay in the gathering pipelines to process the gas are so much more onerous and difficult (and time consuming) on BLM land than they are on private land. The Government created the problem, and now the government will compound it as a "solution".
John McCain: Any good will you had from me for your stay in Hanoi is gone. You have spent it many times over.
