The Effect of Orphan Oil

Why should we care about "orphaned" oil

Can you guess what the phrase “orphan oil” means? I didn’t know until now, but it turns out it’s a term for old oil drilling machines that have been abandoned from oil drilling facilities. Toxic gasses leak from abandoned wells, causing environmental pollution and health hazards. Over eighty thousand orphan wells tracked, however there are an an estimated hundreds of thousands in locations around the United States, where they have not been found.

Considering the big picture, there are an estimated twenty to thirty million abandoned wells in the world releasing harmful gasses like methane. The amount of methane massively adds up because there are so many wells and only thousands are removed each year, which is nowhere near enough. It turns out that methane has twenty eight times the effect of carbon dioxide in terms of creating climate change. Even though we often think of carbon dioxide as having an effect because of things such as exhaust, livestock, etc, methane has a MUCH bigger effect on global warming. So thinking about the abandoned wells, we have to factor in the methane effect as well.

Orphan oil machines will continue to emit harmful substances if nothing is done to remove them. Patching up the leaks might not always help, so the best thing to do is to remove them. Perhaps we can take time to focus on reducing methane instead of focusing more on carbon dioxide. However, removing ALL the methane would be a big step.