Is this really disgusting? There's very little context given at any point during the article. My understanding is there are around 85,000,000 barrels produced per day globally. Is ND now responsible for 10% more gas being burned globally? 0.5%? It's great that it shows up at night but there's a reason they have to circle the thing. It still pales in comparison to the intensity of Chicago nearby let alone the East Coast or Bay Area.

Fracking worries me and the wild west mentality that shows up whenever there are quick riches - be it energy, internet stocks or real estate - always leads to an ugly hangover. I just think it's better to take a step back and wonder about context vs getting sucked straight to this point.

You are comparing a drilling operation by ~150 businesses to cities dozens of miles large and housing millions of people. It's HUGE.

What if burnt gas is evenly distributed so that no one drill site is burning more than 0.5%? Who's responsibility is it?

While it is easy to be disgusted sitting in your fossil fuel heated flat, the world does not run on magic fairy dust.

Well of course not. But I burn the gas to make myself warmer, and they burn it because they have no use for it.

We have plenty of use for it, but nowhere to put the abundance.

Natural gas might as well be free in ND. Half a million homes is all of ND. For reference, I have a 104-year-old, drafty as hell ~2200 square foot home in Fargo, where I pay about $50/month for gas. I heat my home, my water and cook with natural gas. Our average winter temp is about 12 degrees F. I pay more for city garbage, sewage and other city services per month than I pay for gas.

The issue is how in the hell do you export it? You have to run billions of dollars of lines out, when gas is a fraction of the value as the oil. Also, the boom is a recent phenomena. This is going to take a long time before we build out the infrastructure.

What is the value of a million cubic meters of natural gas if it costs more to capture and transport it than it's value on the other end?

Care to put a dollar figure on it?

Assumptions assumptions new poster. Several cities in the US get significant percentage of power from renewables thanks to the power of local politics.

You leftists make environmentalism a religion.

A big FUCK YOU to you leftists who stop progress at every opportunity.

Whaaat? Dude, like seriously,how dumb do you have to be that burning all of that gas just CANNOT be good for environment. And no, I'm not leftist, I don't support greenpeace(they can all go to hell), but this is just a massive waste of resources, that damages our planet for no reason other than corporate greed.