North Carolina high schoolers raise over $11K to fill an orphaned oil well In Ohio

[cbabe]

https://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/orphaned-oil-well-nc-high-schoolers-1.7214719

North Carolina high schoolers raise over $11K to fill an orphaned oil well

With no legal owner to close them, orphaned wells leak methane into the atmosphere

Abby Hughes · CBC Radio · Posted: May 24, 2024 4:19 PM PDT | Last Updated: May 24

Growing up in Bolivia, where piles of trash littered streets and rivers, Mateo De La Rocha's heroes were garbage collectors.

"The only people who would try to help with [the trash] would be the garbage men that would come twice every week," said De La Rocha, who is now 18. For a while he wanted to be one, too.

As De La Rocha grew up, his environmental activism grew with him. After learning in one of his high school classes about orphaned oil wells, which are no longer used to pump oil but haven't been cleaned up or plugged, he knew he wanted to help stop the problem.

…

Many of the donations came from people close to the group. De La Rocha was particularly touched by a donation of over $100 US ($137 Cdn) from his younger cousin — all of his money received for a recent birthday.

…more…

(Audio at link)

(Immigrants get things done.)

[unc70]

1. Where in NC?

[cbabe]

3. Don't know the specific school. Maybe someone can search it down?

https://www.nytimes.com › 2024 › 05 › 24 › climate › orphan-wells-capping-methane-leaks.html

These Teens Adopted an Orphaned Oil Well. Their Goal: Shut It Down.

1 day agoFrom left: Lila Gisondi, Mateo De La Rocha and Sebastian Ng, high school seniors in Cary, N.C., who adopted an oil

[unc70]

6. Thanks

[littlemissmartypants]

9. Here's a link to their GFM I got from their Instagram

Rodrigo De La Rocha and Sebastian Ng are organizing this fundraiser to benefit Well Done Foundation Inc.

Hi, we are the Youth Climate Initiative, high school kids from North Carolina that found an easy, affordable way to have big climate impact. Our story was recently covered in the NYT.

In May of 2024, we completed our first project: Stopping the emissions from an abandoned 'Super Emitter' gas well. This stopped tens of thousands of tons of greenhouse gas emissions from spewing into the atmosphere and further warming the planet.

We've proven that even kids can have massive, measurable climate impact!!

It took us a while to figure it out and now that we have proven that it works, we are ready to share the news and start our next project. Please join us!!

Backstory:
Like many young people we realize that Climate Change is a huge challenge that we will have to deal with in our lifetime. So we wanted to do something about it. But, how could we? Most kids aren't old enough to drive a hybrid/electric vehicle or install solar panels on a home, even many adults can't afford these options.

There had to be a way that was affordable, accessible and more impactful than these options, and it turns out there is!

A bit of science:
Greenhouse gasses, like Carbon Dioxide and Methane, are among the main drivers of global warming. But, it turns out that Methane causes over 80 times more global warming than Carbon Dioxide does. This makes Methane an incredibly powerful source of environmental damage, and it also presents a great opportunity to address this problem.

One of Methane’s main sources are abandoned/orphaned gas wells that are strewn across the US. These wells were drilled for oil or gas many decades ago, but eventually they fell into disrepair and no one maintains them anymore.. Today, all these orphaned wells spew millions of tons of Methane gas. This not only threatens nearby land, water, humans, animals, and plants, but it also enters the atmosphere and causes a massive amount of warming for all of us.

Some of these wells are considered 'Super Emitters' because of the massive amount of Methane they spew every second (actual video below of the well we helped adopt and plug).

?si=ks5rktZGbjdG9Umo

https://www.gofundme.com/f/youth-climate-initiative-stop-super-emitters?fbclid=PAZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAaZKPWpXDLepGH1QjRLI9bS_KNuZUDAIzkjd9gGd1GWWpWOL461Xl7cXNf4_aem_AdbFkksYQDqwu7GtIWke94QUxTTohl8rs3YuXQ10Swjx7YAjes5_BCbiuiAOvgEL9p_kUW07vZnh3AtwC5ZoCUBy

Insta link
https://www.instagram.com/youth_climate_initiative?igsh=OTM3d20xc2xzMWpr

Profile
Youth Climate Initiative
Environmental awareness
Impactful and accessible climate actions
To learn more and donate for our next project, please visit our page www.gofundme...snip

From the NYT...

Mr. De La Rocha is a high school senior in Cary, N.C.

❤️

~Esse Quam Videri~

[DURHAM D]

2. Isn't this well closing problem why most states have a well head tax?

Why was it not tapped for the cost?

[cbabe]

4. Owners disappear. Declare bankruptcy. Etc. Wells are abandoned with no one responsible. Could

have clean up funds in escrow but doubt oil/gas biz would agree.

What is well head tax?

[DURHAM D]

5. A tax on every producing well levied by the state so that when

the well is abandoned, and the owner (oil company) goes away the state has the funds to close the well properly.
It can take awhile to figure out that oil companies have disappeared down the road.

[cbabe]

7. Thanks. A sticky project: unravel state law, list

orphan wells, get funding from the fund. Then cap construction.

Sounds as if that would take years if tax funds even exist.

Private money seems to work.

Plus a great achievement for these students.

[hunter]

8. Nearly depleted wells owned by major corporations are sold to lesser short lived-corporations...

... that suck the last dregs out of them.

Then these wells are sold again to fools and tax cheats who don't have the resources to profitably take any more oil or gas out of them.

Then the wells are abandoned, no owner to be found.

It's not an accident, it's business as usual.

The same sorts of deceits are common in the "factory farm" meat and dairy industries. Giant corporations shed their potential liabilities onto smaller contractors who simply go bankrupt and disappear whenever they're caught doing anything illegal or unethical.

Good on these activists but they shouldn't be paying to clean up these messes.

[littlemissmartypants]

10. Thanks for this, cbabe. ❤️