----- Forwarded Message ----
From: Joe Jarrell <earthlingprimate@suddenlink.net>
To: truthseeker23@hotmail.com; "Matt Wasson, iLoveMountains.org" <matt.wasson@ilovemountains.org>; Sierra Club - West Virginia Chapter <jim_scon@yahoo.com>; Cindy Rank <clrank@hughes.net>
Sent: Mon, February 14, 2011 1:07:26 AM
Subject: more hard on the planet industrial stuff as a late night ramble.

Random quote from the news:
"Composting releases methane," said . . .  and methane gas, as even the most warming-conscious among us have to admit, traps atmospheric heat far more efficiently than carbon dioxide, the usual bugaboo of the climate-change crowd.
End quote.

You know, they blow their wells.  This means they open a pipe to the atmosphere and let natural gas out, which gets the crap out of the pipes.  The valve has a two inch diameter; the pressure is over a hundred psi.  I live a few hundred yards from one.  When they vent it, it sounds like a jet engine (not a little whine, but a resounding  throaty roar that goes out over the landscape, across the valleys and maybe to the next mountain past the adjacent one).  This continues for (several) minutes at a time; I think it is done once a month.  I am of the opinion that they do this tens of thousands of times per year across this country.  Natural gas is methane.  The waste is large.  The damage to the environment may be enormous.  An administrator from the local gas company told me this is legal.  Why is this legal?  How can this be efficient? [rhetorical questions]  Years ago I read the the Mexican oil industry vented vast quantities of methane into the atmosphere, but I read later that they stopped this behavior.  I'm sure at least some other countries did and likely still do vent the methane (maybe not so much now that it is worth at least a bit), but I guess I can't do much about that.  Maybe I can sound an alarm that there may be room for improvement here.  Without encouragement to change, the gas production companies do not want to stop doing this.

If any of the recipients of this email have time and extra energy,  please forward the text to someone who cares, in case this is under the radar of both the regulators and the environmentalists.

jj