Apr 01 2009
Sour Gas is No Joke
Now that April fool’s day is almost over, I can assume that no one will be fooled by the above picture, which appeared on the Whole Foods website. Yes, it was a joke, but I bet someone would buy it if it wasn’t! Too bad the site will remove the silly stories tomorrow, because they were pretty funny. Including stories like “When milk goes bad: 12 daring recipes“. While I was enjoying the funny stuff on their site I was listening to a radio show (the Jeff Farias show, which isn’t exactly on the radio) that mentioned sour gas. I wasn’t familiar with this so I had to look it up and I was disgusted. Sour gas isn’t something your grandmother produces after a large meal. Sour gas is not a joke! It’s a deadly, toxic gas that can kill people. And yeah, it’s related to the drilling of natural gas, the very fossil fuel that T. Boone Pickens and his “army” of tens of thousands are pushing on you and me and the rest of the world. They want us to drive around with this in our gas tanks, or at least fill the gas tanks of large trucks with it. Why? So T. Boone Pickens can make a lot of money, that’s why. Unfortunately, natural gas isn’t going to help us with climate change or our energy problems in the long run.
A sour gas well produces deadly hydrogen sulfide during the process of drilling for natural gas. This is perfectly fine with many natural gas energy companies. They have no problem sickening people with this deadly gas. “Sour gas” by the way is the actual term for this gas and yes, it stinks, as its name implies.. Here is the wikipedia explanation of what sour gas is, exactly.
And it is making people sick. One family in Texas especially has a problem and has become sick from sour gas drillling, because they don’t own the mineral rights to their 100 acres of land. So there are 4 natural gas “sour gas” wells on their property. I can’t imagine how angry I’d be if some energy company put 4 wells on my property and their drilling was making my family sick on top of that. Hydrogen sulfide, or H2S, is supposedly burned off during the process of drilling for natural gas, but in this case, in January, the hydrogen sulfide leak lasted 13 days. The legal limit is 10 days. So if you live in Texas and some big corporation wants to drill for natural gas on your property, they can sicken your family with deadly hydrogen sulfide, legally, for 10 whole days.
What is wrong with this picture, besides everything? You can read their story here . The most horrifying thing is that the well was only 250 feet from their front door and they were never told that a deadly gas was leaking from this well.
I hope the new, improved EPA gets on this problem ASAP. The other thing they have to get to work on is this public perception that natural gas is clean. It’s not. It’s a fossil fuel that when burned emits CO2. Not quite as much as when oil is burned, but it’s there, by some estimates, about 75% as much. And it’s finite, so when it runs out, that means we are going to fight more wars for it? I’m really sick of wars for fossil fuel energy, and I suspect the rest of the world is too. It’s high time we got over this addiction of ours and start using the renewable energy that we have every ability to use, right now.
I respect your point very much and agree that this is unethical, besides the point that it is just ridiculous! But what renewable energy sources do you suggest we use?
Exactly — My next post will list them. : )