Why do oil rigs at sea have a constant flame burning on top of them? Natural gas? And why couldn’t it be collected as well instead of wasting it?
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Natural gas is a mixture of different molecules. It’s primarily Methane (CH4), and a much smaller amount of other bigger hydrocarbon molecules like C2H8 or C3H10, plus mixtures of other stuff like CO2, nitrogen etc.
Methane is a greenhouse gas, and is thought to have a much higher impact on climate change than regular carbon dioxide, on a per-unit basis. Releasing it directly into the atmosphere could actually cause a higher increase in net greenhouse effect, than to simply burn it.
Burning natural gas results in the flame, plus CO2 and Water, and a smaller amount of some other substances. It’s a little counter intuitive, but in the long run it could be better for the environment to burn that natural gas ‘waste’ than to try and collect it and ship it, or to just release it into the atmosphere. Of course, it would be best to avoid releasing it into the atmosphere in the first place through drilling, but if you’re gonna be pumping oil from the ground anyway, you gotta do something.
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