Comments on: North Dakota natural gas fields can be seen from space

By: flickerKuu

flickerKuu — Sun, 20 Jan 2013 22:19:00 +0000

Ahh thanks for the explanation Guy. Now everythign makes sense.

By: Bruce Miller

Bruce Miller — Fri, 18 Jan 2013 20:29:00 +0000

American prosperity! So good to see! This just might help pay for development some of the Solar, Wind, Wave, Hydro, Tidal, Geothermal, Biological renewable = perpetual = eternal, clean American energy sources – before it too runs out, just like Texas Oil did. Facts seem to indicate that these wells are relatively short lived, and as demands skyrocket, will likely be pumped dry in decades. Pray we invest wisely in some of the eternals for the future of our country!

By: IronEdithKidd

IronEdithKidd — Fri, 18 Jan 2013 15:06:00 +0000

The splotch is bigger than Chicagoland. Calgary and Winnipeg put together aren’t half as big.

By: purple-stater

purple-stater — Fri, 18 Jan 2013 13:34:00 +0000

Declining production? Since when? November had a (rare) 2% decline, and that was because of a winter storm. North Dakota is producing a lot more oil than Alaska at this point, and will probably pass Texas in 2-3 years.

By: purple-stater

purple-stater — Fri, 18 Jan 2013 13:32:00 +0000

Calgary is visible, slightly NW of the circled area.

By: digi_owl

digi_owl — Fri, 18 Jan 2013 11:38:00 +0000

Only if every new find i dedicated to Ill in some way.

By: Ray Perkins

Ray Perkins — Fri, 18 Jan 2013 11:09:00 +0000

Read somewhere that the amount they’re burning would heat 500,000 homes. That’s a huge waste just because big oil can’t be bothered. I think someday we may regret doing that. Ain’t gonna last forever.

By: cservant

cservant — Fri, 18 Jan 2013 10:23:00 +0000

The funny thing is, there’s a gut in the natural gas market. Prices are so low.

By: Joe Blurton

Joe Blurton — Fri, 18 Jan 2013 10:22:00 +0000

You can almost read a newspaper at night in the Bakken fields. New plans are to generate electricity from the now spent gas to power rigs and equipment.

By: SoItBegins

SoItBegins — Fri, 18 Jan 2013 09:51:00 +0000

How does it rate if your boat runs on natural gas?

By: Dave Jenkins

Dave Jenkins — Fri, 18 Jan 2013 06:05:00 +0000

Huh. Why was my comment removed? I didn’t cuss, and I thought I wrote a legitimate response.

By: Dan Allard

Dan Allard — Fri, 18 Jan 2013 03:12:00 +0000

Reminds me of this map, which seems to show that there aren’t many people there, at least relative to the amount of light: http://bmander.com/dotmap/index.html

By: Boris Bartlog

Boris Bartlog — Fri, 18 Jan 2013 03:10:00 +0000

No, not Canada. Track the lights as follows:
- on the western tip of Lake Superior, there is a point of light. That’s Duluth.
- directly west of that point of light, almost halfway to the big splotch of light, is another point. That’s Fargo.
- still going directly west, a similar distance again, you get another point of light. That’s Bismarck.
- slightly west of that and somewhat north is another point of light that is Minot.
Those last two are the two last cities you can distinguish before the big smudge of light that is the gas field (though I believe you can also pick out Dickinson as a bright spot on the south end).
It may well extend into southern Canada and/or eastern Montana, but it looks to be mostly in ND, just as stated.

By: Venkat Rastogi

Venkat Rastogi — Fri, 18 Jan 2013 02:23:00 +0000

Um, that looks like it’s in Canada somewhere, not ND. Maybe Calgary?

By: BonzoDog1

BonzoDog1 — Fri, 18 Jan 2013 02:11:00 +0000

The Bakken will be back to black soon given the declining production figures — that’s another reason as gas pipeline will never be built.

By: Guysmiley

Guysmiley — Fri, 18 Jan 2013 00:44:00 +0000

The problem with the Bakken reserve is they aren’t collecting any of the natural gas because there isn’t a pipeline. And they’re not building a pipeline because, hey, fuck it there’s oil to be pumped out now. That’s what is so galling about the flaring in western ND.

By: Stewart Berntson

Stewart Berntson — Thu, 17 Jan 2013 23:01:00 +0000

That’s the Bakken formation, and it is HUGE — they are producing more oil and natural gas from that formation in a day than they can actually ship out of it.

By: flickerKuu

flickerKuu — Thu, 17 Jan 2013 22:53:00 +0000

Cool Boomsb, so then I guess what you are saying is you approve of them exploding because of building pressure. Great, maybe you should re-think that approval or like. FYI – I am against fracking, I’m just saying that the flames everyone thinks is waste is actually required or we get NO gas at all.

By: Boundegar

Boundegar — Thu, 17 Jan 2013 22:27:00 +0000

Boats are morally superior to natural gas.

By: boomsb

boomsb — Thu, 17 Jan 2013 21:49:00 +0000

I’m aware, but that doesn’t mean I have to like or approve of it.

By: flickerKuu

flickerKuu — Thu, 17 Jan 2013 21:40:00 +0000

You guys know that burning off fuel is pretty much normal operating procedure in ANY gas refiner plant, right?

By: flickerKuu

flickerKuu — Thu, 17 Jan 2013 21:39:00 +0000

Oh look! We can see people’s faucets on fire from space! Cool! Drill baby drill! Let’s light up the whole country with CLEAN FREE NATURAL GAS (that totally corrupts our water supply and makes earthquakes). Go! ‘merica.

By: Ian Wood

Ian Wood — Thu, 17 Jan 2013 21:37:00 +0000

Don’t burn that! We need it.

By: TonyF

TonyF — Thu, 17 Jan 2013 21:36:00 +0000

Texas has the same thing in the Eagle Ford Play.
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/plugged-in/2012/12/27/the-eagle-ford-shale-boom-from-space/

By: big ryan

big ryan — Thu, 17 Jan 2013 21:27:00 +0000

being able to see a perfectly crystal clear sky isn’t all about light pollution, it has alot to do with the weather of the area you are in, if its humid and close to sea level your not going to see as much as if you are on the top of a mountain with low humidity

when we had the giant black out awhile back here in san diego you still couldn’t see that many stars, and there was no light pollution

By: Jake0748

Jake0748 — Thu, 17 Jan 2013 21:19:00 +0000

Wow – I’d never seen that before. So, if nothing else, at least N. Korea is good for doing astronomy.

By: chenille

chenille — Thu, 17 Jan 2013 21:10:00 +0000

Yes, and better this than the pristine dark that represents the middle of the ocean, since you would drown there. Unless you have a boat, of course. If you do, the stars are beautiful.

What were we supposed to learn from these comparisons, again?

By: mccrum

mccrum — Thu, 17 Jan 2013 21:08:00 +0000

North Korea isn’t Dark Skies friendly because they’re concerned about Dark Skies, they do it because they have no power….

They probably don’t do as much astrophotography as a nation that you do in your spare time either, so it’s totally wasted on them.

By: boomsb

boomsb — Thu, 17 Jan 2013 21:00:00 +0000

That’s right, no food or fuel, and we’re burning fields and fields of natural gas 24-hours a day, just because the developers can’t be bothered to trap it.

By: xzzy

xzzy — Thu, 17 Jan 2013 20:49:00 +0000

Wrong! Light pollution is horrible.

There’s people who are born and live in cities who have never seen the milky way, which is a terrible way to live.

I understand that light at night makes the city safer, but it comes with a pretty big cost (both quality of life and financial, as running all those lamps isn’t cheap). I have to drive for hours to get far enough away from Chicago that city glow doesn’t interfere with photographs.