Still, management had Dominion Energy investigate.
State records suggest the well had been drilled more than a century ago to extract natural gas.
The Biden administration recently authorized $4.7 billion nationwide for the plugging of orphan wells, which are wells that have been abandoned and have no registered owner.
The American Carbon Registry is still conducting a peer review of the methodology for measuring methane emissions from orphan wells with the intent of making it “as robust and user friendly as possible,” said Maris Densmore, director of engineered solutions at the registry.
Carbon credits can already be earned for certain projects, most notably for planting trees and conserving forests.
Earlier this month, a crew from Moore Well Services was busy boring out the well casing.
It was determined that the well was releasing 3,500 cubic feet of methane per day or 2,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalents per year.
In the currency of carbon credits, one ton of carbon dioxide equivalents per year equals one carbon credit, but the actual number of credits a project will produce can vary because other factors are taken into consideration, Shuck said.
But with an estimated 3.2 million abandoned oil and gas wells across the country, of which only about one third have been plugged, the foundation alone won’t even put a dent in the problem.
That could be good news for Ohio, which because of its early role in the oil and gas industry is one of the leading states for orphan wells, many of which go back to the late 1800s and early 1900s when John D.
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