Analysis | US has more than 120,000 abandoned oil wells, research finds – The Washington Post

Exclusive: With cash on the table, states identify 120,000 leak-prone oil wells

Across the country, fossil fuel companies have moved away from thousands of oil and gas wells, leaving them disconnected and idle even as many of those drilling sites emit greenhouse gas emissions and pose a threat. directly to human health. But until recently, states had little incentive to identify these sinks and few resources to plug them.

Now, the bipartisan infrastructure law that President Biden signed last year is changing the calculus around this growing environmental challenge, Maxine reports this morning. The law, which authorized a record $4.7 billion for states’ efforts to plug abandoned wells, sparked a rush among state officials to document wells within their borders.

As a result, states have now reported more than 120,000 abandoned wells, representing an increase of nearly 50% from the 81,000 wells reported last year, according to a analysis of state data by researchers from the Environmental Defense Fund and McGill University shared with The Washington Post.

Even this figure can mask the true extent of the problem. According to some estimates, the number of undocumented abandoned wells in the United States – those that have not yet been discovered – could be as high as one million.

“It would be wonderful to be able to map all of the true orphan wells in the country, of which there could be a million or more, but we can only map those that are documented by definition,” said Adam PeltzDirector and Senior Counsel at Environmental Defense Fund who worked on the analysis. “It confirms the principle that this is a big problem. We still have a long way to go to find these wells and control them. »

Abandoned wells – also called “orphan” wells because no owner can be found – can leak toxic substances such as arsenic, formaldehyde and benzene, polluting the air and groundwater. Using census data, the analysis found that 14 million people live within a mile of an orphan well, including 1.3 million adults with asthma. Exposure to air pollution can worsen asthma symptoms, according to Centers for Disaster Control and Prevention.

Orphan wells can also emit methane, a potent greenhouse gas that causes climate change. Responsible for about a third of global warming today, methane traps about 80 times more heat than carbon dioxide in its first 20 years in the atmosphere.

Get grants at the door

In January, the Interior Department announced that states could apply for an initial federal grant of $1.15 billion to fund the closure and cleanup of abandoned wells. The department noted that the grants would be based on three criteria: the number of documented orphan wells in each state, the estimated cost of cleaning up wells in each state, and job losses in each state from March 2020 through November 2021.

“The Department is taking a thoughtful and methodical approach to implementing the Orphan Oil and Gas Wells Program which aims to get money to the states as quickly as possible while being responsible stewards of taxpayer dollars” , said the Secretary of the Interior. Deb Haaland said in a statement.

In August, the Interior awarded an initial $560 million to 24 states to begin plugging and cleaning up more than 10,000 orphan wells. Twenty-two states received $25 million each, while Arkansas and Mississippi received $5 million each to measure methane emissions from wells and begin plugging them.

Researchers from the Environmental Defense Fund and McGill performed a similar analysis of orphan wells last year, before the Infrastructure Act was passed. This year, they saw a dramatic increase in the number of documented wells in some states that updated their databases in response to federal funding.

Ohio, which received $25 million in federal funds, reported the most orphan wells of any state – 20,439 – in the latest analysis, compared to just 891 wells in last year’s analysis. .

Stephanie O’Gradyspokesperson for Ohio Department of Natural Resources, said in an email that the department had identified the additional wells through a comprehensive review of its records. She added that while the department employs 26 people in its orphan well program, it is looking for more qualified contractors to plug wells — a challenge for the Biden administration as it seeks to implement the Orphan Wells Act. way to create well-paying jobs. .

You can read Maxine’s full story, which addresses possible solutions to the national orphan well crisis, here.

Biden says ‘adjustments’ can be made to address ‘problems’ with the Inflation Reduction Act

At a joint press conference Thursday with the French president Emmanuel Macron, President Biden said there were “problems” in the landmark climate law, known as the Inflation Reduction Act, which he signed in August, but he said they can be reconciled, The Washington Post Amy B Wang reports.

He was likely referring to provisions in the bill aimed at bolstering domestic manufacturing of green technologies, such as requiring automakers to source battery components for electric vehicles from the United States or countries with which the United States entered into a free trade agreement. But the lawmakers who put those provisions into the bill did so on purpose, making it unclear how Biden intends to address the perceived problems.

“There are adjustments we can make,” Biden said. “When I drafted the legislation, it was never my intention to exclude people who were cooperating with us. That was not the intention. … What I mean is that we are back in business, Europe is back in business and we will continue to create manufacturing jobs in America, but not at the expense of Europe.

His acknowledgment comes after Macron warned on Wednesday that provisions of the Cut Inflation Act, which includes $369 billion in aid to U.S. manufacturers, could “fragment the West” by hurting European economies, The post office Yasmine Abutaleb, Toluse Olorunnipa and Rick Noak report.

Shortly after landing in Washington for the Biden presidency’s first state visit, Macron said that some of the law’s provisions “create such differences between the United States and Europe that those who work in these industries will just be like, ‘We’re not making any more investments on the other side of the ocean.”

EPA proposes overhaul of biofuel standard to boost electric vehicles

The Environmental Protection Agency Thursday proposed a radical rewrite of the Renewable Fuels Standard which would promote the use of renewable natural gas in electric vehicles, Jennifer A Dlouhy and Kim Chapman reporting for Bloomberg News.

Under proposed biofuel blend standards, the EPA would create a credit for automakers such as You’re here and Ford which is awarded when electricity from certain renewable sources is used to power electric vehicles. The change aims to provide additional incentive for automakers to create zero-emission cars, complementing clean energy provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act.

The proposal, which is open to public comment, could also help advance the Biden administration’s goal of decarbonizing the transportation sector by increasing the amount of low-carbon biofuel that must be blended into gasoline. and diesel up to 22.68 billion gallons as soon as 2025.

Senate panel nominates three Energy Department nominees

The Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources Thursday voted to advance three Department of Energy candidates, sending them to the entire Senate for consideration. They understand:

• David Crane be undersecretary for infrastructure.
• Jeff Marootian be assistant secretary for energy efficiency and renewable energies
• Gene Rodrigues be assistant secretary for electricity delivery and energy reliability

Before the vote, the chairman of the committee Joe Manchin III (DW.Va.) said he appreciated Crane’s statement for the record in which he backtracked on an earlier comment that coal had “missed the boat” to decarbonize.

Manchin, representing a coal-dependent state, previously claimed President Biden to apologize after suggesting last month that the administration would “shut down these factories all over America and have wind and solar power.”

EU asks members to set Russian oil price at $60

The European Union’s executive body on Thursday called on the 27 member countries to approve a Russian oil price cap of $60 a barrel, according to people familiar with the matter who were not authorized to comment publicly on the negotiations. Laurence Normand reports for the Wall Street Journal.

The proposal of European Commission comes as the West tries to cut Russia’s oil revenue amid the war in Ukraine while maintaining a stable and affordable global energy supply. A cap of $60 would put Kremlin crude prices well below international benchmarks which traded at $88 a barrel on Thursday.

The deal needs the approval of all member countries to go ahead on Monday as planned. But Poland has asked for more time to consider the proposal, Polish officials and other EU officials said. Once the EU approves the plan, the Group of Seven industrialized countries and Australia will have the opportunity to approve it.