Gas Flaring is Wasting Fuel and Fueling Climate Change

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http://www.climatecentral.org/news/gas-flaring-is-wasting-fuel-and-fueling-climate-change-15163

Gas Flaring is Wasting Fuel and Fueling Climate Change
John Vidal, The Guardian

Gas flaring in 20 of the world's leading oil-producing countries contributes as much to climate change as a major economy like Italy, new estimates show.

While flaring has been cut by 30 percent since 2005, $50 billion worth of gas is still wasted annually, the World Bank said.

New satellite analysis of the flares – that are a by-product of oil drilling and which commonly light the night skies in oil fields around the world – suggests that bans and fines in some countries and the introduction of technology in newer oil fields has significantly reduced the pollution and waste in some countries, but has failed in others.

According to the bank, Azerbaijan has cut flaring by 50 percent in two years, Mexico by 66 percent and Kuwait now only flares 1 percent of its excess gas. Other countries, including Qatar and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, now use large volumes of previously wasted gas to generate electricity. ...

[NYC_SKP]

1. It's a waste of fuel but it would be worse to simply release it unburned.

Methane being 25 -26 times more damaging as a greenhouse gas compared to CO2.

We just need to get off of fossil fuels altogether.