After years of construction, Shell ethane cracker starts up

[Dave Grubb]

This is a win win for PA.

MONACA, Pa. (AP) — Years in the works, a massive petrochemical refinery in western Pennsylvania fed by the vast natural gas reservoir underneath Appalachia became fully operational Tuesday, oil and gas giant Shell plc said.

The refinery, built on the site of a former zinc smelter along the Ohio River some 30 miles northwest of Pittsburgh, will produce 3.5 billion pounds of polyethylene annually when it ramps up to full production by the second half of 2023, Shell said.

The refinery brings in ethane from natural gas wells and chemically “cracks” the liquid fuel by heating it in furnaces to create ethylene, which is used to produce everything from plastics to tires to antifreeze.

Shell, the British multinational oil and gas company headquartered in London, had projected to spend $6 billion on the plant, making it one of the largest — if not the largest — industrial developments in Pennsylvania.

The plant’s promoters have promoted it as the key to reindustrializing Pennsylvania, where many towns and cities have suffered from the loss of the steel and coal industries.

Environmental advocacy groups, however, have fought it and predicted that it will generate more plastic pollution, compounds that form smog and planet-warming greenhouse gases.

Any environmental impacts from this plant will pale in the face of the former zinc smelter. We had a zinc smelter about 30 miles north of here at the base of the blue mountain ridge. There was not a living thing on the side of that mountain in the direction of the prevailing wind for at least 7 miles. Now after about 30 years and multiple attempts to reverse that the mountain again is greening. One of the major by-products of zinc smelting is sulfuric acid.

[Truckman]

I was unaware of that use of NG...That's great news!......Ben

[UTAH]

We have similar problems with Kennecott Copper here. The Oquirrh Mountains surrounding the smelter site are devoid of life. I hope it goes well, as it did in PA when it moves on.

Hunter

[Dave Grubb]

We have similar problems with Kennecott Copper here. The Oquirrh Mountains surrounding the smelter site are devoid of life. I hope it goes well, as it did in PA when it moves on.

Hunter

I had forgotten that, but yes, it is the same thing.

[Kevin]

Cuz the world needed another plant producing stuff that ****s up the environment?

[Dave Grubb]

Their output serves a market Kevin, they don't make the market.

[Honda]

So if it serves the market it's okay?

[Dave Grubb]

So if it serves the market it's okay?

Automobiles kill people, is the solution to ban automobiles?

Alcohol is addictive to some people, should we ban alcohol?

Does this plant increase the demand? No.

[Kevin]

Doesn't make the market, just serves it - that's a drug dealer's argument, Dave.

My point is that you and UTAH were celebrating how big a win this is for the environment. It is not. We are drowning in plastic all over the world. The plant itself will perhaps directly cause less local pollution but globally, it produces a product that is killing us, from decreased fertility rates to a giant floating plastic garbage heap in the Pacific Ocean. Plastic trash washes up on every single coastline in the world, even the most remote. This is not the victory you might view it as.

And you present false dichotomies in your last post. There are options other than the ones you note for each of those issues.

[Dave Grubb]

No Kevin---that is not a drug dealers argument---that is an economist argument. Closing this plant would have no impact on cleansing us of our plastic "sins".

[Kevin]

You are presenting rationalization, not reason. Sex traffickers say they don't create the market, they only serve it. Al Capone said something very similar about gambling, booze and prostitution. I've read theologians that take the point of view that the Devil does not create sin, he only serves a need brought into the world by man's original disobedience to God. This is not good company to keep. When I start sounding like a criminal, I am forced to reconsider what I'm saying.

No one is suggesting closure. That is again a false dichotomy that you are proposing.

In your original post, you said this was a win/win, and UTAH agreed. The situation is a bit more nuanced than that. This plant is producing a product that is killing us and when your perspective widens, the full effect becomes more clear. It is kind of like when environmentalists praise EVs to the sky because they decrease our dependence on fossil fuels but ignore the environmental damage caused by the production of these vehicles. Or when no till advocates focus on the soil conservation savings without accounting for the heavy use of chemicals that is substituting for tillage.

I think we can be glad that this plant is providing employment while at the same time recognizing that we need to make such plants obsolete by making better choices for our own personal health as well as the planet's.

[Truckman]

I always have to look up new, and sometimes just forgotten words when I read Kevin's posts...I take that as a good thing......Ben

[Dave Grubb]

I think we can be glad that this plant is providing employment while at the same time recognizing that we need to make such plants obsolete by making better choices for our own personal health as well as the planet's.

....and on that we can agree.

[UTAH]

Our friend Kevin, as usual, makes a good point.

Perhaps we can see an environmental continuum wherein we hopscotch to cleaner technologies in a progressive order. So, Kennecott (e.g.) moves to a new copper-producing process only half as poisonous as before. And, in another 20 years, moves to a process that contaminates only 10% of the land around it, and on, and on... Eventually, we're at a place where we're at zero emissions and full sustainability.

Hunter