Roughly 1,500 oil wells in western North Dakota burn off natural gas, a byproduct rendered worthless because pipelines to gather the gas have yet to be built. Some of that gas could power engines produced by General Electric Co. in Waukesha.
"Everywhere there is flaring, you should be sticking a Waukesha engine," said Brian White, GE's senior executive at the plant in Waukesha that makes the engines.
"To me, it doesn't make sense."
GE is among the companies working to put that wasted energy to use. Almost all the initiatives, ranging from powering drilling rigs to micro liquefied natural gas plants, include the use of gas-powered engines. But that is just one part of the potential markets created by the surge in natural gas production in recent years.
When pipelines eventually are built to the oil wells in western North Dakota and other new fields throughout the world, GE's Waukesha gas engines can compress and move that natural gas.
The GE factory that makes gas engines sold under the name of their hometown was the setting last week for a visit by President Barack Obama to promote job training. The choice of the venue for the president's visit was not surprising.Well, actually it was ... surprising.
It took 'em long enough.
And speaking of gas ...
By the way, before the end of this administration, Algore will have a PowerPoint presentation on how he discovered the Bakken; Obama will take credit for developing the Bakken; and Immelt will make billions capturing natural gas in the Bakken. It took 'em long enough. Thank goodness for red state governors. A reader opines had it not been for red state governors, the country would be drowning in red ink from dicers and slicers.
I've often wondered that.........why don't they put a natural gas fueled generator at each site and send the excess electricity back into the grid for wells that it is prohibitive to pipe the gas to a processor? Each site has to have electricity.
ReplyDeleteMy hunch is that these are not inexpensive units. I have also not heard about the depletion rates on natural gas production at these wells. Again, the Bakken is an "oily" field, not a natural gas field.
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