Free Market Innovations: Self-Powering Oil Rigs
This is really an amazing story from KXMC. It’s about oil rigs that are powered, at least in part, by the natural gas they produce along with the oil.
The oil rig featured in the story gets 60% of its power from natural gas produced at the well itself. Normally diesel-powered generators are used to produce that power, but natural gas can displace most of the diesel consumption.
That not only saves costs on the well by upwards of $1 million, it should make the environmentalists happy because it reduces emissions at the well. Natural gas burns more cleanly than diesel.
Right now a lot of the natural gas produced at these wells is flared off for want of the infrastructure necessary to capture and bring it to the energy markets. Using it for power generation at the well site means less waste.
Private sector innovation making things cheaper and cleaner.
