Here’s some pictures, and they’re from 2012:

marketwatch666.blogspot.com

Now, here’s the thing. Oil companies flare “waste natural gas” from oil production pads because they don’t want to put in the infrastructure to transport it to an end user. If the flared gas in south Texas could be collected and transported, it could replace the coal used in every electric generating plant in south Texas.

That would decrease the CO2 from those generating stations by 40%, SOx and NOx by 70%, and particulates by 80%.

But the State of Texas doesn’t require them to set up the pipeline infrastructure before giving them a permit to drill.

Oh, and by the way, six of the the ten biggest mercury emitters in the US are in in Texas because they burn locally mined lignite. Those six plants emitted 6,145 tons of mercury in 2010. They are all still using locally mined lignite despite the fact that natural gas production has increased by over an order of magnitude since 2010 and the cost has gone down to squat.

For comparison, California had total mercury emissions of 16 pounds (all natural gas and nuclear generation).