Shell’s massive plastics plant in Beaver County, Pennsylvania, started operations in late 2022

From LIVING ON EARTH, National Public Radio, Air Date: Week of June 30, 2023

Shell’s massive new ethane cracker plant in western Pennsylvania is sending polluted air and strange smells into the surrounding community. But a $10 million fine pales in comparison to the roughly $100 million a day that the company made in profits in the first quarter of 2023. Reid Frazier of the Allegheny Front discusses with Host Paloma Beltran the concerns of residents and a promised economic boom that hasn’t materialized.

TRANSCRIPT ~ BELTRAN: And I’m Paloma Beltran.

Even before it came online last year, the huge plastics plant Shell built on the banks of the Ohio River in Beaver County, Pennsylvania had problems with pollution. The plant is an “ethane cracker” that uses fracked gas to produce the common plastic called polyethylene, and it’s violated air quality rules and sent strange smells into the surrounding community. And although it has brought new jobs, a recent report from the nonprofit Ohio River Valley Institute suggests it hasn’t ushered in the economic boom that some anticipated. In May, Pennsylvania’s governor announced that Shell will pay a $10 million fine for its air quality violations. But that fine pales in comparison to the roughly $100 million a day that Shell made in profits in the first quarter of 2023. And the plant received a $1.65 billion tax credit over 25 years, the largest in Pennsylvania history.

BELTRAN: So, this Shell plant has been in the works for a long time. Can you describe it for us? How big is it, and how much plastic does it produce?

FRAZIER: It’s basically like a small city that they built to make plastic, there on the banks of the Ohio. At the top capacity, it will be able to make over three billion pounds of plastic every year. The greenhouse gas emissions from this facility are estimated to be the equivalent of 400 thousand cars on the road. So, it’s a pretty big greenhouse gas emitter, it’ll probably be, you know, one of the top few facilities in the state in terms of greenhouse gas emissions.

BELTRAN: Wow. And in May, you reported that Shell agreed to pay a $10 million fine after emissions from the plant violated state air quality rules. What were the violations, and what will the money be used

FRAZIER: Right, so the violations were for exceeding their state permit-allowed air pollution, essentially. They were allowed to pollute about 500 tons a year of volatile organic compounds. They basically exceeded that in September of 2022, when they had a lot of flaring, there were sort of equipment malfunctions, and when those malfunctions take place, they basically flare the gas as a way to get rid of it. And so that the gas doesn’t accumulate and cause an explosion. But when you do that you get rid of a lot of the pollution, but not all of it. So, in one month, they essentially hit their 12-month quota, even before the plant had started. And they’ve exceeded similar limits for carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, in subsequent months. And they’ve had other problems with air pollution. There was a release that caused benzene and volatile organic compounds to spike a couple months ago, workers reported headaches and irritation in their eyes, according to the company. There have just been a lot of problems. So, the state rolled all of these violations together into a $10 million fine. About half of the money goes to the state and half goes to the local area municipalities and such presumably to be done in — used in a sort of environmentally friendly or civic-minded way, but we don’t actually know what the money is going to be used for.

BELTRAN: Reid, you’ve been covering this project for a long time, and you’ve spoken to lots of people in Beaver County. How have community members responded to the plant?

FRAZIER: Well, obviously, a lot of people are upset that there is this ongoing pollution problem. I think most people hope that the company will clean its act up. There is a sort of acknowledgement that when you open up a big plant like this, there’s bound to be problems as you start bringing equipment online. That having been said, I think people were surprised by how much pollution has come from this plant. Even people who were big supporters of Shell coming to Beaver County. I talked to Jack Manning, who’s a Beaver County commissioner, so it’s like the local governing board. He actually used to work in the petrochemical industry in Beaver County. He’s basically said he’s still going to be supporting Shell, but they simply have to clean their act up. And these are his words.

MANNING: Well, I’ve also told people, if you cross a line that shouldn’t be crossed, we’re going to have a different conversation. And I can’t, I can’t defend you. And right now, nobody’s crossed that

FRAZIER: Other people are more upset, parents who’ve taken their kids to school on days when there were high benzene levels, and were understandably freaked out by the smell of gasoline in their backyard. That’s what one person told me. Somebody else reported that it smelled like burning plastic. And I think more than anything, ‘Wait, is this how it’s going to be for the rest of my life, if I stay here?’ This is the thought that a lot of people are having. But if you live like five miles away, you probably don’t experience this. And, they’re glad to see that there’s a plant with 600 workers there, and maybe they have friends or relatives who are working there or worked to build it and made a lot of money in construction. During the five or six years when it was under construction, there were something like six-to-eight thousand people working on it. So, it’s a mixed bag. I think the closer you are to the plant, the more you’re, worried about it.

BELTRAN: Of course, I mean, who wants to be smelling chemicals every day in their backyard? Some fossil fuel companies are looking to increase their foothold in the plastics industry as the world moves towards cleaner sources of energy. Is that pivot happening at all in Beaver County, or in Pennsylvania more generally?

FRAZIER: That remains to be seen. I think the Shell plant itself is an example of that pivot that you just described, where oil and gas companies are trying to figure out what they’re going to do in the next few decades, if people largely give up, gas-driven cars and such. And petrochemicals are a growing business still. There were plans for more of these to be built in the greater Ohio Valley region. There was one project that was on the docket in eastern Ohio. To date, it hasn’t been built, it hasn’t been approved. We’ll see if that changes in the next few years. But it’s unclear. Five or six years ago, it was thought that there would be five or six of these plants at some point, and now we’re not sure that’s actually going to happen in this region.

BELTRAN: In some ways, the world seems to be moving away from plastics. U.N. negotiators recently held talks over a potential treaty to address plastic pollution. But this plant is built to produce 3.5 billion pounds of polyethylene per year. What might that mean for pollution in Beaver County and

FRAZIER: We don’t know where this plastic is going to end up. It could end up overseas, actually. It could end up in North America, as plastic bottles or medical equipment or parts that go into vehicles, even electric vehicles. But we don’t know, that kind of information is not something that Shell is required to tell local regulators and local communities. But we do know that it’s likely that this plastic will be sent on railcars around the country. They have a massive rail yard with hopper cars, where they can just dump the nurdles, which are the little plastic beads. That’s the form that they produce. And so it seems pretty certain that there will be some rail activity related to these nurdles, and that they’ll basically go elsewhere.

BELTRAN: And we should mention that this plant is located barely a half hour’s drive from East Palestine, Ohio, where a freight train derailed in February and caused a toxic chemical spill. Has this shaped the way Beaver County residents are thinking about this ethane cracker?

FRAZIER: Definitely. The Shell plant, every few weeks, would flare up, or there would be gases, or they would have an exceedance of their pollution limits. And at the same time, you have this national calamity going on about 15 miles away. And the communities around the plant are also in — downwind of that East Palestine fallout. So, it’s kind of hard to escape, if you’re living there, all of this pollution.

BELTRAN: Do regulators or environmental groups have plans to address the plant’s pollution moving forward?

FRAZIER: I think the state has set up some guideposts for Shell. They have to submit plans for how they’re going to do certain things at the plant to prevent continued releases of these pollutants. But there’s no guarantee that this kind of thing won’t keep happening, and that Shell won’t keep paying fines when it does. You know, there’s a lawsuit that has been launched from environmental groups to kind of get the plant to stop polluting, and we’ll see where that goes. These groups can push on the regulator, and the regulator can push on the company, but it’s really up to the company to perform, get its processes in line with environmental regulations. The best people can do now is hope that that happens.

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See Also: Pennsylvania is just the latest sacrifice zone for the plastics industry, Kristina Marusic, Sierra Club, September 15, 2022

Shell ranks in the top 10 among the 90 companies that are responsible for two-thirds of historic greenhouse gas emissions. Its Potter Township (BeaverCounty) cracker plant is expected to emit up to 2.25 million tons of climate-warming gases annually, equivalent to approximately 430,000 extra cars on the road.

Planning for this power plant did not involve the climate crisis

From an Article by Bob Rolley, Lock Haven Express, September 5, 2022

Renovo, Pa — Plans to build a Marcellus Shale natural gas-fired power plant here will proceed despite an Environmental Hearing Board ruling saying state-approved emission limits for sulfur dioxide (SO2) and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are too high.

Some eight years in the making, Renovo Energy Center LLC proposes to build a 1,000-megawatt power plant designed to provide electricity to thousands of customers in Pennsylvania and New York.

It would be erected on 68 acres that served as a former Pennsylvania Railroad railcar repair shop and railyard.mThe firm says the project investment could top $850 million, create 700 construction jobs and upward of 30 permanent positions.

REC was granted an air quality permit by the state Department of Environmental Protection, with the plant’s emissions controls based on the best available technology. The Clean Air Council, PennFuture and Center for Biological Diversity appealed that permit approval, alleging it allows “illegal levels of air pollution.”

The Aug. 29 ruling written by Chief EHB Judge Thomas W. Renwand essentially said DEP allowed too high of emission limits without explaining “its rationale for selecting a less stringent emission limit, and that rationale must be appropriate in light of all the evidence in the record.”

Further, he wrote, DEP permit writers retain discretion to set best available control technology levels that “do not necessarily reflect the highest possible control efficiencies but, rather will allow permittees to achieve compliance on a consistent basis. The existence of a similar facility with a lower emissions limit creates an obligation for the permit applicant and permit issuer to consider and document whether the same emission level can be achieved at the (REC) proposed facility.”

“This ruling is vindication for the community,” argued Joseph Otis Minott, executive director and chief counsel of Clean Air Council. “DEP must set pollution limits to protect the public based on science and law, not on the whims of the polluter.”

The REC project has been endorsed by the local Renovo Borough Council, the Clinton County Economic Partnership and the Clinton County Commissioners.

“DEP had simply not done what the law requires to protect the community from these types of emissions,” added Jessica O’Neill, senior attorney at PennFuture. “The Board recognized this clear violation and we will continue to press the rest of our claims against this flawed permit.”

The board granted partial summary judgment on the issues of the sulfur dioxide and volatile organic compounds limits in the permits. High levels of SO2 and volatile organic compounds can cause health risks.

In its application, REC stated that “a facility with the best emissions performance for one pollutant typically cannot meet the lowest emission level for another pollutant.” Rick Franzese, REC project manager, told The Express on Sunday that, “while we’re disappointed by the ruling, we will comply with it and we look forward to commencing construction on the project in a timely manner once the appeal is resolved.”

In statements to the county commissioners during their endorsement of the project this past May, Franzese had this to say: “The REC project remains viable so long as the appeal of the project’s air permit is favorably resolved. Investor interest in the Renovo facility remains high, and increasingly so in light of current events. In particular, the war in Ukraine has highlighted the need for energy security and independence, which for the near-term in the United States can be reliably provided by domestically-sourced natural gas. Renewables, such as solar and wind, are not yet fully reliable baseload power supplies, even when augmented with the most advanced storage technology currently available.

“Increased regulation is making coal-fired generation less viable, he said, so “gas-fired plants such as Renovo are needed to replace that baseload capacity. When state-of-the-art power plants such as the REC project come online, they typically displace electricity that would otherwise have been generated by older and less efficient coal-fired and other older baseload plants with less effective pollution controls, resulting in a significant reduction in greenhouse gas emissions,” he added.

The groups appealing the permit disagree, with Robert Ukeiley, a senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, arguing that “trying to build a new methane-gas burning power plant at this point is just absurd. We need to be shifting to clean, cheap energy like solar and wind rather than dirty, expensive power plants which burn methane gas.”

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High temperature cracking consumes fuel creating GHG & pollutants

From the Spring 2022 Newsletter of Concerned Ohio River Residents, WV – OH – PA

The Thai company, PTT Global Chemical America returned $20 million to the state of Ohio since they did not meet the deadline set forth in the agreement they made with the state years ago. They have not started construction and their air permit with Ohio EPA expired in Feb. 2022 as well. The state gave the company around $70 million total to prep the site in Dilles Bottom, OH to build the massive ethane cracker/plastics plant, and now that they had to return a good portion of it, many are questioning even more if the plant will ever get built.

“PTTGCA’s decision to let the air permit expire is the latest indicator that the project is extremely unlikely to move forward, and certainly will not be moving forward any time soon,” said Megan Hunter, senior attorney at the Chicago-based EarthJustice advocacy organization. “We are thankful that at least for now, the community is safe from the air pollution that would come from the facility.”

“Currently in the global economy, there is a massive overcapacity for the production of ethylene and polyethylene,” said Sean O’Leary, senior researcher at the Ohio River Valley Institute. “There’s been massive build-out along the Gulf Coast, and there’s also been major build-out in Asia, particularly in China. The competitive atmosphere is a pretty daunting one.”

What does this latest news mean for the Ohio Valley? No one is for certain, but we will keep you updated as we learn more about the situation. We should continue to push our elected officials to move on to some type of development that is sustainable and healthy, rather than extractive and dirty. Let’s come together in a positive way and create the future we want to have in the Ohio Valley.

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Lyondell Basell to shutter Houston oil refinery in exit from refining

From an Article by Erwin Seba, Reuters News Service, April 21, 2022

HOUSTON, April 21 (Reuters) – Chemical maker Lyondell Basell Industries will permanently close its Houston crude oil refinery by the end of 2023. The decision comes after two failed attempts to sell the plant and the closing of five U.S. refineries in the last two years. Refining until recently has been beset by high costs and low margins.

“After thoroughly analyzing our options, we have determined that exiting the refining business by the end of next year is the best strategic and financial path forward,” said Ken Lane, interim chief executive. The refinery, which makes gasoline, diesel and jet fuel, will remain in operation and the company will continue to seek potential transactions and/or alternatives for the roughly 700-acre site on the Houston Ship Channel.

The company earlier took a $264 million impairment charge as part of its decision to exit refining. In the past 10 years, Lyondell has twice mounted efforts to sell the 263,776 barrel-per-day refinery but failed to conclude a deal.

John Auers, executive vice president of Turner, Mason & Co, a Dallas-based energy consultancy, said Thursday’s announcement means “there will definitely be people knocking on the door” to look at the refinery. “The refinery could sell for a significant amount,” Auers said. “I certainly don’t expect it to close given this statement.”

Lyondell said the refinery, once the anchor of its supply chain as a regional chemical company, no longer fit with its global petrochemical production. “While this was a difficult decision, our exit of the refining business advances the company’s decarbonization goals, and the site’s prime location gives us more options for advancing our future strategic objectives, including circularity,” Lane said. Circularity refers to efforts by plastics manufacturers to increase spare finished plastics from landfills and return them to the supply chain for chemical plants.

Plastics have become a persistent pollutant worldwide

Announcement of the Beaver County Marcellus Awareness Community, Ambridge, Pa., February 10, 2021

The Story of Plastic takes a sweeping look at the man-made crisis of plastic pollution and the worldwide effect it has on the health of our planet and the people who inhabit it.

We hope you can join us for this Promote PT screening and panel discussion on February 13th from 11 am to 2 pm.

Panelists include:

>> Stiv Wilson, CoDirector, Peak Plastic Foundation, Creator and Executive Producer of The Story of Plastic;

>> Dr. Patricia M. DeMarco, Vice President of the Forest Hills Borough Council and professor at Chatham;

>> Anaïs Peterson, Earthworks fellow, regional activist, and graduate of the University of Pittsburgh.

REGISTER HERE FOR THE STORY OF PLASTICS

https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZwpceurrjIrHtZ2mDUp1JY8jk2qH9QOkGsq

Beaver County Marcellus Awareness Community
P.O. Box 31, Ambridge, PA 15003

Major environmental-change categories expressed as a percentage relative to intact baseline. Red indicates percentage of category damaged, lost or otherwise affected; blue indicates percentage intact, remaining or unaffected

From an Article by Corey J. A. Bradshaw, Daniel T. Blumstein and Paul Ehrlich, The Conversation, January 13, 2021

Anyone with even a passing interest in the global environment knows all is not well. But just how bad is the situation? Our new paper shows the outlook for life on Earth is more dire than is generally understood.

The research published today reviews more than 150 studies to produce a stark summary of the state of the natural world. We outline the likely future trends in biodiversity decline, mass extinction, climate disruption and planetary toxification. We clarify the gravity of the human predicament and provide a timely snapshot of the crises that must be addressed now.

The problems, all tied to human consumption and population growth, will almost certainly worsen over coming decades. The damage will be felt for centuries and threatens the survival of all species, including our own.

Our paper was authored by 17 leading scientists, including those from Flinders University, Stanford University and the University of California, Los Angeles. Our message might not be popular, and indeed is frightening. But scientists must be candid and accurate if humanity is to understand the enormity of the challenges we face.

First, we reviewed the extent to which experts grasp the scale of the threats to the biosphere and its lifeforms, including humanity. Alarmingly, the research shows future environmental conditions will be far more dangerous than experts currently believe.

This is largely because academics tend to specialize in one discipline, which means they’re in many cases unfamiliar with the complex system in which planetary-scale problems—and their potential solutions—exist.

What’s more, positive change can be impeded by governments rejecting or ignoring scientific advice, and ignorance of human behavior by both technical experts and policymakers.

More broadly, the human optimism bias – thinking bad things are more likely to befall others than yourself—means many people underestimate the environmental crisis.

Our research also reviewed the current state of the global environment. While the problems are too numerous to cover in full here, they include:

>> A halving of vegetation biomass since the agricultural revolution around 11,000 years ago. Overall, humans have altered almost two-thirds of Earth’s land surface

>> About 1,300 documented species extinctions over the past 500 years, with many more unrecorded. More broadly, population sizes of animal species have declined by more than two-thirds over the last 50 years, suggesting more extinctions are imminent

>> About 1 million plant and animal species globally threatened with extinction. The combined mass of wild mammals today is less than one-quarter the mass before humans started colonizing the planet. Insects are also disappearing rapidly in many regions

>> Some 85% of the global wetland area lost in 300 years, and more than 65% of the oceans compromised to some extent by humans

>> A halving of live coral cover on reefs in less than 200 years and a decrease in seagrass extent by 10% per decade over the last century. About 40% of kelp forests have declined in abundance, and the number of large predatory fishes is fewer than 30% of that a century ago.

The human population has reached 7.8 billion – double what it was in 1970—and is set to reach about 10 billion by 2050. More people equals more food insecurity, soil degradation, plastic pollution and biodiversity loss.

High population densities make pandemics more likely. They also drive overcrowding, unemployment, housing shortages and deteriorating infrastructure, and can spark conflicts leading to insurrections, terrorism, and war.

Essentially, humans have created an ecological Ponzi scheme. Consumption, as a percentage of Earth’s capacity to regenerate itself, has grown from 73% in 1960 to more than 170% today.

High-consuming countries like Australia, Canada and the US use multiple units of fossil-fuel energy to produce one energy unit of food. Energy consumption will therefore increase in the near future, especially as the global middle class grows.

Then there’s climate change. Humanity has already exceeded global warming of 1°C this century, and will almost assuredly exceed 1.5 °C between 2030 and 2052. Even if all nations party to the Paris Agreement ratify their commitments, warming would still reach between 2.6°C and 3.1°C by 2100.

Our paper found global policymaking falls far short of addressing these existential threats. Securing Earth’s future requires prudent, long-term decisions. However this is impeded by short-term interests, and an economic system that concentrates wealth among a few individuals.

Right-wing populist leaders with anti-environment agendas are on the rise, and in many countries, environmental protest groups have been labeled “terrorists.” Environmentalism has become weaponised as a political ideology, rather than properly viewed as a universal mode of self-preservation.

Financed disinformation campaigns against climate action and forest protection, for example, protect short-term profits and claim meaningful environmental action is too costly—while ignoring the broader cost of not acting. By and large, it appears unlikely business investments will shift at sufficient scale to avoid environmental catastrophe.

Fundamental change is required to avoid this ghastly future. Specifically, we and many others suggest:

>> Abolishing the goal of perpetual economic growth
>> Revealing the true cost of products and activities by forcing those who damage the environment to pay for its restoration, such as through carbon pricing
>> Rapidly eliminating fossil fuels
>> Regulating markets by curtailing monopolisation and limiting undue corporate influence on policy
>> Reining in corporate lobbying of political representatives
>> Educating and empowering women around the globe, including giving them control over family planning.

Many organizations and individuals are devoted to achieving these aims. However their messages have not sufficiently penetrated the policy, economic, political and academic realms to make much difference.

Failing to acknowledge the magnitude and gravity of problems facing humanity is not just naïve, it’s dangerous. And science has a big role to play here.

Scientists must not sugarcoat the overwhelming challenges ahead. Instead, they should tell it like it is. Anything else is at best misleading, and at worst potentially lethal for the human enterprise.

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See also: What is a ‘mass extinction’ and are we in one now?Frédérik Saltré & Corey Bradshaw, The Conversation, November 12, 2019

For more than 3.5 billion years, living organisms have thrived, multiplied and diversified to occupy every ecosystem on Earth. The flip side to this explosion of new species is that species extinctions have also always been part of the evolutionary life cycle.

But these two processes are not always in step. When the loss of species rapidly outpaces the formation of new species, this balance can be tipped enough to elicit what are known as “mass extinction” events. Five major mass extinctions have been identified in the geological record, and the sixth extinction is now evident.

Plastic refuse is accumulating at an alarming rate

From an Article by Jared Paben, Resource Recycling, October 21, 2020

Three virgin plastics companies recently announced developments in the area of chemical recycling. The following are summaries of the news from Chevron Phillips Chemical, SABIC and BASF.

Commercial-scale milestone: Chevron Phillips Chemical announced that it successfully completed its first U.S. commercial-scale production of polyethylene (PE) derived from chemically recycled mixed plastics.

“We are exceptionally proud to be the first company to announce production of a circular polyethylene on this scale in the U.S.,” Jim Becker, vice president of polymers and sustainability for the company, stated in a press release. “The successful production run marks a huge step for CPChem on our path to being a world leader in producing circular polymers.”

The company is now looking to scale up the use of the pyrolysis technology, as well as achieve certification for the new PE through the International Sustainability and Carbon Certification Plus (ISCC Plus) mass-balance methodology. Upon certification, Chevron Phillips Chemical intends to market the plastic under the trade name Marlex Anew Circular Polyethylene.

Recycled-content tube: Three companies are collaborating to bring chemically recycled plastic into beauty product packaging. Virgin plastics producer SABIC will supply recycled resin derived from post-consumer mixed plastics, part of the company’s TRUCIRCLE portfolio of chemically recycled polyolefins. Albéa will convert the plastic into tubes for Estée Lauder Companies (ELC) products; specifically, the tubes will hold Origins skincare brand products. According to a press release, the package is expected to hit store shelves in 2021.

In August, SABIC announced that its TRUCIRCLE recycled polypropylene (PP), produced via a pyrolysis process, was being used in Magnum brand ice cream tubs. Over 7 million of the recycled-content tubs are slated to be rolled out across Europe this year.

From tires to recycled plastics: BASF’s ChemCycling project has focused on using a pyrolysis technology to process difficult-to-recycle mixed plastics into chemicals for use in new plastics. Now, BASF is supporting the use of pyrolysis on scrap tires.

The global chemical company plans to invest 16 million euros (nearly $19 million) in Pyrum Innovations, a German company using pyrolysis on scrap tires. BASF plans to use the resulting pyrolysis oil to produce recycled-content plastic products for customers, alongside its existing recycled-content offerings derived from scrap plastics.

“With the investment, we have taken another significant step towards establishing a broad supply base for pyrolysis oil and towards offering our customers products based on chemically recycled plastic waste on a commercial scale,” Hartwig Michels, president of BASF’s Petrochemicals division, stated in a press release.

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New plastic pyrolysis capacity planned in the United States

From an Article by Craig Bettenhausen, Chemical & Engineering News, Vol 98, Issue 27, July 10, 2020

Plants by Braven Environmental and Encina May take in a combined 225,000 metric tons of waste plastic per year

Two new plastic pyrolysis plants are in the works in the US that could add a new recycling option for plastic trash and increase the supply of some commodity chemicals.

In pyrolysis, a feedstock such as waste plastic is heated in a low-oxygen environment and, instead of burning, breaks down into a mix of simpler hydrocarbons. Tweaking the reaction conditions—such as temperature, pressure, or use of a catalyst—allows operators to get various product mixtures.

The pyrolysis firm Encina is finishing designs with engineers at Worley for a plant that will take in about 160,000 metric tons (t) of waste plastic per year and yield 90,000 t of BTX, a mixture of benzene, toluene, and xylenes normally produced from oil. The firms say the designs are modular, which will let them add capacity later. This will be Encina’s first plant, and founder David Schwedel says the company has four more in the planning stages globally.

Braven Environmental is planning a plant in central Virginia that will take in 65,000 t of plastic per year and produce 50 million L of a diesel-like hydrocarbon blend, according to Michael Moreno, the company’s chief operating officer. The $32 million plant will also produce syngas, which it will burn to fuel the process. The firm expects to create 52 permanent jobs at the site when it opens in mid-2021.

Environmental advocates debate the merits of pyrolysis, citing concerns about scalability, toxic by-products, and derailment of a transition away from single-use plastics. Promoters of such chemical recycling methods counter that they save energy and help keep plastics out of landfills and waterways.

Food & Water Watch analysis of employment

From an Article by Alison Grass, Pittsburgh Tribune Review, October 16, 2020

The road to the White House once again runs through Pennsylvania, which explains the campaign photo ops and nonstop TV ads. It also means we’ll be treated to a lot of claims about fracking. Unfortunately, much of what we’re hearing about drilling is not rooted in the facts.

The stories that the Trump campaign and the fracking industry tell are straightforward: Fracking equals jobs, and lots of them. Trump tells his supporters that 600,000 (or occasionally even 900,000) fracking jobs in Pennsylvania are at risk due to a ban on drilling. That is nowhere near the truth — the real number is under 30,000 — and Joe Biden does not support a fracking ban in the first place.

The Trump team makes the same kinds of boasts about the Shell petrochemical cracker plant going up in Beaver County, which has become a regular campaign backdrop. In a sense, this is perfectly fitting; that facility, and the massive public subsidies that have been wasted on it, are emblematic of Trump’s distorted fossil fuel agenda. The public will eventually shell out $1.6 billion — in the form of corporate tax credits — to help subsidize the $6 billion facility, which will convert fracked gas byproducts into plastics. This is, in Trump’s view, a huge success story; he even once bizarrely claimed credit for the plant’s existence.

But the Shell saga is not a success, it’s a cautionary tale. Contrary to the boasts of petrochemical backers, the plant was mostly built with imported materials and out-of-state workers. Instead of providing for thousands of local, permanent jobs, it will create about 600. And these massive corporate giveaways don’t create jobs — they serve to widen the inequality gap.

The fossil-fuel industry and its political allies are telling us the same story we’ve always heard: If you want the jobs, you have to put up with living with the air and water pollution. But new research from Food & Water Watch shows that “choice” is false. Our new analysis — “Cracked: The Case For Green Jobs Over Petrochemicals In Pennsylvania” — shows that a similar level of investment in wind and solar manufacturing would create as many as 16,000 permanent jobs.

But let’s be real: Subsidies and tax breaks alone are unlikely to attract manufacturers. The most effective way to ensure the transition to a green economy is through a large-scale buildout of publicly owned renewable electricity. This should include a comprehensive, New Deal-scale green public works program that guarantees employment for fossil-fuel workers and prioritizes American-made renewable energy and energy-efficient equipment, materials and appliances.

The fact that clean energy manufacturing provides a much more serious jobs boom should move Pennsylvania’s political leaders to pursue policies to create an economy that works for everyone. Unfortunately, state lawmakers are still banking on fossil fuels and petrochemicals.

Right now, the entire “debate” around fracking in Pennsylvania is marred by outlandish exaggerations and a willful blindness to the realities of the fossil-fuel business. As national media outlets pontificate about what the presidential candidates will do to “protect” fracking jobs, the industry is in the midst of a devastating collapse. While the campaign rhetoric spins fantasies about hundreds of thousands of good jobs, in the real world fracking jobs are disappearing and companies are going bankrupt.

The Shell cracker plant does not represent the kind of future that will truly benefit all Pennsylvanians. Instead of spending billions of dollars to create a few hundred jobs — and unknown quantities of air and plastic pollution — the state should make serious investments in wind and solar manufacturing, which will create far more stable, long-term jobs at a fraction of the cost.

>> Alison Grass is research director at the national advocacy group Food & Water Watch.

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FACT CHECKER: Trump campaign promotes false claim that Biden would end fracking – The Washington Post, October 7, 2020

More than six months after former vice president Joe Biden became the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, the Trump campaign still acts as if it is running against Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).

The Shell workers were paid to rally for Trump

From an Article by Reid Frazier, Allegheny Front, September 21, 2020

At a marina in Moundsville, West Virginia, Dan Williamson looked out across the Ohio River at a quiet stretch of land on the other side. “There’s a little activity going on,” said Williamson, a spokesman for PTT — an oil and gas company based in Thailand that wants to build an ethane cracker on the far side of the river, in Dilles Bottom, Ohio. “But really we’re kind of in between phases right now.”

The plant would turn the region’s plentiful natural gas into plastics. It’s taken years to develop, and a final decision on whether the company would build the plant was due this summer. But then came the pandemic. “It just kind of changed the game for all industries, including this one. And so they have had to put off their announcement of a decision,” Williamson said.

For years, industry boosters in Appalachia have promoted the idea of a building boom for petrochemical plants like the PTT ethane cracker. Oil and gas backers have said there’s enough gas in the region for four or five chemical plants like this. But so far, only one of those plants is a ‘go’ — Shell, with the help of $1.65 billion in state tax breaks, is building a giant plastics plant in western Pennsylvania.

But other projects have either been dropped or put on hold, and now the pandemic has left some some communities in the Ohio River Valley wondering if those plants will ever get built.

A project in West Virginia was canceled last summer when its Brazilian owners backed out. A planned $84 billion Chinese investment in West Virginia’s gas and chemical industry has yet to materialize. And PTT has watched as potential partners backed away from the project. Matsubeni, a Japaneese company, initially signed on as a partner but was out of the picture by 2016.

In July, Daelim, a Korean chemical company that had agreed to invest in the PTT plant, cited the pandemic when it backed out of the project, which could be the largest of its kind ever built in the U.S. according to PTT.

Williamson says PTT is still looking for investors, but he says the real barrier for the plant is simple: COVID-19. “I believe and the project leaders believe that if not for the pandemic, it would be under construction right now,” Williamson said.

Problems Before the Pandemic

Some aren’t so sure. “Don’t believe company announcements — believe the ribbon cutting,” said Kathy Hipple, an analyst with the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, a left-leaning think tank that works toward sustainable energy.

She says Daelim’s decision to pull out of the PTT project is a red flag. “We view this as a market signal that the project has possibly become far too risky for them to continue,” Hipple said. “The other possibility is that the economics of building a petrochemical complex have changed tremendously.”

Hipple said the price of plastic has fallen by around 40 percent since PTT first announced its interest in the site five years ago, pushed down by new supply from new plants built on the Gulf Coast. She thinks a wave of environmental policies around the globe — like bans on single-use plastics — could threaten the industry’s bottom line.

Steve Lewandowski, an analyst at the research firm IHS Markit, thinks there will still be demand for plastic in the next few decades. But he also wonders if delays in the Ohio project might be a sign that the $10 billion plant is looking too expensive for investors.

“If it was such a compelling case to build there, that cracker would have been approved under construction and then it probably would be another one on top of that — and it’s not,” Lewandowski said. “So there’s something going on that is causing companies to say, ‘That’s probably not the right place to be.’”

Advantages for Appalachia

Lewandowski said Northern Appalachia has advantages — Ohio, West Virginia and Pennsylvania sit atop the Marcellus Shale, the biggest natural gas formation in the country. And it’s close to East Coast and Midwest manufacturers that would use the plastic. But he thinks companies might want to keep their production centered on the Gulf Coast, where dozens of similar plants have been running for decades.

“We’re assessing that the cost to build [in Ohio] is higher than on the Gulf Coast. And we would we would argue it’s probably going to be a bit more expensive to operate only because they’re not really in a cluster of industry.”

If a part breaks down at a plant in Louisiana, there’s a better chance that a supplier nearby will be able to replace or repair it than there would be in Ohio, he said.

But closer to the proposed Ohio plant site, there are fewer doubts. In August, a senior Trump administration official visited the site and said it would boost the Ohio River valley’s economy.

‘100 Percent Positive That This Will Be a Go’

That has people like Matt Coffland confident. “I’m 100 percent positive that this will be a go,” Coffland said. “No doubt about it.”

Coffland is a big proponent of the PTT project — and it’s easy to see why. He owns Matt’s Tiger Pub — a tavern in the town of Shadyside, Ohio, a few miles from where thousands of hungry construction workers could one day build the project. “I mean, it’s three miles away from my doorstep. And you’re talking an influx of close to ten thousand people at one point,” Coffland said.

Coffland sees the plant as a good thing not just for his restaurant but for his part of southeastern Ohio — which he says has been neglected by the state in favor of the ‘three Cs” — Cleveland, Cincinnati and Columbus. “I think we deserve it by now,” he said. “Finally, something is going to land right here in our lap. You know, it’s about time.”

Someone else who’s hoping the project moves ahead works in a school building a few blocks away. John Haswell is superintendent of the Shadyside Local School District.

On the wall of his office hangs a set of drawings showing what a K-12 school complex would look like. If PTT builds its chemical plant, the company agreed to pay for the new building. “Any time that I can build something or we can build something for $30 million and it does not cost our taxpayers a cent — that’s a pretty good deal,” Haswell said.

The district’s 700 students are in a school built 1932, and Haswell says a new building is badly needed. Uncertainty over whether the PTT project will go forward — or whether he’ll have to ask taxpayers for more money to build a new school — has made him anxious.

“I would really love to get really busy on a building project, but until we have that final investment decision, I can’t do anything but sit. Sit and wait and wait and wait,” Haswell said.

Opposition to Cracker

If the delay has made Haswell antsy, it’s been a reprieve for Amanda Petrucci. She and her husband live with their four children and seven goats on a hillside across the Ohio river in Moundsville, West Virginia.

On a recent afternoon, she pointed out a few landmarks — a hilltop across the river where a well owned by an ExxonMobil subsidiary blew out in 2018, releasing 60,000 tons of the potent greenhouse gas methane, a natural gas processing plant a half-mile from her front door, which flares gas at all hours, and a Superfund site just down the hill.

The site used to house a chemical plant. In the 1990s, the U.S. EPA declared it a superfund site, and began a cleanup. Around that time, her family endured a spate of health problems — her son developed a rare blood disorder, her husband was diagnosed with asthma, and she developed Tourette’s syndrome and migraines.

Petrucci blamed dust from the Superfund site for their health problems. (The EPA says dust levels at the site never endangered human health.) She worries about the oil and gas infrastructure that ring her property, and isn’t happy about PTT’s proposed ethane cracker a mile from her house.

“I think we’re going to get hit with more toxic air. How many more layers can we throw on everybody in the community?” Petrucci said. She says she’s been thinking about moving somewhere where the air and water are clean, and there’s no oil and gas. But she hasn’t found anywhere that fits that bill just yet.

So it was welcome news for her when she heard PTT was delaying a final decision on its ethane cracker. “I [felt] like I could kind of just hang out here for a little bit longer and enjoy life here,” she said. “I feel relieved and feel like I can enjoy my property a little more.”

NOTE: John Haswell is superintendent of the Shadyside Local School District in Shadyside, Ohio. His district would get a $30 million school building if PTT builds a proposed ethane cracker in Belmont County, Ohio.

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See also: Project Design Planning for Ethane Cracker Complex at Belmont County, Ohio, FrackCheckWV, June 21, 2020

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See also: THE SHELL ETHANE CRACKER, As the world grapples with plastic pollution, Pa.’s ethane cracker promises more plastic, Reid Frazier, StateImpact Penna., YouTube, September 21, 2020

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R01yOnk_ynw

MOTHER JONES IS VERY CONCERNED ABOUT PLASTICS POLLUTION

From an Article by Rebecca Leber, Mother Jones Magazine, March 3, 2020

Fossil fuel companies feel threatened by alternative energy—and they’re counting on plastic to save them.

Let’s say you lost your headphones, so you order replacements on Amazon. They arrive in a blue-and-white Amazon-branded plastic envelope. Inside, there’s a clear plastic bag, and inside that, a hard plastic container, and inside that, finally, the headphones themselves, which are mostly plastic.

I know the feeling that comes next: a twinge of guilt about all the unnecessary packaging, because you’ve read how our plastics have been accumulating in landfills, wildlife, and the ocean. Perhaps you’ve vowed to change your plastic-loving ways—maybe by forgoing Amazon orders or bringing your own bags to the grocery store. That’s a good start, but it won’t fix the real reason we’re drowning in a glut of supply. Fossil fuel companies are staring down a time when their signature product will no longer be so critical in our lives. As the world transitions slowly but surely away from fuel-guzzling cars, gas-powered buildings, and coal-fired power plants, industry execs must count on growth that comes from somewhere else—and they see their savior as plastics.

Those plastic-laden headphones are just one of a dizzying array of products made by the petrochemical sector, which uses fossil fuels to produce plastics, fertilizers, detergents, and even the fibers in much of our clothing. In the last decade, petrochemicals have moved from a sideshow for the oil and gas industry to a major profit machine, and the trend is expected to accelerate:

The energy research group International Energy Agency predicts that plastics’ consumption of oil will outpace that of cars by 2050. In a recent report about its 20-year growth, ExxonMobil executives assured shareholders that the company could offset losses from the transition to electric cars with growth in petrochemicals. Despite BP’s own pledge to cut its operations’ oil and gas emissions by 2050, the company has a notable carve-out for the oil and gas consumed by its petrochemical production.

A lot of that growth in petrochemicals is happening in the United States. Traditionally, most plastics have come from foreign petroleum. But plastic can also be made from ethane, an abundant byproduct of the gas extracted through fracking. With plenty of ethane flooding the market, the petrochemical industry has raced to build plants, called ethane crackers. Using incredibly high temperatures, these facilities (sometimes fueled by their own dedicated power plants) “crack” the molecular bonds of the ethane to form the building blocks of plastics, such as polyethylene. Since the US market is so saturated with plastics, many of these new facilities export these materials around the world for manufacturing into the products we recognize, from packaging to polyester clothing.

There are climate impacts at every point of the lifecycle of plastics. The production process consumes fossil fuels both to make the plastics and maintain the high temperatures for refining and manufacturing. Methane, which is both a fuel and a potent greenhouse gas, tends to leak during drilling, transport, and refining, making it an underestimated source of pollution from the oil and gas industry.

Emerging research has shown how polyethylene releases greenhouse gases when it breaks down and might interfere with the tiny algae plants that play an essential role in helping the oceans absorb excess carbon. Even when recyclable plastics make it to blue bins, much of it ends up in landfills and about 12 percent is burned at an incinerator to generate energy—which vents toxic fumes into nearby communities and more carbon pollution into the atmosphere.

A 2019 report by the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL) found that emissions from the plastics sector already rose 15 percent from 2012 to 2018. Last year alone, the CIEL, using Environmental Integrity Project data, estimated that plastic production contributed the equivalent of 189 large coal plants.

If plastics production continues apace, the sector is on track to reach the equivalent annual pollution of 295 large coal plants in the next 10 years, and double that by 2050, according to CIEL. An International Energy Agency report from 2018 indicated that carbon pollution from the petrochemical sector is going up 30 percent by 2050 over the sector’s current rate.

The plastics production problem might be new for the general American public, but it isn’t for the communities of color that have long bordered existing plants. Michele Roberts, a coordinator with the Environmental Justice Health Alliance, points out that chemical plants have historically been built in predominantly African American communities living in poverty, like the industrial plants that have lined the Gulf Coast, nicknamed “Cancer Alley.”

The new hub of petrochemicals growth has been in both the Gulf and western Pennsylvania. North of Corpus Christi, Texas, ExxonMobil secured hundreds of millions of dollars in tax breaks for a massive planned steam cracker to be built by 2022, located within a mile from a high school and middle school. Texas has seen four major fires at petrochemical plants in the last year alone, forcing tens of thousands of people to evacuate to escape the carcinogenic air. “There’s a whole lifecycle trajectory that today impacts people of color and the poor in a major, disparate way,” Roberts says.

Even as awareness of plastics’ environmental effects has grown, the industry has never done better business. According to the chemicals and fossil fuel lobby American Chemistry Council, 340 chemical industry facilities (a number that includes more than just plastics, like fertilizer) have been announced since 2010. Of those, 190 are already underway, concentrated in fracking boomtowns in western Pennsylvania and along the Gulf Coast. One of the most massive under construction is Shell’s Monaca, Pennsylvania facility, which will be capable of producing 1.6 million metric tons of plastics each year. It will have its own rail system of 3,300 freight cars, capable of producing the equivalent of half a million cars’ worth of carbon pollution and more than a million tons of plastic resins annually, according to the New York Times.

Other oil companies have been racing to compete with even bigger deals: Chevron inked a deal last year with Qatar Petroleum for an $8 billion ethane cracker along the Gulf Coast that would pump out 2 million metric tons of ethylene each year—by 2024. And ExxonMobil is building a 1.8 million metric ton ethane steam cracker with a Saudi Arabian company near Houston to be completed by 2022.

President Trump has publicly celebrated the ascent of plastics. At an official White House event held at the Shell construction site in Monaca, he cheered the plant as a sign of the end of American dependence on foreign oil and gas. “We don’t need it from the Middle East anymore,” he said. He insisted that plastic pollution wasn’t the United States’ problem. “It’s plastic that’s floating over in the ocean and the various oceans from other places” that’s causing pollution, he said. “Plastics are fine, but you have to know what to do with them. But other countries are not taking care of their plastic use and they haven’t for a long time.”

The plastics industry takes that argument a step further, claiming that its wares help us move away from fossil fuels. For example, the American Chemistry Council claims on its website that plastics lighten products, “which means companies can ship more product with less fuel. Plastics used in cars helps make them lighter and more fuel efficient. And from appliances to electronics plastics can help to achieve greater energy efficiency over the course of a product’s life.”

It’s true that plastics can lighten the loads of vehicles and planes, but that isn’t the bulk of the plastics problem. The biggest source for plastics waste, and the fastest-growing problem for oceans and waterways, is the kind we use in clothing and for food packaging and shipping.

Judith Enck, a former EPA northeast regional administrator and founder of the environmental coalition Beyond Plastics, believes that focusing on how plastic makes cars lighter is a distraction. The real problem, she argues, is that the glut of gas has made plastics incredibly cheap, intensifying the world’s growing hunger for more single-use plastics. Ethane crackers are not an offramp from oil, she says—instead, they’re another way of embedding fossil fuels in our daily lives. “Plastics keep us on the fossil fuel treadmill.”

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See also: Researchers Now Have Even More Proof That Air Pollution Can Cause Dementia, Aaron Reuben, Mother Jones Magazine, May 2, 2019

A Mother Jones investigation prompted the study that turned up the most convincing evidence to date.

We are eating a nominal 5 grams of plastics each and every week, uugghh!

From an Article by Kevin Loria, Consumer Reports, April 30, 2020

The Menace of Microplastics

Any plastic item—bag or bottle, toy or chair—starts to come apart with use and time, breaking down into tinier and tinier fragments. Most of the plastic produced hasn’t been recycled (see “What’s Gone Wrong With Recycling”). But it’s not just old plastic that has disintegrated into particles that make their way into lakes, rivers, and oceans. Cracking open a brand-new plastic bottle or tearing a wrapper off a sandwich releases fragments of plastic that we might end up ingesting. Household dust can be full of microplastics—and it’s possible that you might kick this up into the air from your carpet and breathe it in. Plastic fibers even wash off clothes into our water supplies.

Fragments of plastic smaller than 5 millimeters in length are known as “microplastics,” and scientists have started to refer to even more microscopic fragments—generally smaller than 1,000 nanometers—as “nanoplastics.” In a 2019 report, the World Health Organization found that we’ve unknowingly ingested microplastics for decades without clear negative consequences, saying that research into potential health effects is needed. While there’s much we don’t yet know, we have learned that micro- and nanoplastics are everywhere. Snow in the Arctic carries substantial amounts of microplastic, according to a 2019 study in the journal Science Advances, and even more has been detected in the Alps. Microplastics can even be found in the seemingly pristine sand of Hawaiian beaches.

Given this, researchers are concerned that these plastics can make their way into the tissues of our bodies, according to Linda Birnbaum, Ph.D., the recently retired director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) and the National Toxicology Program. “Nanoplastics can easily cross all kinds of barriers, whether it’s the blood-brain barrier or the placental barrier, and get into our tissues,” Birnbaum has said. Breathing in nanoplastics might introduce them into our cardiovascular system and bloodstream, for example.

It’s also possible that nanoplastic particles might create a systemic inflammatory response, according to Phoebe Stapleton, Ph.D., an assistant professor of pharmacology and toxicology at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J. Her research has previously shown that inhaled metal particles can harm the cardiovascular health of a developing fetus. And her animal research has also confirmed that when a mother breathes in nanoplastics, the particles can be found in many places inside the fetus. “We know that after exposure, the plastic particles are everywhere we look,” Stapleton says. “We don’t know yet what those particles are doing once they’re deposited there.” Other researchers, like Myers at Environmental Health Sciences, are concerned that nanoplastics could possibly release harmful chemicals (such as BPA) into our bodies.

Another area of inquiry focuses on the fact that microplastics act like magnets for additional toxins, picking up pollutants such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), chemicals now banned from manufacture in the U.S. but still present in the environment. According to Linda Birnbaum, formerly at the NIEHS, if we later ingest or inhale contaminated microplastics, they may release these substances they’ve picked up into our blood or organs, along with whatever chemicals are also in the plastic itself.

See my finger, see these tiny plastics — some are very much smaller still ...

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See also: Environmental toxicologist wants to understand how microplastics affect human health,
Stephanie Wright, Chemical & Engineering News, Volume 98, Issue 15, April 19, 2020

We are studying air particles that are a so-called health-relevant size that can enter the central and distal parts of the human lung. We are also investigating whether we can detect microplastics in human lung tissue and whether we can find any links to health outcomes.

Additionally, we are doing some in vitro studies to examine the toxicology of these particles. The big question is the relative importance of microplastics. Humans are obviously exposed to thousands, if not hundreds of thousands or millions, of particles in a cubic meter of air, so it’s vital to understand the relative proportion of microplastics within those particles and their relative potency.