phosphorusAolo Wilczak put his two-seater plane on top of a flat industrial land in western Texas. About 60 meters below, I saw a bright orange flash. It was a “torch”-a tall vertical pipe next to commercial oil wells and storage tanks, spraying flames into the windy air in the afternoon. The pipeline is burning unwanted gas, mainly methane, which rises from the ground with the oil. “Let’s see if this flare is working,” Wilzak said, his voice almost inaudible above the noisy single engine of the plane.