[HN Gopher] Water is bursting from another abandoned West Texas ...
___________________________________________________________________
Water is bursting from another abandoned West Texas oil well,
continuing a trend
Author : toomuchtodo
Score : 141 points
Date : 2024-06-11 16:41 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.texastribune.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.texastribune.org)
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Original title "Water is bursting from another abandoned West
| Texas oil well, continuing a troubling trend" condensed down due
| to title limits.
| Cyphase wrote:
| Another option would have been: "Water bursting from another
| abandoned Texas oil well, continuing troubling trend"
| curtis3389 wrote:
| If this is fracking water, it's truly horrifying.
| jvanderbot wrote:
| TFA posits that it's actually fracking water creating the
| pressure that is pushing the old "fill" water out of these
| wells. That's somehow less reassuring b/c it means the fracking
| water is creating enough pressure to blow old wells out, doesnt
| it?
| NegativeLatency wrote:
| Seems like the difference between fracking water and fill
| water could be very little under some circumstances
| hedora wrote:
| This water is probably worse than fracking water. In
| addition to being contaminated with oil, etc, according to
| the article it's 5-8 times saltier than sea water. These
| wells are literally salting the earth around them.
| ZeoVII wrote:
| and also lots of >hazardous compounds such as arsenic,
| bromide, strontium, mercury, barium, and organic
| compounds, particularly benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene
| and xylenes.
|
| This will likely contaminate the land, rendering it
| unsuitable for agriculture and, I dare say, potentially
| transforming it into a barren wasteland incapable of
| supporting organic life.
| MisterBastahrd wrote:
| Watched a video of a guy who owns an oil and gas company and
| when a nearby company started fracking their well, it
| produced enough pressure to 10x his own output without any
| effort on his part.
| DowagerDave wrote:
| reservoirs are big sponge-like rocks. The pressure has to
| go somewhere.
| ok_dad wrote:
| Socialism is alive and well for corporations. Oil wells should be
| fully plugged and dealt with before they can be abandoned by the
| companies pumping them. Instead, private land owners and
| taxpayers foot the bill. Disgusting.
| SOLAR_FIELDS wrote:
| Ostensibly they are, but the article posits that the definition
| of "fully plugged" here is not really actually "fully plugged".
| ok_dad wrote:
| I was thinking they could have solved this earlier, perhaps
| if they had found they couldn't plug wells properly decades
| ago, they might not have allowed as much drilling, or would
| have researched and experimented sooner to figure it out. My
| point being, the fact that these companies abandoned it
| without thinking is a cause of the current issues.
| DowagerDave wrote:
| There's definitely an orphan well problem and cases of very
| irresponsible O&G companies, but you gloss over the
| challenges with hindsight and an incomplete understanding
| of the science & technologies involved. It's more like
| space exploration than it's like "digging a deep hole"
| krunck wrote:
| If you let people pump garbage water into the ground on your
| property, you deserve what comes back up. Unfortunately,
| subterranean water movement doesn't obey private property
| borders.
| thoronton wrote:
| The land owners do not always have a choice.
|
| "Under split estate law, the surface owner must allow the
| mineral rights owner reasonable access. Protections for the
| surface owner vary; in some states an agreement is required
| that compensates them for the use of the land and reclaims the
| land after extraction is complete."
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fracking_in_the_United_State...
| SOLAR_FIELDS wrote:
| Even not taking that into account, aquifers and groundwater
| and other subterranean formations don't stop at property
| lines. If I'm your neighbor and I inject some dirty water at
| high pressure into my ground there's a nonzero chance it
| might pop out on your land
| ToucanLoucan wrote:
| Never get tired of watching libertarian ideals collide with
| reality. Property rights do not make you an island, and
| what you do on your property with your property might well
| affect mine if I happen to be next to you.
| IncreasePosts wrote:
| Well, they had a choice to sell their mineral rights, or
| purchase land that had no mineral rights.
| NotYourLawyer wrote:
| It's pretty rare to find a ranch for sale with all the
| mineral rights intact.
| seventyone wrote:
| I have some bad news for you... it's everywhere
|
| https://www.fractracker.org/waste/
| araes wrote:
| Neat Site. Because I was curious, and it's relevant to the
| sheer number of oil wells that have to be dealt with. Here's
| a picture of the Odessa / Midland area of West Texas.
|
| FracTracker, West TX, Oil Wells (purple)
| https://i.imgur.com/PpPzDeM.png
|
| From: https://ft.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html
| ?appi... (if you want to look at other areas)
|
| With how many there are in West TX, I could almost believe
| the ground is collapsing. Drilled and vacuumed out so much,
| its like foam underneath. There's a known issue with
| sinkholes also.
|
| https://blog.smu.edu/dedmancollege/2022/02/28/these-
| monstrou...
| dj_gitmo wrote:
| These wells may have been drilled before the current owners
| were alive.
|
| > There's nothing uncommon about a leaky old well. Many in West
| Texas were drilled during World War II and 80 years underground
| can do major damage to steel and concrete casing. Many of those
| wells were also flooded with water to squeeze out the last
| drops of oil.
| throwway120385 wrote:
| But that doesn't mean that modern activities can't affect the
| stability of the groundwater in those wells. If the outflow
| is pretty salty it stands to reason that it's produced water
| that was dumped underground.
| fundad wrote:
| He's a fourth-generation rancher so the previous owners are
| his own family. His own family collected the payment for
| these wells and maybe made a mistake.
| cush wrote:
| The people that made those decisions are gone
| throwup238 wrote:
| _> Dunlap suspects it may be related to the injection of fracking
| wastewater. West Texas oil producers pump millions of gallons of
| so-called produced water, laced with chemical lubricants and
| numerous hazardous compounds such as arsenic, bromide, strontium,
| mercury, barium, and organic compounds, particularly benzene,
| toluene, ethylbenzene and xylenes, underground every day for
| disposal, often into old oil and gas wells._
|
| _No shit._ The Permian Basin is home to some of the biggest
| fracking operations and they 've been depleting the ground water
| to supply the wells so much they've started to run out and have
| to recycle the waste water:
| https://www.texastribune.org/2022/12/19/texas-permian-basin-...
|
| Pennsylvania is increasingly having a similar problem with what
| they're calling "frac-outs" where the fracking water breaches
| nearby wells and poisons residential water:
| https://www.wesa.fm/environment-energy/2022-07-15/dep-invest...
| mlindner wrote:
| The Pennsylvania situation is completely different. Those were
| wells drilled decades ago that were extremely shallow and done
| with very simplistic methods that didn't isolate the well from
| ground water. That type of drilling is no longer done. The
| wells in the Permian are below multiple levels of bedrock well
| below any pumpable ground water and they're lined with
| impermeable barriers all the way up the well.
|
| Further this article isn't even about fracking. The wells water
| was pumped into were ancient abandoned wells, not fracked
| wells.
| Johnny555 wrote:
| >Further this article isn't even about fracking. The wells
| water was pumped into were ancient abandoned wells, not
| fracked wells.*
|
| The oilfield firefighter quoted in the article (who has
| experience with wells in 102 countries), suspects that the
| Texas problems are related to fracking. So I don't think
| fracking can be dismissed out of hand, even if it's the old
| wells that are failing.
|
| _Hawk Dunlap, an oilfield firefighter who lives in Crane
| County and surveyed the recent blowout for Wight last week.
| "It's not clear what the source is."_
|
| _..._
|
| _Dunlap suspects it may be related to the injection of
| fracking wastewater_
| mlindner wrote:
| To be clearer, it's not related to fracking wells as the
| wells being injected into are not fracked wells.
| Johnny555 wrote:
| Isn't that the same thing the fracking companies tell
| people when their well water is contaminated? It's not
| related to fracking because we're not injecting water
| into your wells?
| DowagerDave wrote:
| no, because fracking is the deliberate fracturing of the
| reservoir with increased pressure, which can penetrate
| into the water table and contaminate water wells. This is
| using the old well as a disposal for the
| used/fracking/whatever water - not repressurizing this
| well. The column of fluid acts as a cap on the reservoir
| pressure that wants to vacate the old well. What's likely
| happening is an alternative exit (maybe created by
| fracking, maybe not?) is allowing the well to produce,
| vacating water, contaminants and oil.
| sevensor wrote:
| People forget that Pennsylvania is the birthplace of
| industrial petroleum extraction. There are abandoned
| wellheads all over, many of which exist in no records
| anywhere, and which are often in the middle of dense forest
| that has grown up since they were drilled. PA was also logged
| extensively for charcoal, timber, and fuel for locomotives. A
| forester once told me that nearly the entire state burned
| over during the peak of deforestation at the beginning of the
| 20th century.
| alamortsubite wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_City,_Pennsylvania
| exabrial wrote:
| Sigh... all thats happening is formation pressure overcoming an
| improperly capped well. This article is making it out to be some
| stupid mystery but it's pretty obvious... even the original
| article contains errors or leads the user to incorrect
| conclusions (likely intentionally). I'll surmise a guess to whats
| happening at the bottom of my comment.
|
| "Capping" is supposed to be temporary, with the intention: of
| usage later combined regular reinspection, or permanent kill
| later ("plugging"). A plugged well is injected with high pressure
| concrete to/past the impermeable rock layers, past the multiple
| steel/concrete well casings that travels through aquifers. Why
| would you cap a well instead of plugging? lets explore that and
| see if you can guess the correct answer.
|
| I'm greatly oversimplying this, but the state is supposed to keep
| track of capped wells to make sure 'something' is done with them.
| Given the age of these wells (80+ years ago or WW2 era) it
| doesn't surprise me if shortcuts were taken and records don't
| exist.
|
| I think if you're going to be against something, it's really
| important to understand it. My opinion is this is an
| environmental issue that should be addressed, but treating it
| with sensationalism and throwing pseudoscience in is just going
| to add confusion and tie up resources that could be used to fix
| the problem. These fluids need to stay in the ground...
| especially the salt water, as that simply does not break down in
| nature.
|
| The articles author and comments here lack a basic knowledge of
| Geology:
|
| > Dunlap suspects it may be related to the injection of fracking
| wastewater
|
| This shows a fundamental misunderstanding of whats happening.
| Fracking involves the injection of fluids to expand cracks in
| formations, then flash filling them with an aggregate. This
| allows formation fluids to flow faster. It's not like you're
| sitting here pumping up formation pressure to eleventy billion
| and keeping it there. That would be counterproductive to
| production anyway: you want stuff to come out of the well, not
| stay in the ground.
|
| To be perfectly transparent though, there are extractions methods
| where a flow is introduced into a formation by creating a
| pressure differential in a formation; you suck at one end and
| blow on the other. No idea if that's present where the issue is
| taking place, but it's unlikely.
|
| > If this is fracking water, it's truly horrifying
|
| If a formation underwent production after fracking... where do
| you think that "fracking water" went? This comment shows a
| fundamental misunderstanding of whats happening.
|
| > Pennsylvania is increasingly having a similar problem with what
| they're calling "frac-outs" where the fracking water breaches
| nearby wells and poisons residential water
|
| This is more than likely surface contamination by some ding dong
| fracking company, but that doesn't make good headlines. It's hard
| to take stuff like this seriously... production formations are
| thousands of feet below ground, far far far below the water
| table, which sits on top of the bedrock and impermeable layers.
| If said layers _were_ permeable, no water table could exist,
| because the water would simply keep going "down". The
| sensationalism around fracking is face-palm inducing.
|
| > The Permian Basin is home to some of the biggest fracking
| operations and they've been depleting the ground water to supply
| the wells so much they've started to run out and have to recycle
| the waste water (link)
|
| > If you let people pump garbage water into the ground on your
| property, you deserve what comes back up
|
| Fracking is a one time operation. It's important to understand
| that.
|
| The other comment links an article that says:
|
| > Fracked wells in West Texas don't just produce petroleum. Much
| more than anything else, they spit up salty, mucky water.
|
| This is actually really important to prevent earthquakes and
| ground movement. If you remove x number of fluids and don't
| replace them, you'll cause shifts in rock layers. The best place
| for extracted fluids is back where they came from, in roughly
| equal amounts.
|
| What's happening in Texas is people are extracting fluids from
| one area, seperating oil from the saltwater, then gung-ho
| slapping that water back into the earth in another. This produces
| a formation pressure imbalance and causes earthquakes among other
| issues. Nobody can really predict whats going to happen when you
| do this... we simply don't know "whats down there". As such, a
| "Dead" formation is probably now being pressurized and blowing
| out caps that were half-arsed capped. As a matter of fact,
| companies will keep old wells unplugged for the explicit purpose
| of turning them into salt water disposal wells.
|
| So in conclusion salt water injection is the root problem, but
| the media puts a magnifying glass on "fracking" for whatever
| reason and nothing actually gets done.
| scblock wrote:
| Nothing you say here is a defense of this industry. Some of it
| is an indictment. Was that your intent?
| exabrial wrote:
| Both sides annoy me.
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| so to summarize... it's the oil companies with bad drilling
| practices yet again (and not fracking)? injecting wastewater
| and causing pressure imbalances?
| exabrial wrote:
| Yes... very close: It's bad production practices, not
| drilling practices.
|
| After the well is 'completed', you move onto 'production'.
| The practice of using old wells as salt water injection
| points for production wells is practice that is relatively
| unscrutinized. Since said old wells are often miles away,
| often drilled into different formations, this causes problems
| ranging from earthquakes to repressurizing depleted
| formations (which I'm betting is what is bursting the half-
| arsed well caps).
|
| Worse off, the salt water thats reinjected deep into the
| earth can take decades to migrate, leading to earthquakes 20+
| years later.
|
| The saving grace about this practice is that is truly is
| below impermeable rock layers (yes even fracked formations),
| so it's unlikely to ever reach the surface, except in the
| case where other mistakes were made.
| freedomben wrote:
| > I think if you're going to be against something, it's really
| important to understand it.
|
| As someone who considers themselves an environmentalist, and
| thinks we are doing some terrible things to the Earth right now
| that we're going to be paying back for generations, I couldn't
| agree more. I used to love the passion, but having seen first-
| hand how counter-productive it _can_ be (when it 's coupled
| with low information), I wish people would hear and accept that
| message.
|
| When it comes to disagreements, especially political (which the
| Earth/environment should _not_ be a political issue, but here
| we are), the people you are trying to convince are going to pay
| attention the worst representatives, and they will suck all the
| oxygen for the debate away. Some of that is done in bad faith,
| but mostly it 's just human nature.
|
| Please people, for all that is holy:
|
| 1. Stop treating the other side as enemies that just hate the
| planet and want to kill it. Virtually nobody believes that.
| It's a different set of priorities. Many people on the other
| side have their priorities in the wrong order, but you won't be
| able to help fix them if you don't understand them. (also _you_
| may be the one who is wrong! don 't be the arrogant person you
| believe them to be. Stay humble, and stay true to the truth,
| even if it's not what you want it to be).
|
| 2. Educate yourself before you make a decision. If you care
| about the Earth (which you very well should!) learn about it!
| Don't make dumb arguments out of ignorance, as that will just
| push intelligent/informed people away.
|
| 3. Build trust and bridges, not wedges. Most people in the oil
| industry (or whatever issue it is) do care about these things.
| If you demonstrate trustworthiness by being fair and accurate,
| they will listen to you. You may not convince them immediately,
| but I promise it will make a difference. If you make an ass out
| of yourself though, you will never, _ever_ change their minds,
| and you make it harder for the next person to do so because you
| pollute the water (an intentional metaphor).
|
| Getting this right may very well determine how long humanity
| gets to live on this planet, so this is serious business. We
| need to change, and we need to change soon, so the time for
| games is over.
| bbor wrote:
| Literally no one in the oil industry cares enough to quit the
| oil industry. Also: environmentalism will always be politics.
| Our opponents don't have "different priorities" as in
| philosophical differences, it's a matter of profit and
| control and freedom to litter when they feel the urge.
| exabrial wrote:
| Part of the problem with the oil industry is we use the
| hydrocarbons in the most wasteful/dumbest of ways: Burn
| them.
|
| I'd be happy to never see hydrocarbons burnt again in my
| lifetime. However, they still have important applications:
| everything from textiles to medicine to structural
| components to the insulation your the ethernet cables that
| transferred the data you're reading this post on.
|
| My opinion is we need to get rid of the "burning things"
| industry but keep the capacity to extract this useful
| natural resource in a way that doesn't add C02 to the air,
| doesn't harm the environment, and benefits us and leaves
| something for future generations.
| bbor wrote:
| Wow GREAT point actually, I am a huge fan of plastic.
| It's impossibly tough to know how to support plastic
| without supporting the combustion industry (Miltary-
| Incendiary Complex?), but that's life for everyone who
| can afford to choose their job. I have a friend who's
| struggling with how to use his ChemE degree to help
| create lifesaving medicine without giving his career to
| some of our most cartoonishly evil corporations, and I
| personally struggled with the desire to work on LEO
| satellites without supporting the US military directly.
|
| A good lesson to never deal in absolutes :). I'll say
| this instead: most people working in oil and gas aren't
| doing it because they considered the facts and decided
| that it was a good future. They're just there because it
| pays well and they figure the earth will prolly be fine.
| I mean, it's huge! And _I've_ never seen a climate
| apocalypse...
| kmbfjr wrote:
| Making plastics still generates carbon dioxide, and their
| existence has their own problems. Some of them, are
| apparently quite bad such as microplastics.
| exabrial wrote:
| Yeah, disposable plastics for instance. Thats why I
| qualified it, because burning them is dumb, throwing them
| away is just as dumb, especially when people don't throw
| them away properly and they end up in the ocean.
| bbor wrote:
| yeah I don't think anyone's against the concept of fracking,
| we're against the concept of fracking for profit and/or without
| EPA oversight. Thanks for sharing your expertise tho! TBF "it
| seems rare to me" isn't exactly a slam dunk refutation of the
| quoted expert, but I'm willing to hear it out - your alt
| explanation seems logical, also
| vel0city wrote:
| > I don't think anyone's against the concept of fracking
|
| There are many people absolutely against the concept of
| fracking.
|
| There are people against the extraction of oil & gas entirely
| and would argue we should stop, today.
| Johnny555 wrote:
| >Sigh... all thats happening is formation pressure overcoming
| an improperly capped well
|
| They know that pressure is what's forcing the water from the
| previously capped wells, the unresolved question is -- what's
| causing that pressure and where is the water coming from? Could
| be from fracking, could be something else, but proving it is
| the hard part.
|
| Poorly capped wells are a problem, but this water ejection, at
| least on the scale they are seeing now, is a new problem.
| istjohn wrote:
| The distinction you're making is basically immaterial for the
| general public. The key takeaway for us is that hydrocarbon
| extraction is polluting groundwater and contaminating surface
| land. The exact reason for those negative externalities are
| important for regulators and industry to understand, but the
| general public doesn't care if their well water is toxic
| because the deframbulator was not halogented before exfinescing
| the sanestration fluid or because the subpermeable
| supertransverse formation was extereated. All they know and all
| they need to know is that regulatory mechanisms are missing or
| failing and our natural resources are being despoiled. That's
| all they need to know to go to their political representatives
| and demand that they do something.
|
| Nevertheless, the exact mechanism is a perfect topic of
| discussion for Hacker News.
| MutableLambda wrote:
| > A plugged well is injected with high pressure concrete
| to/past the impermeable rock layers, past the multiple
| steel/concrete well casings that travels through aquifers.
|
| Now imagine having hundreds of old oil wells around, some of
| them are rusted out and can totally transfer fluids up from
| down under to the water table level.
|
| They probably need to inspect every well and make sure it's
| properly plugged with concrete, not just a cap on top.
| vel0city wrote:
| > They probably need to inspect every well and make sure it's
| properly plugged with concrete, not just a cap on top.
|
| This is the real take-away here. Not some narrative that
| fracking is definitely bad (it might be, might not be), but
| that The TXRRC needs to be more on top of continuing to
| monitor and/or plug wells before these things happen.
| jmclnx wrote:
| That is what you get when you cut the budget of the EPA over and
| over. Hate to be snarky, but there is a reason for EPA oversite.
|
| Maybe this will get people in Texas understand why the EPA is
| needed.
| ryandrake wrote:
| Come on, this is crazy talk. If we empowered the EPA, they
| might decide to further regulate companies, and those companies
| might subsequently _capture slightly less profit_ for
| shareholders. How can you even suggest this? Won 't someone
| spare a thought for the resource extraction company
| shareholders, if only just for a minute?
| diob wrote:
| Nope, they'll conclude that the EPA is ineffective, then cut
| and / or eliminate it!
| hindsightbias wrote:
| I guess the next goldmine idea of carbon sequestration will work
| great with hundreds of thousands of leak points.
|
| https://undark.org/2024/03/26/carbon-storage-abandoned-wells...
| burningChrome wrote:
| I'm still trying to figure out if dealing with OPEC and having to
| constantly control and monitor some of the most conflict prone
| areas and governments that have no love for America. . . . OR. .
| . .having to deal with trying to be energy independent and all
| the issues that come with it like what's being pointed out in the
| article.
|
| There is no silver bullet for being able to power a country with
| 340+ million people - some of who live in very inhospitable
| climates (Arizona/Alaska) where one solution will work for
| everything and everybody.
|
| I'm not sure what the solution is, but every time something like
| this happens, we focus on all the negatives instead of
| understanding the alternatives aren't that great either.
| kingkawn wrote:
| The military interventions around the world are not only due to
| our own needs for oil but also to control the access of others.
| Even if the US was energy independent the national security
| complex would still insist on invading everywhere
| burningChrome wrote:
| Our military and standing as a super power has been in
| decline for a while now. I don't think we really have the
| military superiority or ability to just simply invade
| countries any more. With China, Russia and Iran aligning
| against us both economically and militarily, I don't see much
| of what you're talking about happening.
|
| Russia annexed Crimea and we did nothing. Russia invaded
| Ukraine and besides sending billions in aid, we haven't done
| anything militarily. The attacks against Israel went
| unprovoked and we've got all we can handle with the anti-
| Israeli protests going on here on our own soil - let alone
| trying to send troops to any of these hotspots. China has
| been sabre rattling about taking over Taiwan and all we can
| manage at this point are sternly worded memos. Add in the
| amount of conflict going on in Africa that nobody seems to
| want to deal with either. All the while China has steadily
| moved economically in on Africa and has essentially pushed us
| out of the country altogether.
|
| What you're saying in 2024? I don't see the US has the
| capabilities to do that any more.
| golergka wrote:
| Ukranian invasion in particular have shown that US and
| Europe seriously under-invested in military. While western
| countries have been able to do very impressive tech, it was
| produced in small quantities, and once a real (although a
| regional) war broke out, it became clear that even Russia
| can drastically outperform western factories in raw
| production capacity.
|
| With risks of much larger conflict with China become more
| serious, I really hope that americans reconsider their
| priorities and invest in military production before it's
| too late.
| Tade0 wrote:
| Russia produces a lot, but loses even more.
|
| Indicators of that include bringing T-55 tanks to the
| battlefield, which require four, instead of the usual
| three, crew members to operate, which is troublesome.
|
| They produce artillery rounds at a rate of 250k per
| month, but fired approximately 10mln during the first two
| years of the war.
|
| The Black Sea Fleet is unlikely to recover anytime soon -
| if ever.
|
| The list goes on. What good is production capacity ig
| it's wasted like that?
| llamaimperative wrote:
| Russia is getting its brand new billion dollar (per unit)
| air defense systems blown up almost _weekly_ by 1990s US
| equipment bud.
| acdha wrote:
| Is it a production problem or that the US government,
| especially the House Republicans, won't approve sharing
| with Ukraine? Shipments appeared to resume instantly once
| permission was given, and that's higher-tech stuff than
| what Russia is making or even buying from China and Iran.
| ben_w wrote:
| I agree that the USA _can 't_ invade everywhere, no matter
| how much the hawks insist.
|
| That said, "Any more"?
|
| Russia is much less of a threat to you now than the USSR
| was between invading Poland and the fall of the Soviet
| Union and end of the Warsaw Pact. China and the USSR are
| why the US didn't win in Vietnam or North Korea, and you've
| had all those decades of fun with Cuba (including that time
| Castro offered to send some election monitors to help the
| US).
|
| In general, the US does well as a team player, but isn't so
| good when it tries to be a loner. Looking over the
| Wikipedia list, of the wars you've won _without allies_ ,
| have been against very small, weak, opponents:
|
| * United States invasion of Panama, 1989-1990 (but only if
| you don't count the Panamanian Opposition as an ally)
|
| * The Tanker War is listed, but the full page for that war
| says the US was supporting Iraq at the time
|
| * 1986 bombing of Libya
|
| * 1923 Posey War, the main page for which... well, 2
| casualties in total, so if that's a war then what are
| school shootings? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posey_War
|
| * United States occupation of the Dominican Republic
| (1916-1924)
|
| There were plenty of solitary successes before that, but
| even the end of that last one was a century ago now. The
| successes, like WW2, the USA was one country amongst many.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_the_Un
| i...
|
| > Russia invaded Ukraine and besides sending billions in
| aid, we haven't done anything militarily.
|
| An analyst I follow says this is deliberate, based on the
| US worldview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CxZ402BMSs8
|
| > The attacks against Israel went unprovoked and we've got
| all we can handle with the anti-Israeli protests going on
| here on our own soil - let alone trying to send troops to
| any of these hotspots.
|
| Israel and the various Palestinian armed groups have been
| provoking each other for as long as I've been reading news.
| This doesn't justify any given example of bad judgement on
| either side, but they've definitely been provoking each
| other. And you're really not got all you can handle for the
| anti-Israeli protests, protests are a police action at
| most, not military.
|
| I can't see the US forces being able to do much to help in
| the current Israel-Palestine mess, though, no matter what
| next step you think is the most important for peace in that
| area -- given the politics, the only lever the US can pull
| on at this point is how many weapons they're willing to
| sell to Israel... and Israel has a huge weapons industry,
| about 10% of the global export market.
|
| > China has been sabre rattling about taking over Taiwan
| and all we can manage at this point are sternly worded
| memos.
|
| Yes, but that's also basically what's been going on since
| the Chinese Communist Revolution in 1949, which resulted in
| the retreat of the Republic of China government to...
| Taiwan (fun fact: guess which of the two Chinas had a
| permanent seat in the United Nations Security Council from
| 1949-1971).
| nine_k wrote:
| A hot war between two large nuclear weapons powers?
|
| Nukes are intended to keep peace, as in "mutual assured
| destruction". And they still work in this capacity :-/
| lambdasquirrel wrote:
| It's not for nothing that Europe and China have been
| outpacing the U.S. in terms of renewables deployment. The
| only country that sees military intervention as the fix is
| us.
| nine_k wrote:
| Europe, honestly, just can't afford that, even if they
| wanted. This is why e.g. Germany still has to buy natural
| gas from Russia, even while supporting the war effort of
| Ukraine against Russia.
| lupusreal wrote:
| Not everything is about resources. Are you one of those
| people who thinks Taiwan is about chips? That conflict
| predates the chips, it's about face, prestige and
| reputation, but I often read people on HN saying it's all
| about chips.
|
| When all you have to explain the world is a hammer every
| problem will look like a nail. It's a form of cognitive
| bias.
| llsf wrote:
| Energy production is national security. Each country should
| treat it as national security. US is lucky to have oil/gas
| fields, but it would not last for ever. Even ignoring the
| ecological impact of extracting fossil fuel, or impact on
| climate to burn fossil fuel, the fact that is a limited
| resource should force the US to move other energy production
| (e.g. nuclear, solar, wind, hydro) and migrate the energy
| consumption to electricity... if we want to soft land, when
| fossil fuel would get expensive (peak production, wars, etc.).
| EricE wrote:
| Fossil fuels are not rare. Indeed, the name "fossil fuels"
| was marketing by Rockefeller and Standard Oil to create the
| impression of scarcity - much like Debeers has been doing
| with diamonds.
| llamaimperative wrote:
| You oughta go start an oil company then! The market is
| booming, can't imagine how well you'd do with your secret
| knowledge about scarcity being all a marketing ploy.
| akira2501 wrote:
| Do you really believe that the number of players in the
| market is a function of scarcity?
| llamaimperative wrote:
| I think if something important to the market is scarce
| for other players but abundant for you, then you can
| easily go make a boatload of money. Just basic supply and
| demand.
| ben_w wrote:
| > Indeed, the name "fossil fuels" was marketing by
| Rockefeller and Standard Oil to create the impression of
| scarcity
|
| I doubt this:
|
| "The auncient Philosophers affirme, that there haue bene
| founde fishes vnder the earth, who (for that cause) they
| called Focilles [French focilles]."
|
| - E. Fenton, translation of P. Boaistuau, Certaine secrete
| wonders of nature, containing a descriptio[n] of sundry
| strange things * (translated by Edward Fenton) * 1st
| edition, 1569,
| https://www.oed.com/search/dictionary/?q=fossil&tl=true, ht
| tps://www.oed.com/dictionary/fossil_n?tab=meaning_and_use#.
| ..
|
| "From French fossile, from Latin fossilis ("something which
| has been dug up"), from fodio ("I dig up")."
|
| - https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/fossil
| Two4 wrote:
| He's not saying Standard Oil invented the term fossil,
| he's saying they invented/popularised the term "fossil
| fuel"
| lupusreal wrote:
| Google ngrams reveals his claim to be flagrant horse
| shit. The term wasn't popular until _several decades_
| after standard oil ceased to exist.
| cjohnson318 wrote:
| I've worked in oil and gas for years. The only reason we're
| fracking wells with 2000lbs of sand per foot on a 1-2mi
| horizontal well is because the easy oil in U.S. is all
| gone. If you could drill a vertical well and have oil gush
| out like it does in There Will Be Blood, then people would
| be doing it. Hydraulic fracking only hit snooze on Peak
| Oil. All of the easy oil is gone, and we're fracking what's
| left.
| ZeoVII wrote:
| Nuclear is the future and I would say the only way to achieve a
| "green" one. There is the issue of spent fuel disposal, but
| hopefully if fusion technology advances, then even this could
| be solved.
| ok_dad wrote:
| Also the issue of mining the uranium, which is horrible for
| the areas mined. Nuclear isn't an option because of financial
| reasons anyways and probably never will be, and that's as a
| person who loves nuclear and used to be a budding nuclear
| power plant operator.
| FrustratedMonky wrote:
| ""It's the latest in a string of mysterious water features in the
| arid Permian Basin""
|
| ""Last year, an eruption of salty water swamped several acres on
| Wight's cousin's ranch, a geyser shot up from a well in Crane
| County, then another on the Antina Cattle Ranch. Nearby, a large
| pond of gassy groundwater has become a permanent feature called
| Boehmer Lake.""
|
| This is the opening line of a disaster movie.
|
| Dinosaurs? Climate Change? The Earths Core heating up? Neutrinos?
| sangnoir wrote:
| Who would have guessed that the Great Filter preventing
| interstellar civilizations is greed?
| ck2 wrote:
| If you don't force people doing nasty business to pre-pay cleanup
| costs, they get to keep the profits and socialize the expenses of
| cleanup to everyone else.
|
| That's why there are hundreds of EPA superfund cleanup sites, no-
| one has to pay, just bail out of town and keep the profits.
| DowagerDave wrote:
| Alberta has an orphaned well program to cover this (more likely
| the drilling company no longer exists vs. "skipped town") but
| even with the forethought it still doesn't work.
| red-iron-pine wrote:
| because the Jason Kenney & Danielle Smith (aka UCP
| leadership) decided to let the oil companies off the hook.
| SECProto wrote:
| The parent comment specifically talked about prepayment of
| cleanup costs - i.e. taking their money before it's drilled,
| so that when companies go bankrupt, there is already money
| set aside to do the cleanup. The Alberta system does not do
| this.
| ProllyInfamous wrote:
| The book _Empty Mansions_ [1] is about the heiress of Montana
| copper mining interests, Hugette Clark (father is namesake of
| Nevadah 's county). IIRC, she inherited multiple properties and
| $300m+USD. A quite fascinating view into the insanity of an
| eccentric ultrawealthy, who lived into the 21st Century _at
| times thread-barren_.
|
| The unfathomable wealth she squandered on bullshit throughout
| her mostly-anonymous lifetime of luxury... could have supported
| hundreds of other 20th century families. As specific example,
| she maintained a Santa Barbara mansion, for decades, without
| ever visiting the property.
|
| That she was given it all from her father creating a superfund
| site... probably helps explain much of her reclusiveness [that
| and loss of sister at a young adult age].
|
| [1]: https://www.amazon.com/Empty-Mansions-Mysterious-Huguette-
| Sp...
| akira2501 wrote:
| > could have supported hundreds of other 20th century
| families
|
| Unless she literally burned the money in a pile in her back
| yard, then that's what spending does, put the money in other
| peoples hands.
|
| She spent the money on things with no lasting value but she
| spent the money.
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| Money, spent, represents using up the labour of others.
| Spending money on frivolous things is absolutely wasting
| _something_ : not the money per se, but other people's time
| and effort.
| akira2501 wrote:
| > Money, spent, represents using up the labour of others.
|
| Except the labor is entirely voluntary. The people
| performing the labor had the option of saying "no."
|
| > but other people's time and effort.
|
| In exchange for money so nothing was wasted other than
| the potential value of the money to the spender.
|
| Critically the notion that "it _could_ have supported
| hundreds of families" is wrong. The money obviously _did_
| support those families.
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| The families received the benefit of the money, minus the
| cost of the labour. If they had received just the money,
| without paying the labour cost, they would've been better
| off. (Or, they wouldn't have needed as much, meaning the
| money could have been spread among more families.)
|
| I recommend reading _The General Theory of Employment,
| Interest and Money_ by John Maynard Keynes. Chapter 10
| discusses this in some detail. (While reading, keep in
| mind that John Maynard Keynes is not correct.)
| irrational wrote:
| Why is a Railroad Commission in charge of capping oil wells?
| thefourthchime wrote:
| In Texas that's how it works, the Railroad Commission of Texas.
| The RRC was created in 1891 to regulate railroads, but its role
| expanded to include oil and gas regulation in the early 20th
| century.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| That's a more interesting question, and history behind the
| answer, than you might expect.
|
| The Texas Railroad Commission was founded in the 1880s during a
| progressive political movement there against monopolistic
| businesses, largely railroads.
|
| Its remit extended to more general monopoly regulation first to
| oil pipelines in 1917, perhaps reasonable as another
| transportation-related activity, then oil and gas _production_
| in 1919. It took on natural gas delivery in 1920, bus lines in
| 1927, and trucking in 1929.
|
| In the 1930s, as the East Texas Oil Boom developed, the TRC
| along with the US Department of Interior effectively became
| part of the structure which managed US, and by extension,
| _global_ oil markets until the early 1970s, when the US no
| longer had surplus oil production. In the 1930s, the TRC and
| the Texas Rangers literally seized wellhead production by force
| of arms in order to curtail wildly surplus production which was
| both tanking (so to speak) oil prices (hitting a low of $0.03
| per _barrel_ ) and premature oilfield depletion through
| excessive extraction.
|
| (Oilfield extraction at the time largely relied in the inherent
| gas pressure of the fields, resulting in early drilling
| producing "gushers" where oil could spout hundreds of feet into
| the air. Like poking many holes into a balloon or bottle,
| excessive drilling reduced that pressure, and could often leave
| much oil unrecovered within formations. Limiting drilling and
| extraction reduced individual _operators '_ yields but
| increased the overall _field_ yield. Other countries,
| particularly those with nationalised oil operations such as
| Saudi Arabia, Mexico, Brazil, Venezuela, etc., effectively
| arrived at similar trends.)
|
| There are also principles of resource recovery which were
| either established or enshrined by the TRC, notably "Rule of
| Capture", a whole 'nother discussion. And the (unrelated) issue
| of _regulatory capture_ , in which a government regulatory
| agency overseeing an industry tends to over time _answer to_
| rather than _govern over_ that industry.
|
| Wikipedia of course has a good general overview:
| <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzWlrARDVbQ>
|
| Daniel Yergin's epic history of the oil industry _The Prize_
| discusses the TRC in the context of the East Texas Oil Boom in
| chapter 13, which makes for fascinating reading, not only about
| the oil industry but about the actual realities rather than the
| theoretical operations of "free markets" and natural resource
| extraction.
|
| And for those interested in a deep dive, several books,
| including David Prindle's _Petroleum Politics and the Texas
| Railroad Commission_ (1984) <https://openlibrary.org/works/OL9
| 371845W/Petroleum_Politics_...>, Mark A Miller's _Oils & Gas
| and the Texas Railroad Commission_ (2015) <https://openlibrary.
| org/works/OL24732694W/Oil_Gas_and_the_Te...>, and William R.
| Childs's _The Texas Railroad Commission_ (2005) <https://openl
| ibrary.org/works/OL5476040W/The_Texas_Railroad_...>.
| sotix wrote:
| This is one of the best comments I've read on hn recently.
| Thank you!
| Sabinus wrote:
| Comments like that is why I keep coming back here. It's
| just next level discussion.
| ZoomerCretin wrote:
| The question may have been why the TRC and not the company
| that drilled it.
| MisterBastahrd wrote:
| Another fun part of having capped oil wells all over the place is
| that they can seep hydrogen sulfide gas. It can permanently
| disable you or even kill you.
|
| https://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/energy/article/tox...
| downrightmike wrote:
| Cause: They poked holes deep in the ground and billions of tons
| of land, at a minimum, are pressing down as hard as it can.
| demarq wrote:
| Why not conclude it's a chemical reaction...
|
| > West Texas oil producers pump millions of gallons of so-called
| produced water, laced with chemical lubricants and numerous
| hazardous compounds such as arsenic, bromide, strontium, mercury,
| barium, and organic compounds, particularly benzene, toluene,
| ethylbenzene and xylenes, underground every day for disposal,
| often into old oil and gas wells.
| jofer wrote:
| Because volume expansion from a reaction wouldn't be that
| large. Things aren't burning/etc.
|
| Direct injection of large volumes of water (with those things
| in it) is more than enough to explain it. No need for reactions
| of any sort.
|
| The issue is that the injection should be into far deeper
| sections. Something in the active injectors is leaking and
| therefore the injected liquids aren't making it to the bottom
| of the well and are flowing out the sides and into shallower
| permeable sections. The simplest explanation would be a bad
| casing (i.e. the steel sides of the well) in a major disposal
| well, but it's likely more convoluted than that. Either way,
| it's a significant problem for a lot of reasons.
| cyanydeez wrote:
| Yeah, its probably a more boring problem of inadequate
| regulations and corporate negligence.
| cyclecount wrote:
| >> Texas' oilfield regulator, the Texas Railroad Commission, has
| yet to offer...
|
| can anyone explain why the Railroad Commission regulates
| oilfeilds? is it because there aren't many railroads in Texas?
| rstuart4133 wrote:
| > There's nothing uncommon about a leaky old well. Many in West
| Texas were drilled during World War II and 80 years underground
| can do major damage to steel and concrete casing.
|
| This makes me hope carbon sequestration never takes off.
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