It is well known that advances in technology have enabled the US to experience a huge boom in oil production over the past several years. Since 2007, oil production from North Dakota’s Bakken formation has increased by 4,000% , and turning the state into the second largest oil producer after Texas. The problem is that a natural by-product of oil extraction is natural gas, and due to the lack of infrastructure to store, transport, and compress the gas, nearly 30% has to be burned at the well in a process known as flaring. Think Progress reports that an estimated $100 million worth of natural gas is flared in North Dakota every month, depriving the US economy of a huge source of revenue, and also releasing vast amounts of carbon emissions into the atmosphere. On Wednesday, the North Dakota Petroleum Council, comprised of hundreds of companies, promised to try and […]