Thankfully DW brings these important documentaries to life. It's heartening to know someone cares to do this type of selfless work. High kudos and all the Best energies to those fighting oil companies
@@marconius101 That is one of the problems.... the US have very low fuel prices. Many other countries (especially in Europe) have much higher prices (mostly taxes) on their fuel - meaning that there are a lot less V8's and other fuel inefficient vehicles on the roads. People are also more likely to use bikes or walk for short trips to the supermarket etc. In Sweden we pay approx USD 1.90 per litre... about USD 7.20 per gallon. Average price in the US today is USD 3.15 per gallon... or USD 0.83 per litre.
These residual clean up costs should be included in the lifetime cost of producing oil and natural gas to give a complete cost for comparison to the cost of, say, solar or nuclear
@@SigFigNewton we desperately need a giant jump in an everlasting energy source.... Until fusion gets perfected all of the s*** is a waste of time to debate over, it's all terrible for our environment our planet
@@SigFigNewton one last bit when the Europeans came over here and met the native Americans we should have respected their way of life and learned how to live off of this land not pillage it
@@freemansaquatics5326 if you're wating for fusion then give up. it takes more energy than it produces by a scale that is mostly a secret and after decades has produced nothing. Fusion for energy is a cover.
Perhaps they would be if they where held to the same legal standards as everyone else. You know? When they pay taxes and provide jobs with fair wages to people who makes quality products at a reasonable price in a sustainable manner, then who can object? They problem starts when we allow them to bribe politicians and escape responsibility.
It's greed , not evil . You act like they like killing people . The governments are the ones allowing it nc their pockets get fat for turning their cheek. And when they can't deny facts they slap them on the wrist until next time
My dad was a roughneck at TOSCO (Now Martinez Oil and Gas Co in Martinez, CA) and I'm almost positive pollutant exposure is why we both have health problems. I used to do his laundry for him as a kid
They should be forced to return the site to the state it was in before drilling. Plugging a site is not a solution if the metal can corrode and leak. Monitoring the wells is not a solution either because the oil and gras industry has no interest in monitoring and maintaining the sites.
You can't once a well is punched it can only be filled with concrete and that plug isn't permanent time brakes down everything that's the nature of things
@@Drobert882 Well now I am scared. How was digging wells permitted in the first place if there is no way to permanently plug a well? Do you know if a well stops leaking if all the oil has been removed? Or is that not possible with todays technology?
Ive said for years that im willing to let oil and gas execs run their operations wherever and however they like AS LONG AS they are willing to live, and let their grandchildren live, in the immediate proximity of their company's operations. If they are not willing to live there, then something is obviously unsafe about the operations.
Work on oil and gas even in a developed country like Canada for a few years and you see some crazy, crazy stuff compared to other industries I've been in.
There was a viral video of this lady's dog going crazy and digging holes into the sidewalk. She said her Husky never dug holes because they live in a big city but they had a small yard. Sure enough that Husky was going crazy. She goes outside with her gas meter that a lot of residents would keep to check their stoves and heaters. The detector was beeping like crazy and blinking red. There was a gas leak underground
Lol this is why drilling for oil should never be done to begin with. Once a hole has been created, it will continue to emit gases even if all the oil has already been extracted. Oil companies often use the logic of dormant volcanoes with oil drilling, saying if a volcano can go extinct, why can't oil holes go extinct either? What they don't know is that while extinct volcanoes no longer boils visible magma and lava, it still emits sulfuric gases, so in the same logic an oil hole can still emit gases like methane even if it is no longer producing oil. And closing these holes permanently is gonna be tricky either because with time, wear and tear can eventually break those seals so this is gonna be a lifetime (earth's lifetime not ours lol) maintenance.
As a Petroleum Engineer, seeing wells with water flowing to surface is tough to watch. Most countries would not allow this - and especially not here in Canada. It’s sad that US Regulations don’t have a mechanism to resolve this issue. As a consumer, source your natural gas responsibly! We all use it - whether as fuel for heating, electricity for our EVs, or plastics at our hospitals.
You avin a laugh? Source your gas responsibly? If you buy from a "reputable" source the gas that comes through the pipe is still drilled and extracted by Shell Oiil, or Exxon, or Mobil or whoever. They are jsut resellers. There is no direct pipe to your house from the "reputable" source. And you, as an egineer, would know this. But you are not an engineer are you?
As an ex rig worker I know 1st hand that this comes from working to fast. If the well was a plug job it was always a big panic to plug the well to move on to the next job. Years later I remember moving back onto abandoned wells and re drilling and re plugging these wells.
Different cinematics from other DW's vid, very intriguing. Also, thank you DW for the information you gave to us, it'll bring more insight about the effect of human activity to the environment. Keep up the good work team DW
a big problem with chevron is they bought out gulf oil and with that buyout almost nothing was up to spec. gulf oil left a 50 million gallon tank of benzene near my town to rot and it all leaked out into the ground water which most people in the area had shallow water wells that got ruined. the state had to build a water pipeline because everyone lost their wells do to the benzene
No, it's our collective intelligence that has reached a tipping point. We have reached a point where we are so stupid collectively, that we are too stupid to even realise how stupid we are.
If fossil fuel products and their derivatives (incl. your car's gasoline, your heating, plastics, food, ..) were priced to include the external costs those industries inflict on society and the biosphere as a whole, then most of these products would be priced out of the market. The prices of all these goods and services are pure illusion, a bookkeeper's slight of hand.
Absolutely. But economics obfuscates harm and measures benefit to create the possibility of profit. If nature had a cost, and harm was internalized, all business models would be unfeasible. Think about it, inflation is just nature and people becoming more valuable relative to capital - and it has to be reversed to ‘save capitalism’. Markets don’t work, but the only reason this insanity endures is because the state uses coercion to enforce private property. They call it freedom, but force me to live by this indefensible accounting disaster.
you can protest, threaten or beg them to clean up after themselves, all day. But at the end of that day, they have dinner with the politicians who make the rules. And together they decide to do NOTHING...
How is that working out for Germany and the EU? The cost after they rejected Russian gas is destroying their economy and deindustrializing the country. The cost for LNG which is 4-20x as much now is nowhere near pricing to include external costs. There would be a revolt and governments would be overthrown if it were priced this way.
I love the local doctor who knew immediately toxicology tests would be revealing, because the advice letter said not to do that 😊. Red Flag. Great documentary DW a real eye-opener. Isn't it tragic that humans are so devalued by corporate greed, irresponsiblity and ineffective governance and oversight. Past generations respected nature because our very survival depended on nature from season to season and necessitated a symbiotic relationship. Sadly those who exploit the world's resources are so rich and removed from the source of their bounty that they never face or experience the consequences of their negligence but you can bet they know what they're leaving behind and the potential risks to nature and humanity. Well done to the environmentalists and individuals calling out these crimes against humanity and nature. Lets hope they are supported in obtaining redress and remedial action quickly.
@@0mymeh. Russia probably did it. Plus we needed to stop giving Russia money. Norway is a cleaner better source anyways. They have long long term plans that we (the USA) can learn from.
But it's saved more than it's harmed. We should thank RESPONSIBLE gas companies for putting the methane to good use. If it just leaks into the air, it's very bad for health and environment. If we don't capture and use it, it will eventually escape unburned.
Not a couple birds,it kills millions of birds every year. If you ever took the time to walk one of these windmill fields you would find a graveyard of birds.
We have 270,000 abandoned oil and gas wells in the province of Alberta Canada. We also have higher rates of respiratory disease, MS, and certain types of cancer of all provinces in Canada. Oil and gas processing also emits harmful chemicals from both gas plants and flaring of waste gas. Some of those include toxic heavy metals such as mercury and cadmium.
So you are saying that we should just let oil companies profit from the provinces natural resources without expecting them to be obligated to safely decommission their wells when they are done. Seems kinda one-sided to me. @@georgehancock2307
This is the most murican kinda documentary DW has ever produced. Incredibly you have sort of achieved a good balance between "the dramatic shots, flash edits and animations" with information and good narrative. Please never fall into rethorical questioning every 10 sentences and the dramatic shots should be more National Geographic early 2000´s and less A&Eish. Keep it up DW!
Made it unwatchable. Was interested but kept fighting the royalty free music and sound effects and just really everything about the nature in which this was made haha
We call them orphan wells in Canada. There was one in my city, started leaking two years ago in may. It shut down a main busy road for 3 months while they brought a drilling rig in to fix it. It leaked natural gas because we're on top of a huge gas deposit. Luckily it was caught and fixed but there's hundreds of them within city limits. Most are from the late 1800s and early 1900s and the companies that drilled them don't even exist anymore and nobody remembers their names. Most of these wells are buried under roads, under bushes and trees, even houses as the city found a few years ago. A well was drilled across from what was the original hospital. Now the police station sits on its spot, and there's a subdivision across the street and beside it. Underneath the corner house's basement beside a main road the city found an orphan well. Luckily not leaking but the owner had to vacate his home and they tore down that whole street. It's destructive, polluting and cancerous. Alot of people get cancer young around here, or get heart, lung or liver/kidney issues cause we have so much dust from our clay soil and semi desert climate. It would be nice if our government could fix these wells, but I understand that the problem is far too big for just one municipal government to handle.
Make billions on selling this stuff, but it's too expensive to take care of the maintenance cost. It's like saying you're rich but still rely on food stamps
All the documentaries you guys make are so good it is just fantastic! Sometimes i get extremely mad seeing all the bad things we humans have done for no good reason!!! Good that you guys show it to the world!
Cap and Tap. I bought a property near one of these abandoned wells. I then proceeded to jerry rig an 80s micro gas to power turbine to power my farm and homestead. Yes, I used a concrete dome to "cap" and then tap it my generator. "free" power 24/7. Do this on the down low though, bury the pipes.
Old abandoned wells left by companies that are no longer in business should be taken care of by the government, and a special urgent budget every year allocated to them. For the functioning Wells, all should be linked to the companies occupying them and a special TAX should be established to maintain them once they are out of business or service. The oil and Gas lobby is killing us slowly. This is sad, greed is our enemy.
@@definitlynotbenlente7671 You are right, but what about those long-gone companies? I am suggesting that the living companies should pay extra tax or a special tax to be used to maintain these wells once these companies are out of business.
They do! I know of a stay at home mom (may she rip) from Pennsylvania that her and her husband refused to allow the company to frack on their property but the nieghbor's did and it went under their property, leaked and she died from drinking her water!!!
I want more about this. I now live in California and while i knew there used to be oil wells on the beach, i didnt know there were still so many "inactive" ones.
I live in Oklahoma, I had an abandoned well wake up and start producing gas in my backyard. We had a terrible oder and the local mineral owner would not do anything. I had to go out in the woods and find it and shut it down myself.
Those leaking wells next to that neighborhood in Bakersfield were repaired May 20, 2022, after complaints were filed. Sunray Petroleum hadn't produced anything since 2016 and those wells likely were leaking for years. As far as I can tell, no fines were issued for the leaks. There are tens of thousands of wells in the area - many seem abandoned/derelict and nobody seems to monitor them. No surprise air quality near Bakersfield is horrific.
Curtis Shuck is a former oil executive who goes around the U.S. and caps off orphan oil wells because of the methane gas. He said there is over 1 million, and some are even from the beginning of the oil rush. Was a TH-cam video I saw. He had Oppenheimer syndrome. Felt guilty. That's why he was doing the work of finding them.
They flare off more gas then they capture for LNG by far...every oil well starts life as a gas well. I've seen them flare off enough to melt most of the snow off a several hectares at -40 for weeks on a lease.
@@obtuseangler768The amount of gas flared off honestly blows my mind. Why aren't we collecting and using it? Sure storage is expensive, but it's such a waste. We could use that gas but we don't - and the answer to why is that it isn't as profitable. Ridiculous.
@@zigzagtoes If gas is constantly emitting, and rising up towards the surface, it will fill the hood or bell. If there were a pipe to the surface, the pressure of the gathering gas would force the gas up to the surface where it would be collected.
@@samshepperrd i get that, but, if there's no leak, then the pipe would be empty. So until there is a leak, there wouldn't be enough pressure to keep it structually sound. Ahh, sorry misread your first point. Yes if it were already leaking then it would work. I thought you meant cover abandoned well with a dome and pipe encase it did leak (ie premptive) whereas what you put is clearly as a reactive measure.
Thank you, DW for your documentaries that open our minds. I would like to request your team to visit and document Kilembe Copper Mines Limited, a former open-cast mining area that closed back in 1982 but to date, there's no economic activity going on except devastating the Western Uganda regions, especially Kasese District.
Documentaries like these helped convince me to get a vasactomy. No way I'll bring more humans onto this planet, getting prepped to work for corporations like these as soon as they can welk and then deal with housing issues, climate change and politicial nonsense. I love my non-existing children too much to put them through all that.
Fossils have nothing to do with it. That was something coined by Rockefeller himself to trick the masses into thinking that oil was a valuable asset. Before Standard oil, electricity was being used.
if the state is plugging those wells, that means its the taxpayers, not the tax-dodging multinationals who exploited the land for x years untill it was not longer profitable
Thank you for this documentary. I have to say some of DW documentaries are outstanding and act as public service by educating the public of these issues. These oil and gas corporations need to prosecuted by multiple entities: citizens groups who have suffered health and safety issues, health insurance companies that cover those heath care costs, environmental organizations, states themselves who have to clean up their mess, and more. Enough is enough!!! How do they get away with so much harm and negligence ?? It’s so upsetting to see all this… Losing Faith that Justice is possible … And then some will blame cows and animals for emitting methane… What can I do as individual to help? All of us who care? What can be done? Please advise if you’re knowledgeable about it.
This documentary is being produced by a German broadcasting company mostly about oil wells in America. Not an American broadcasting company. Let that sink in.
Recently watched the video about making a beautiful furniture made from epoxy. Now it seems like a trend. 20 years ago I could not imagine that you can make nicest stuff out of epoxy. Guess what is the source of producing epoxy?
Maybe Thunberg, Kerry and Gore should be given a yellow jacket and a spanner to help clean this mess up instead of flying to Davos in private jets to talk about cows.
MLK said it 60 years ago: we need to move from a thing-oriented society to a people-oriented society...everything is about profit. "Oh, we can't make money with this any more, moving on!" I feel like businesses that operate on a physical product (natural resource mining, consumer products, even drugs) should always be required to deal with the "result" of their products. Clean up, recycling, and disposal with the latter being required to have near zero impact on the environment.
It’s markets. Ownership turns everything into tradable commodities that are produced, consumed and discarded. It breaks the personal connection by turning nature and people into objects. Government should just nationalize the global energy system at this point, and be bound by constitutional amendments to protect natural integrity.
As a worker in oil and gas industry in particular in drilling and completion operations I want to state that if a well is plugged and abandoned properly there are no risks at all. Everything else is just allegations based on nothing. If you have nothing to do with wells delivery please do not reply to me.
@@SaloestAeslinayduhappen to know of a bad driller for Aramco. Just destroyed their spool on a 3387 well with their jetting tool! 3.7million it took to fix it and it's probably a duster
We really need to take these corporate giants like BP & ExxonMobil into public ownership and ensure they work for the benefit of humanity rather than return's on investments.... BP have a lot to answer for ! There's no solution under capitalism.
I will bet that that woman ranchers' family was paid an oil lease or mineral rights for those wells. People want transparency? Then, let's have complete transparency.
Alberta Canada is littered with abandoned oil sites . Just walked away when the price tanked . Corporations leaving their toxic liter for others to clean up .
You complain so make a company & go start removing these, I am, im going to start next week in Alberta Canada, commenting on TH-cam won't get change you have to go out yourself
The discussion at 22:00 - 26:00 onward about brackish saltwater and benzene suddenly shooting out of an old abandoned oil well sure sounds like a problem caused by Fracking actives in other locations in the region. Fracking causes horrible environmental damage underground that impacts groundwater which travels for hundreds if not thousands of miles behind the location of the Fracking activity.
The house that completely exploded from the inside, it exploded because all residents were away, so they closed all doors and windows before they left. You cannot smell methane, but you can feel oxygen depletion, you just feel that you need to open a window or go outside. You learn that you only get a good night of sleep with a window partly open. So you unconsciously avoid the danger, even as the danger cannot be perceived directly. The inhabitants kept the building safe by somehow noticing a need for fresh air and managing it. Then they all went on vacation, closed all windows and doors for that, and BOOM, the building got blown into pieces. In Germany, natural gas is used a lot, but before it is fed into the natural gas grid, they add a smelly agent. So gas leaks smell in a particular, noticeable way. Burned gas does not smell, the smelly agent obviously is destroyed by burning it. So gas leaks have a scent, it smells bad put particular to a gas leak. It is also particular to unburned gas, so you can smell the difference between a small leak and a potential hazard.
Natural gas supplied by utilities, is tagged with mercaptan here in the States as well. The gas that exploded that home was leaking from a natural underground source.
@@irenafarm I would rather expect that the natural gas leaked from an unnaturally opened natural underground source. Like when flammable gas comes with the drinking water in some places AFTER fracking has been done.
I live in Rochester NY and dated a girl from Allegany, so we'd spend time there. I brought the 4 wheeler first, then started bringing my KTM off road dirt bike. Believe me, there's abandoned equipment EVERYWHERE on those hills. You'll see a hundred foot long piece of maybe 2 or 3 inch diameter pipe running across and down from something, I'm guessing a well, and they used to drip into 55 gal drums. Oil gathering equipment and lengths of pipe are all over. You can't go 1/2 mile without running over a pipe or seeing an area with a bunch of junk. I never heard or never heard of gas leaks. And those people are poor, so if there wa gas leaking out, they'd find a way to collect it!
It's interesting how people say they can smell gas coming from abandoned wells... Methane has no smell, that's why it has a smell added to it for domestic use so we can smell it if it leaks in the home.
Methane wasn’t the main problematic gas in the only credible section that specifically mentioned smell. Benzene smells like green apple flavored paint thinner. The person who stuck his head in the gas flow and said he smelled something has dodgy judgment imo. I wouldn’t have featured his opinion at all. That was just bonkers.
Thankfully DW brings these important documentaries to life. It's heartening to know someone cares to do this type of selfless work. High kudos and all the Best energies to those fighting oil companies
Thanks for watching and for the feedback!
This is nothing more than a fear-mongering story that plays on the heart strings of the viewers in order to get people to watch it.
Agree
The oil and gas industry makes record profits but they leave their waste for the state to clean up. Its so wrong!
you try making people 10 cent more per gallon of gas....
We should ask why the state allows them to do so, and how many people in that state have shareholdings in the companies.
💯
Its because the State is corrupt
@@marconius101 That is one of the problems.... the US have very low fuel prices. Many other countries (especially in Europe) have much higher prices (mostly taxes) on their fuel - meaning that there are a lot less V8's and other fuel inefficient vehicles on the roads. People are also more likely to use bikes or walk for short trips to the supermarket etc.
In Sweden we pay approx USD 1.90 per litre... about USD 7.20 per gallon. Average price in the US today is USD 3.15 per gallon... or USD 0.83 per litre.
These residual clean up costs should be included in the lifetime cost of producing oil and natural gas to give a complete cost for comparison to the cost of, say, solar or nuclear
No, it is important to continue to give unfair advantages to dirty energy
@@SigFigNewton we desperately need a giant jump in an everlasting energy source.... Until fusion gets perfected all of the s*** is a waste of time to debate over, it's all terrible for our environment our planet
@@SigFigNewton one last bit when the Europeans came over here and met the native Americans we should have respected their way of life and learned how to live off of this land not pillage it
@@freemansaquatics5326 if you're wating for fusion then give up. it takes more energy than it produces by a scale that is mostly a secret and after decades has produced nothing. Fusion for energy is a cover.
@@freemansaquatics5326next time don’t bring a rock to a gun fight then haha
This is an important reminder that corporations aren't our friends and that real evil exists in the world.
You need a reminder for that ?
Yet, you want to work to make money from the evil. The money is the root cause of all evil, you and I are guilty of it.
yet, you still oil (Gas) for car and gas for cooking ????
Perhaps they would be if they where held to the same legal standards as everyone else. You know? When they pay taxes and provide jobs with fair wages to people who makes quality products at a reasonable price in a sustainable manner, then who can object? They problem starts when we allow them to bribe politicians and escape responsibility.
It's greed , not evil . You act like they like killing people . The governments are the ones allowing it nc their pockets get fat for turning their cheek. And when they can't deny facts they slap them on the wrist until next time
DW again with another insightful documentary
Thanks for watching and taking the time to comment.
Atleast no American Propaganda today.
@@DWDocumentaryJust please be nice to oil from now on 🙌
My dad was a roughneck at TOSCO (Now Martinez Oil and Gas Co in Martinez, CA) and I'm almost positive pollutant exposure is why we both have health problems. I used to do his laundry for him as a kid
They should be forced to return the site to the state it was in before drilling. Plugging a site is not a solution if the metal can corrode and leak. Monitoring the wells is not a solution either because the oil and gras industry has no interest in monitoring and maintaining the sites.
Exactly. only way is force those companies to pay up until the leak stops.
You can't once a well is punched it can only be filled with concrete and that plug isn't permanent time brakes down everything that's the nature of things
@@Drobert882 Well now I am scared. How was digging wells permitted in the first place if there is no way to permanently plug a well? Do you know if a well stops leaking if all the oil has been removed? Or is that not possible with todays technology?
@@Drobert882
That's curious. Meanwhile with nuclear, "WE MUST KEEP IT SEALED UP FOR CENTURIES".
Actively monitoring it how ever what's the sun ? A big ball of radio active elements in constant reaction as is every star visible
Ive said for years that im willing to let oil and gas execs run their operations wherever and however they like AS LONG AS they are willing to live, and let their grandchildren live, in the immediate proximity of their company's operations. If they are not willing to live there, then something is obviously unsafe about the operations.
Work on oil and gas even in a developed country like Canada for a few years and you see some crazy, crazy stuff compared to other industries I've been in.
@@obtuseangler768Money, my friend, doesn’t care how developed a country is.
@@EndritVjso true. 😢
That part
Norway is pretty safe ? A norwegian exec said he wouldnt let his kids work on british sector tho
Without DWs investigative journalism we would still be walking around thinking at least we are not having war so we are safe 😮 this is insightful
There was a viral video of this lady's dog going crazy and digging holes into the sidewalk. She said her Husky never dug holes because they live in a big city but they had a small yard. Sure enough that Husky was going crazy. She goes outside with her gas meter that a lot of residents would keep to check their stoves and heaters. The detector was beeping like crazy and blinking red. There was a gas leak underground
Lies again? Gun Oil Union Gas
Superb report. Very well done DW. Plenty of work for the future. Five stars
To be absolutely corrupted means they are evil beyond belief!!! That's what power does to these oil companies!
Money
I love your expression of such disheartening disregard dishonesty against innocent people.
And we are being told it's the cows producing all the methane and we have to get rid of them. Lmfao
Gates at his finest!!! Once again. One of his companies in the UK has had a patent on a cov9teen vaccine since 2017
Well it is better for the environment if we eat plants
@@SigFigNewton thing is we all have plastic in our blood! Search it 👀
Not really, when you consider the amount of pesticides used and the damage to wild life and the environment from pesticides.
Now we know who emits them most. 🤦
This is a scandal; these things must be closed immediately
they don't care. MONEY
Lol this is why drilling for oil should never be done to begin with. Once a hole has been created, it will continue to emit gases even if all the oil has already been extracted. Oil companies often use the logic of dormant volcanoes with oil drilling, saying if a volcano can go extinct, why can't oil holes go extinct either? What they don't know is that while extinct volcanoes no longer boils visible magma and lava, it still emits sulfuric gases, so in the same logic an oil hole can still emit gases like methane even if it is no longer producing oil. And closing these holes permanently is gonna be tricky either because with time, wear and tear can eventually break those seals so this is gonna be a lifetime (earth's lifetime not ours lol) maintenance.
Scandalous😢
As a Petroleum Engineer, seeing wells with water flowing to surface is tough to watch. Most countries would not allow this - and especially not here in Canada. It’s sad that US Regulations don’t have a mechanism to resolve this issue. As a consumer, source your natural gas responsibly! We all use it - whether as fuel for heating, electricity for our EVs, or plastics at our hospitals.
You’re very wrong. Canada has abandoned wells all over the place. Canada is as bad as the rest of them.
You avin a laugh? Source your gas responsibly? If you buy from a "reputable" source the gas that comes through the pipe is still drilled and extracted by Shell Oiil, or Exxon, or Mobil or whoever. They are jsut resellers. There is no direct pipe to your house from the "reputable" source. And you, as an egineer, would know this. But you are not an engineer are you?
Same thing as source your electricity responsibly, you have no idea if it comes from renewables, gas or coal…
I don't use it at all, and its usage in plastic production isn't my usage of it.
@@RokeJulianLockhart.s13ouqit's in alot more things than you think, like lubricants that don't go in cars
As an ex rig worker I know 1st hand that this comes from working to fast. If the well was a plug job it was always a big panic to plug the well to move on to the next job. Years later I remember moving back onto abandoned wells and re drilling and re plugging these wells.
Different cinematics from other DW's vid, very intriguing. Also, thank you DW for the information you gave to us, it'll bring more insight about the effect of human activity to the environment.
Keep up the good work team DW
a big problem with chevron is they bought out gulf oil and with that buyout almost nothing was up to spec. gulf oil left a 50 million gallon tank of benzene near my town to rot and it all leaked out into the ground water which most people in the area had shallow water wells that got ruined. the state had to build a water pipeline because everyone lost their wells do to the benzene
Where do you live can I ask
I live in Pennsylvania. This is like watching a horror movie. Makes me feel like the earth is already beyond the tipping point.
No, it's our collective intelligence that has reached a tipping point.
We have reached a point where we are so stupid collectively, that we are too stupid to even realise how stupid we are.
The earth will survive. We will not, not as wee are.
If fossil fuel products and their derivatives (incl. your car's gasoline, your heating, plastics, food, ..) were priced to include the external costs those industries inflict on society and the biosphere as a whole, then most of these products would be priced out of the market. The prices of all these goods and services are pure illusion, a bookkeeper's slight of hand.
Absolutely. But economics obfuscates harm and measures benefit to create the possibility of profit. If nature had a cost, and harm was internalized, all business models would be unfeasible. Think about it, inflation is just nature and people becoming more valuable relative to capital - and it has to be reversed to ‘save capitalism’. Markets don’t work, but the only reason this insanity endures is because the state uses coercion to enforce private property. They call it freedom, but force me to live by this indefensible accounting disaster.
Yes!!! Over 6,000 daily products that we depend on are derived from them!!
you can protest, threaten or beg them to clean up after themselves, all day.
But at the end of that day, they have dinner with the politicians who make the rules. And together they decide to do NOTHING...
How is that working out for Germany and the EU? The cost after they rejected Russian gas is destroying their economy and deindustrializing the country. The cost for LNG which is 4-20x as much now is nowhere near pricing to include external costs. There would be a revolt and governments would be overthrown if it were priced this way.
You’re right. We should all be walking and using horses and mules!
This is the reality that others want to exclude from us.
Thank you DW for bringing it true and raw to us. This js really sad for the future of humanity.
Thanks for watching and taking the time to comment.
Thanks DW. Extraordinary documentary.
Thanks for watching!
I love the local doctor who knew immediately toxicology tests would be revealing, because the advice letter said not to do that 😊. Red Flag.
Great documentary DW a real eye-opener. Isn't it tragic that humans are so devalued by corporate greed, irresponsiblity and ineffective governance and oversight. Past generations respected nature because our very survival depended on nature from season to season and necessitated a symbiotic relationship. Sadly those who exploit the world's resources are so rich and removed from the source of their bounty that they never face or experience the consequences of their negligence but you can bet they know what they're leaving behind and the potential risks to nature and humanity. Well done to the environmentalists and individuals calling out these crimes against humanity and nature. Lets hope they are supported in obtaining redress and remedial action quickly.
The toxic narsties from them old wells will be a headache for eons.
And a stomach ache
And vomiting
Surprise! Cancer!
Well done DW, that's the sort of documentary one is after..a follow-up would be so much better!
Thanks for watching and sharing your thoughts!
Yes. Please involve the environmental impact of blowing up the German-Russian pipeline, and the cost of importing methane from America.
@@0mymeh.
Russia probably did it.
Plus we needed to stop giving Russia money.
Norway is a cleaner better source anyways.
They have long long term plans that we (the USA) can learn from.
@@equarg that doesn't make sense. Russia could have just turned it off.
People complain windmills kill a couple birds…oil and gas has damaged and killed literally millions of animals and humans 😯
But it's saved more than it's harmed.
We should thank RESPONSIBLE gas companies for putting the methane to good use. If it just leaks into the air, it's very bad for health and environment. If we don't capture and use it, it will eventually escape unburned.
The issue isn’t the birds it’s just the fact that windmills cannot meet energy needs
Not a couple birds,it kills millions of birds every year. If you ever took the time to walk one of these windmill fields you would find a graveyard of birds.
We have 270,000 abandoned oil and gas wells in the province of Alberta Canada. We also have higher rates of respiratory disease, MS, and certain types of cancer of all provinces in Canada. Oil and gas processing also emits harmful chemicals from both gas plants and flaring of waste gas. Some of those include toxic heavy metals such as mercury and cadmium.
Yes but without the oil industry Alberta is Manitoba with mountains.
So you are saying that we should just let oil companies profit from the provinces natural resources without expecting them to be obligated to safely decommission their wells when they are done. Seems kinda one-sided to me. @@georgehancock2307
Flaring is a good thing unless there is black smoke. Flaring can burn off 99% of what would have been had it been vented to atmosphere
This is the most murican kinda documentary DW has ever produced. Incredibly you have sort of achieved a good balance between "the dramatic shots, flash edits and animations" with information and good narrative.
Please never fall into rethorical questioning every 10 sentences and the dramatic shots should be more National Geographic early 2000´s and less A&Eish.
Keep it up DW!
Made it unwatchable. Was interested but kept fighting the royalty free music and sound effects and just really everything about the nature in which this was made haha
murican?
We call them orphan wells in Canada. There was one in my city, started leaking two years ago in may. It shut down a main busy road for 3 months while they brought a drilling rig in to fix it. It leaked natural gas because we're on top of a huge gas deposit. Luckily it was caught and fixed but there's hundreds of them within city limits. Most are from the late 1800s and early 1900s and the companies that drilled them don't even exist anymore and nobody remembers their names. Most of these wells are buried under roads, under bushes and trees, even houses as the city found a few years ago. A well was drilled across from what was the original hospital. Now the police station sits on its spot, and there's a subdivision across the street and beside it. Underneath the corner house's basement beside a main road the city found an orphan well. Luckily not leaking but the owner had to vacate his home and they tore down that whole street. It's destructive, polluting and cancerous. Alot of people get cancer young around here, or get heart, lung or liver/kidney issues cause we have so much dust from our clay soil and semi desert climate. It would be nice if our government could fix these wells, but I understand that the problem is far too big for just one municipal government to handle.
Absolutely. Like you said many old companies & sites.
Thank you for your reporting
Thanks for watching and taking the time to comment.
Important to clean up this mess before it gets out of control .
Make billions on selling this stuff, but it's too expensive to take care of the maintenance cost. It's like saying you're rich but still rely on food stamps
ominous music too loud, can' hear the humans
All the documentaries you guys make are so good it is just fantastic!
Sometimes i get extremely mad seeing all the bad things we humans have done for no good reason!!! Good that you guys show it to the world!
DW Documentary Excellent work, as per your usual. Keep 'em coming in 2024!
Thanks for watching and for the feedback!
Cap and Tap. I bought a property near one of these abandoned wells. I then proceeded to jerry rig an 80s micro gas to power turbine to power my farm and homestead. Yes, I used a concrete dome to "cap" and then tap it my generator. "free" power 24/7. Do this on the down low though, bury the pipes.
I would like to hear more about how this problem can be turned into an opportunity, not sure if it comes up in this doc, not finished watching yet.
Innovative...
I love and appreciate DW.
Old abandoned wells left by companies that are no longer in business should be taken care of by the government, and a special urgent budget every year allocated to them. For the functioning Wells, all should be linked to the companies occupying them and a special TAX should be established to maintain them once they are out of business or service. The oil and Gas lobby is killing us slowly. This is sad, greed is our enemy.
Why should government pay. Why not oil companies that made the cash 🤔
@@mrs9848 Some of these companies are perhaps no more, so the government can only fine or tax those existing companies.
@@TheCure1.mabey oli companies should be held responsible for the damage they cause they should pay for the cleanup not the taxpayer
@@definitlynotbenlente7671 You are right, but what about those long-gone companies? I am suggesting that the living companies should pay extra tax or a special tax to be used to maintain these wells once these companies are out of business.
80% of the funds will just be lost to corruption.
Thankyou DW for another great docu!!
Thanks for watching and taking the time to comment.
Whoever directs the music for these DW docos OVERDOES THE MUSIC.
I have to wonder about all the fracking wells in recent years. Seems like that must cause disruption underground that leads to the ground leaking.
They do! I know of a stay at home mom (may she rip) from Pennsylvania that her and her husband refused to allow the company to frack on their property but the nieghbor's did and it went under their property, leaked and she died from drinking her water!!!
@@WarriorGirl_113 Thank G Dubya Bush.
your most welcome @@samshepperrd
They're causing earthquakes and horrible water. Nothing to wonder about it's out there if you look
@@WarriorGirl_113 horrible
Thank you DW.
I lived in Porter Ranch next to golf course.. So glad I sold my home and moved out before the gas leak. I used to mtn bike in those hills.
I want more about this. I now live in California and while i knew there used to be oil wells on the beach, i didnt know there were still so many "inactive" ones.
I live in Oklahoma, I had an abandoned well wake up and start producing gas in my backyard. We had a terrible oder and the local mineral owner would not do anything. I had to go out in the woods and find it and shut it down myself.
Those leaking wells next to that neighborhood in Bakersfield were repaired May 20, 2022, after complaints were filed. Sunray Petroleum hadn't produced anything since 2016 and those wells likely were leaking for years. As far as I can tell, no fines were issued for the leaks. There are tens of thousands of wells in the area - many seem abandoned/derelict and nobody seems to monitor them. No surprise air quality near Bakersfield is horrific.
Another reason I don't have kids: German documentaries trying to scare you from dusk til dawn and then all through the night.
You just want kids. 😂
Be brave. Be strong.
Curtis Shuck is a former oil executive who goes around the U.S. and caps off orphan oil wells because of the methane gas.
He said there is over 1 million, and some are even from the beginning of the oil rush. Was a TH-cam video I saw. He had Oppenheimer syndrome. Felt guilty. That's why he was doing the work of finding them.
It seems like a dome could be placed over the ocean floor leaks with a pipe to the surface where the gas could be collected or flared.
They flare off more gas then they capture for LNG by far...every oil well starts life as a gas well.
I've seen them flare off enough to melt most of the snow off a several hectares at -40 for weeks on a lease.
@@obtuseangler768The amount of gas flared off honestly blows my mind. Why aren't we collecting and using it? Sure storage is expensive, but it's such a waste. We could use that gas but we don't - and the answer to why is that it isn't as profitable. Ridiculous.
I feel the pressure of the ocean would crush any such pipe while it was just stood around waiting for something to fill the pipe.
@@zigzagtoes If gas is constantly emitting, and rising up towards the surface, it will fill the hood or bell. If there were a pipe to the surface, the pressure of the gathering gas would force the gas up to the surface where it would be collected.
@@samshepperrd i get that, but, if there's no leak, then the pipe would be empty. So until there is a leak, there wouldn't be enough pressure to keep it structually sound. Ahh, sorry misread your first point. Yes if it were already leaking then it would work. I thought you meant cover abandoned well with a dome and pipe encase it did leak (ie premptive) whereas what you put is clearly as a reactive measure.
Thank you, DW for your documentaries that open our minds. I would like to request your team to visit and document Kilembe Copper Mines Limited, a former open-cast mining area that closed back in 1982 but to date, there's no economic activity going on except devastating the Western Uganda regions, especially Kasese District.
Documentaries like these helped convince me to get a vasactomy. No way I'll bring more humans onto this planet, getting prepped to work for corporations like these as soon as they can welk and then deal with housing issues, climate change and politicial nonsense. I love my non-existing children too much to put them through all that.
As a woman I took a vow of celibacy.
My gut knows the future is bleak.
I will not bring kids into this world. To much short term and long term danger.
@DW making yet another impactful documentry
Watching this from a gas platform in the north sea💪🏾
Damn I've never realized how big of a problem this is
Just goes to show how quickly we are running out of fossil fuel.
Crude oil does not come from Fossils, and definately isn't running out.
Fossils have nothing to do with it. That was something coined by Rockefeller himself to trick the masses into thinking that oil was a valuable asset. Before Standard oil, electricity was being used.
I am so glad that I came across your channel! You have a new subscriber!
💛💛💛💛💛💛💛
if the state is plugging those wells, that means its the taxpayers, not the tax-dodging multinationals who exploited the land for x years untill it was not longer profitable
Bs
DW documentary is the best!
Thanks for watching and for the feedback!
The background "music"(?) is giving me a headache. Real news doesn't need a soundtrack.
I like the big starfish at 31:28 chilling by the methane leak.
We as humans will eventually destroy what we have! All about the bottom line! The money!
Thank you for this documentary. I have to say some of DW documentaries are outstanding and act as public service by educating the public of these issues.
These oil and gas corporations need to prosecuted by multiple entities: citizens groups who have suffered health and safety issues, health insurance companies that cover those heath care costs, environmental organizations, states themselves who have to clean up their mess, and more.
Enough is enough!!! How do they get away with so much harm and negligence ??
It’s so upsetting to see all this…
Losing Faith that Justice is possible …
And then some will blame cows and animals for emitting methane…
What can I do as individual to help? All of us who care? What can be done?
Please advise if you’re knowledgeable about it.
humans did this and now nature is fighting back.
Imagine the Earth is a living being.
This documentary is being produced by a German broadcasting company mostly about oil wells in America.
Not an American broadcasting company. Let that sink in.
Recently watched the video about making a beautiful furniture made from epoxy. Now it seems like a trend. 20 years ago I could not imagine that you can make nicest stuff out of epoxy.
Guess what is the source of producing epoxy?
Beau travail 👍 well done
UK 22/4b-4 Mobil North Sea, High Seas Driller. Shallow gas blowout in 1990, still leaking 2024.
There are enough resources on this planet to cover all peoples needs. But not enough for their greed.
Another masterpiece DW✔️
This documentary is the best thing that I have ever seen,,, True story, beautiful... That's how it goes.
Maybe Thunberg, Kerry and Gore should be given a yellow jacket and a spanner to help clean this mess up instead of flying to Davos in private jets to talk about cows.
DW IS ALWAYS PRODUCING GREAT CONTENT!!!
That's how we are today. Nobody cares about anyone. At least here they do research and show us the reality in which we live or are😮
Not caring about anyone
It’s how capitalism fails is. Unpriced externalities.
@@SigFigNewtonpretty fing pressing & important.
it is appalling we let these worldwide companies destroy our only home without accountability or recourse.
Dramatic music at max on this one lol
Right? I could not focus on the documentary at times cause of the crazy music goin on xD
MLK said it 60 years ago: we need to move from a thing-oriented society to a people-oriented society...everything is about profit. "Oh, we can't make money with this any more, moving on!" I feel like businesses that operate on a physical product (natural resource mining, consumer products, even drugs) should always be required to deal with the "result" of their products. Clean up, recycling, and disposal with the latter being required to have near zero impact on the environment.
Meanwhile, we give oil companies tax breaks while they make literal BILLIONS in profit. I think they can easily afford to clean up their messes...
It’s markets. Ownership turns everything into tradable commodities that are produced, consumed and discarded. It breaks the personal connection by turning nature and people into objects. Government should just nationalize the global energy system at this point, and be bound by constitutional amendments to protect natural integrity.
"Avoid performing any toxicological tests".
Does this not imply that we are dealing with psychopaths?
Yeah anything for profit
This should all be funded by the oil and gas companies. They did this!!! they should pay for it!!
Rather interesting documentary.
As a worker in oil and gas industry in particular in drilling and completion operations I want to state that if a well is plugged and abandoned properly there are no risks at all. Everything else is just allegations based on nothing. If you have nothing to do with wells delivery please do not reply to me.
So because you work in the oil and gas industry people can’t argue because they don’t work there?
You should be a politician!!
You used the words "if" and "properly"....
@@weareallenemyofthestate9883 you can argue but you do not understand a thing in oil and gas business. Thank you to call me a politician😁
@@JusticeAlways yes, there are bad drillers for sure but for 20 years of my life I did not meet them. Maybe in the next 20 years something will change
@@SaloestAeslinayduhappen to know of a bad driller for Aramco.
Just destroyed their spool on a 3387 well with their jetting tool!
3.7million it took to fix it and it's probably a duster
@DW, 25:25 "yards... gallons" Please include metric unit measurements in your video.
We really need to take these corporate giants like BP & ExxonMobil into public ownership and ensure they work for the benefit of humanity rather than return's on investments....
BP have a lot to answer for !
There's no solution under capitalism.
There's no solution without capitalism.
@@PrezVetocapitalism is failing
I will bet that that woman ranchers' family was paid an oil lease or mineral rights for those wells. People want transparency? Then, let's have complete transparency.
That rancher is a dude. Just saying.
What a mess.
Brought to you by World Economic Forum
100%
Alberta Canada is littered with abandoned oil sites . Just walked away when the price tanked . Corporations leaving their toxic liter for others to clean up .
Open pit mines are really awful for the enviroment but nobody cares about that to make ev cars
If these wells supposedly leak so mush methane gas, why not trap it and use it for energy?
1 day someone will turn to someone and say we have an Fing problem here... And Nothing will come of it
Do something then,
You complain so make a company & go start removing these, I am, im going to start next week in Alberta Canada, commenting on TH-cam won't get change you have to go out yourself
@@ShortReviewerRetroGames sure buddy, with a gaming and rap background it should be all good.
@@lo2740 huh rap & gaming, Ive never gamed in my life, to much too do everyday to be playing games,
The discussion at 22:00 - 26:00 onward about brackish saltwater and benzene suddenly shooting out of an old abandoned oil well sure sounds like a problem caused by Fracking actives in other locations in the region. Fracking causes horrible environmental damage underground that impacts groundwater which travels for hundreds if not thousands of miles behind the location of the Fracking activity.
So sad😊😊😢
Oil or gas drillers how long does it take to drill a well setup pipe and pumping site. And how much estimate cost ?
Just devastating...
The house that completely exploded from the inside, it exploded because all residents were away, so they closed all doors and windows before they left. You cannot smell methane, but you can feel oxygen depletion, you just feel that you need to open a window or go outside. You learn that you only get a good night of sleep with a window partly open. So you unconsciously avoid the danger, even as the danger cannot be perceived directly. The inhabitants kept the building safe by somehow noticing a need for fresh air and managing it. Then they all went on vacation, closed all windows and doors for that, and BOOM, the building got blown into pieces.
In Germany, natural gas is used a lot, but before it is fed into the natural gas grid, they add a smelly agent. So gas leaks smell in a particular, noticeable way. Burned gas does not smell, the smelly agent obviously is destroyed by burning it. So gas leaks have a scent, it smells bad put particular to a gas leak. It is also particular to unburned gas, so you can smell the difference between a small leak and a potential hazard.
awe we know how germany uses gas
Natural gas supplied by utilities, is tagged with mercaptan here in the States as well. The gas that exploded that home was leaking from a natural underground source.
@@irenafarm I would rather expect that the natural gas leaked from an unnaturally opened natural underground source. Like when flammable gas comes with the drinking water in some places AFTER fracking has been done.
So the methane seeping from the wetlands near me is from oil wells? Nearest oil well is atleat 200 miles away
I live in Rochester NY and dated a girl from Allegany, so we'd spend time there. I brought the 4 wheeler first, then started bringing my KTM off road dirt bike. Believe me, there's abandoned equipment EVERYWHERE on those hills. You'll see a hundred foot long piece of maybe 2 or 3 inch diameter pipe running across and down from something, I'm guessing a well, and they used to drip into 55 gal drums. Oil gathering equipment and lengths of pipe are all over. You can't go 1/2 mile without running over a pipe or seeing an area with a bunch of junk. I never heard or never heard of gas leaks. And those people are poor, so if there wa gas leaking out, they'd find a way to collect it!
It's interesting how people say they can smell gas coming from abandoned wells... Methane has no smell, that's why it has a smell added to it for domestic use so we can smell it if it leaks in the home.
Methane wasn’t the main problematic gas in the only credible section that specifically mentioned smell. Benzene smells like green apple flavored paint thinner.
The person who stuck his head in the gas flow and said he smelled something has dodgy judgment imo. I wouldn’t have featured his opinion at all. That was just bonkers.
There are all sorts of gases emitted, not just methane.
Ever seen the Darvaza gas crater?