GAS FLARING …inviting Global Warming

Peter Aniediabasi John

Environmental Research Consultant - Nigeria
The욀 ssue of gas flaring started as far back as the date of inception of petroleum exploit ation. As a mean of easy practice in most developing societies, gas is flared
to successfully exploit the naturally existin g crude oil in the earths crust. The exploitation activities are rather advantageous to the any economy that pay host to such
霰 tivities, but the detriment is as wide as the advantage. The advantage as seen is a short term gift, while the detriment runs over a longer period and may not fade. It
¬lso leaves behind drastic and hazardous conditions, whic h is normally the impact of such activ it ies. Gas flaring and other related activities have been seen to cause
harm to the environment and the inhabitants of the environment. It shows its impact in the three broad ecosystems; Soil, Water and Air. It s impacts are also felt by
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ving matters such as Human, Animal and Plant. The impact on human, animal or plant can be dir ect or indir ect depending on interactions. In a developin g society like
Nigeria, it is an issue that is attracting serious attention. Regarding environmental issues in Nigeria, the 7-Point Agenda and the seventh component of the Millennium
Development Goals (MDGs) are established to tackle the various envis aged problems.
This exercise of flarin g natural gases ahs been on for decades in Nigeria and cannot be stopped easily. Nigeria is a not amongst countries, where gas networking
employed for domestic activities. The 란 ghest we can do with such gas in Nigeria, is to power Independent Power Plants, through turbine technology, which is currently
alternated with hydro power technology. The search for gas utilization processes is on with lit tle or no in tensive research on safe and secured alternatives to gas
utilization for Nigeria. These are clear reasons why waste management with the intentions of producin g gases cannot be successfully established. We have too much
gas in our crust, enough to serve the nation if we decide to go into domestic gas networking system. This is not possible because we do not have a system running to
establish policies and aesthetics to polish our attit ude towards land use, illegitimate earth excavation, use of archaic cooking method (fire-wood, coal pots etc) and
our polic y on public use of flame (cigarette, etc). Our major cit ies are already in their saturated form and cannot allow planning such as gas pipeline reticulation
system for domestic use. Housing system, most especially town planning system cannot allow such technology to survive. With our current system in Nigeria, the gas from
the crust is best flared, because the power projects are not coming up fast enough to take over gas flaring, more Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) facilities are
established, gas exportation is not enough to over take the flaring and gas networking for domestic use is zero.

The best that would have happened to Nigeria is to have enough Independent Power Plant close to oil facilities, where flaring is done. Off-shore facilities can be
designed to have a separate unit to utilize the gas, while the power generated from the unit is transmit ted to the national grid for use. Alt ernatively, policies should be
made for all oil and gas operators in Nigeria to have as a requirement or pre-requisit e plans or strategies to convert the gas strength to electric power, whic h can be
paid for or subsidized from Nigeria’s share of the revenue. Stopping gas flarin g is not all about giving ultimatum, it s all about makin g and implementing plans to swallow
the volume of flared gas in all oil and gas installations. It is known that such ultimatum or polic ies can slow down the production of the world ’s treasured natural black
fluid, even we expect to survive with off-shore installations. It would have been better to also have in mind the future impact of down and upwind direction and
settlement on coastal settlers and eventually the upland settlers. No matter where the flare is, we cannot stop the negative and the expected impact and disasters from
Global Warming. We 漰 e alr eady receiving the impacts, though in infinit esimal proportion when compared to what is happening in the developed societies. We should
also know that though it seems slow, it is far more dangerous to ignore the days of little begin ning. We need to check and monitor our environment, if we do not want
to wake up some day in between crack of quakes, middle of over flown seas, near natural burning fire and many more dis asters. We are currently faced with acid rains,
irregular climates and weather, relative increase in atmospheric temperature, strange healt h and social problems. We are greatly affected by the gift we have. We have
not been able to make good use of our gift, and until we do that we may be doomed by our gift. The globe is experiencing serious change on daily basis , which are
detected by our kind of technology. Ordinarily, it would have been to our best interest to inaugurate special agency to look in to the changes, form which data base
can be generated for Impact Trend Monitorin g (ITM). An alternative is to set-up a special unit in the existing Ministry of Environment and all related agencies,
backed-up by research institutions in Nigerian Universit ies. This goes to justify the reason why we urgently need Research Centres of Excellence, where we can have
consortium of id eas to help us achieve our agendas and goals .

Our target date as published is 2015, or at worse case 2020. If we neglect the expected impact from the natural process like Global Warmin g, then it would be
difficult to cushion the expected impacts from the temperature raise. Scientifically, at 2020 we may be faced with serious environmental problem alongside healt h and
socioeconomic problems to destabilize us from achieving the set goals and agenda. Judging from current condition in whic h we are facing today, the agendas and
goals can fit in , but in the future to come, we may have to re-design our strategies or plans to achieve the same goals or agenda. Nigeria needs better projections and
future planning to keep the agenda and goals relevant in years to come. Going by these, if we decide to neglect some vital issues today, it may affect the younger
generations and even the unborn child ren to come. Being proactive is the best option for Nigeria of today for a better and successful tomorrow.
…we can start now.
Research & Development Unit; Ecolegal Services Ni geria Limited
ecolegal.ng@gmail.com; peanijo@yahoo.com; +234-803-9693897; +234-805-5288365