Forgotten Oil and Gas Wells Linger, Leaking Toxic Chemicals
A widely syndicated piece by the Associated Press features Fellow Daniel Raimi's insights on abandoned oil and gas wells and the benefits of plugging them.
That amount of methane packs roughly the same climate-warming power as the carbon dioxide emitted by all the power plants in Massachusetts in a year, according to Daniel Raimi, a fellow at Resources for the Future, a research group....
Raimi, of Resources for the Future, estimates that a federal program to plug 62,000 wells over a decade could create 15,000 to 33,000 year-long jobs. At a per-well cost of $76,000, it would take roughly $160 billion to plug all the wells and reclaim the surrounding land, whether it’s companies or governments who pay the price.
