Fracking - A new threat to dark skies?

[MarkS]

We've all heard of fracking - it's the technique used to obtain shale gas.  But a by-product of shale gas is methane.  Rather than let methane escape into the atmosphere (where it is 24x more potent than CO2 as a greenhouse gas) it must be burnt off.  This is done as a flare - a flame metres high - lighting up the nighttime sky for miles around.  Just like the North Sea oil rigs.

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/coming-to-sites-across-the-uk-soon--fracking-flares-8609940.html

[Rick]

If the fracking is being done to extract shale gas then that methane is the product, and flaring it off makes no sense.

[The Thing]

They will probably flare off gas initially while setting up sites - as Rick says, the gas is the product. I believe the only reason they burn gas off on oil rigs is that it's not oil. The journalist is trying to be sensationalist and to whip up the antis.

[MarkS]

You're right. 

I forgot to think it through properly before posting.

Doh!!

[mickw]

Fracking is also used to obtain oil.

If the world is in such a mess with fossil fuel running out, it doesn't really make sense to discard the gas and market the oil, they are both worth money.