The image is from the opening of Blade Runner. The future was full of flare gas, the image told us. Even in an era with off-world pleasure resorts and simulated humans that cried over lost love, the industries of Earth had still not found a way to capture flare gas.
But then, how boring would that visual have been, with flare gas neatly captured into CNG tanks, and processed or combusted as needed? The visual of flare gas is a good one because humans have enjoyed the safety of fire since the days of Zarathustra … fire gave us protection from all those things that devoured us in the darkness. Fire allowed us to become more than animals, we could become human; we could dream a tomorrow where our bones were not scraped dry the beaks of buzzards.
But now we have LED light bulbs, and the flare gas whelps into the air with a determined kind of meaninglessness. The gas serves no purpose, it warms no kettles, it powers no engines, it sears no meat. The gas is ignited, so much spilling of one’s seed, ineffectual and pointless.
But the industry has decided that well-head compression is too expensive for the value of the product. And thus flare gas is vented and ignited from coast to coast, from the banks of landfills to the outcry of gas wells on the East Coast and oil wells on the West Coast and a mixture in between.
Flare Trap saw the reality of this dirty truth and also saw a market that could make it work. So they made the Flare Trap cheap by design. It had to meet about $1 per liquid pound of payback after about a thousand or two thousand pounds of product captured and sold. It isn’t the industry that was Flare Trap’s market, it was the rednecks that were Flare Trap’s market. It was those men and women who didn’t mind babysitting the capture setup until it was dialed in, because they would find a way to convert that CNG to dollars in their pocket.
Yes, the constitution of the gas varies depending on location. But natural gas is the new feedstock of the energy-hustle. And the carbon-negative natural gas captured at the flare trap is a notably valuable feedstock. What they do with it is up to the redneck in question;
- Separate out the propane, butane and ethane for higher value sales,
- Combust the filtered and cleaned gas to a favorable methane content,
- Flare the gas in a useful way, like for gas drying and,
- Something else.
A common pressure rating for CNG tanks is about 3600 psi. The value proposition builds on that, the cost of the tank, the type and cost of the tank, for instance a Type 4 fiberglass tank that costs a few hundred dollars, and the CNG-compliant compressor from the Flare Trap to the storage tank.
Throw a softball into a Convention and Rednecks, and it will bounce off the noggins of at least ten of them who picked up scrap metal the day before and sold it for gas to get them to where the booze is free. That’s the unstoppable power of the Redneck Army. If they have the tools to capture flare gas, damned if they won’t capture flare gas, and then find a way to sell it, or use it to run their truck.