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https://apnews.com/article/climate-technology-science-business-media-7a752ae1f96453e1866312a3e3a8d62b>
"AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Wayne Christian wanted to brag, he said, rocking in his
burgundy leather chair atop the dais of the powerful Railroad Commission of
Texas. Colleagues and staff were doing “a darn good job,” and people who “gripe
about the environmental issues” were misinformed.
The self-congratulatory pause came during an October meeting of the agency that
oversees a more than $400 billion oil and gas industry in the top-producing
state of the top-producing country on a rapidly warming planet.
Christian, a former Grammy-nominated gospel singer, complained that negative
media reports had obscured “the good job our staff and this industry has done
for a cleaner environment, the cleanest industrialized nation on the planet.”
Then the chairman and his two fellow elected commissioners returned to their
agenda and, without debate, approved 39 more requests from oil and gas
companies seeking permission to burn off or vent natural gas that’s rich in
methane, a powerful greenhouse gas.
Over much of the last decade, oil and gas operators in Texas and a dozen other
U.S. states have flared, or burned off, at least 3.5 trillion cubic feet of
natural gas, according to an analysis of satellite data by the Howard Center
for Investigative Journalism. That amount equals more than $10.6 billion in
revenue based on the market value of natural gas from 2012-2020. The industry
has also directly released unknown amounts of gas into the atmosphere through a
process called venting. Between them, flaring and venting release a noxious
cocktail of carbon dioxide, methane and other pollutants."
Via Doug Senko.
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
