Areas of Interest for Ethane Storage

Article by Jim Kotcon, Conservation Chair, Sierra Club, Morgantown, WV

From: Mountain State Sierran, Volume 45, Number 2, Summer 2019

The Appalachian Storage Hub (ASH), sometimes called the Appalachian Storage and Trading Hub, is a proposal for underground storage of various natural gas byproducts that could support a plastics industry.

Natural gas is mostly methane, but in some formations, significant amounts of other gases and liquids (including propane, butane, and especially ethane) occur with the methane. These are usually separated from methane because they burn hotter or have more value for manufacturing purposes.

Without a market, these may be “flared” (burned off to eliminate them). But converting ethane to ethylene and polyethylene makes the ethane valuable for plastics. The process requires multi-billion-dollar “cracker” plants, several of which are proposed for West Virginia and adjoining states to take advantage of the ready supply from the fracking boom and the large volumes of these liquids.

But a cracker plant wants a steady supply of ethane, and the ASH is needed to store the large volumes needed. Neither the ASH nor the crackers are economically viable without the other. Proponents argue that the ASH is the key to $100 billion in investments and tens of thousands of jobs.

So, Where’s the Elephant?

In 2015, almost all nations signed the Paris Climate Agreement, committing these nations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to keep global warming below 2o C, and striving for 1.5o C. The IPCC and most other scientific organizations agree that this means we must drastically reduce use of fossil fuels. The world must reduce emissions from fossil fuels by 50 percent within 10 years and be almost entirely off fossil fuels within 30 years.

Construction of a large gas industry is fundamentally incompatible with that goal. Yet none of the proponents will discuss this issue, or even admit that it is real. None of the major investors in the ASH or cracker plants or related industries are including greenhouse gas mitigation in their business plans.

The West Virginia Department of Commerce and the U.S. Department of Energy are offering major incentives and subsidies to develop the ASH. Political leaders including WV’s U.S. Senators and all three Representatives, the Governor, and the overwhelming majority of state legislators and county commissioners and all state and local economic development agencies are advocates for these increased federal subsidies.

But no one will talk about the greenhouse gas issue, or even plan for it.

Why is This Relevant to the ASH?

Ethane crackers create more demand for fracking and natural gas wells, pipelines and related facilities. These all emit methane, and some emit a lot. Methane is 84 times more effective at capturing heat than carbon dioxide (over a 20-year life span).

Ethane crackers also use tremendous amounts of electricity, most of which is expected to come from fossil fuels. It is expected that the plastics industry will account for one-sixth of all greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

Most importantly, investments in fossil fuel infrastructure slow the transition to sustainable, renewable energy sources.

What You Can Do

Call or e-mail our Congressional delegation and ask them to oppose federal subsidies for the ASH. Send a copy of your comments to U.S. Senate Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell, and Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi.

Source: https://www.sierraclub.org/sites/www.sierraclub.org/files/sce-authors/u4882/2019%202%20Summer%20Sierran.pdf

Far More Jobs in Renewable Energy

The jobs fraud interferes with planning for the future

Commentary by S. Tom Bond, Retired Chemistry Professor & Resident Farmer, Lewis County, WV

We hear a lot about living in the “post-truth era,” when most large media are owned by six corporations which are primarily interested in maintaining a common line in the news, determined by the financial interests of the owners. Smaller newspapers and TV and radio stations are starved for content and not sufficiently affluent to afford much investigation of the claims of people they quote.

So anyone with a platform can make claims without fear of investigation by writers.

Many statements by business fall into that category. The result is that the large part of the public that lacks time, skills or inclination accept statements that favor business profits rather than constitute verifiable truth. Consequently they frequently act against their own interest because of the myth.

One of the enduring myths is that environmental concerns cut back the number of jobs available. This is true for businessmen who seek to capture every last bit of the hydrocarbon sale value of products as possible. When you look at it from the other side, the side of the number and quality of jobs available, both in terms of wage and kind of work, the situation is reversed.

That’s why the claim that Marcellus exploitation is good because it will provide JOBS is false. It seems hardly anyone understands alternative energy will provide more and better jobs and save the environment, too. Many have heard this, but “environment” is a dirty word to them. They ignore the fact that we are part of the natural world, flesh and blood composed of the same carbon, nitrogen and other elements as plants and animals. Their life is, to them, part of the world of stone and steel and energy and logic, cold hard and simple, compared to the biological world they came from. But they are born like other mammals, eat biological food, get biological diseases, and die like all other life. That is not a remote theory, it is life itself!

Half of the worlds primary production on land and in the sea is devoted to supporting human life. We share the rest with elephants and whales and ants and aphids and everything in between. Our species has the “lion’s share.”

There are studies that show solar and other renewables provide far more new jobs than extraction of hydrocarbons. There are three times as many workers in the solar industry in the US as there are working in coal mines. Better work, too.

If you want jobs, you want solar or some other renewable energy source.

In a report titled Don’t Believer the “job Killer” Hype, it says:

A large body of evidence accumulated over the past 30 years shows that regulations, and in particular environmental regulations, tend to create jobs, not kill them. Although it is true that regulations sometimes lead to layoffs in regulated sectors of the economies and they result in serious upheavals in the affected families, they result in a small fraction of total layoffs.

For every job lost to regulations, 15 are lost due to “cost cutting” and 30 are lost to “organizational changes” such as ownership changes.

Regulation causes new hires. People are required for new construction for pollution control caused by the regulations and for regulators. Some examples are:

>>> 1. For every dollar invested, wind and solar create twice as many jobs as fossil fuels. That amounts to five jobs for each gigawatt of power.

>>> 2. Fuel standards cause five new jobs for every one lost.

One study showed, per dollar invested, clean energy provides more jobs in manufacturing and construction, more jobs with high wages, than fossil fuels.

The United States Office of Budget and Management does cost-benefit calculations for the nation. They show that from 2005 to 2014 benefits of environmental regulations far exceed costs. They returned 10:1, and net benefits were over $500 billion per year. (References are in the original.)

We are forced to conclude that those, like Carl Icahn, who say regulations stifle growth are either un-informed, or they are more influenced by their own loss than by societies’ gain.

Remember the old saying, “Fire is a good servant, but a terrible master.” Big Business is like that, too. From the standpoint of most of us, Big Business is a good servant, but a terrible master. Where are we today?

See also:  www.FrackCheckWV.net

Dr. Stephen Chu of U.S. DOE

Secretary Steven Chu Stepping Down at the U. S. DOE

In a letter to Energy Department employees on February 1st, Energy Secretary Steven Chu highlighted the progress of the last four years, and announced his decision to not serve a second term as Secretary. Text of the letter is below.

Dear Colleagues:

Serving the country as Secretary of Energy, and working alongside such an extraordinary team of people at the Department, has been the greatest privilege of my life. While the job has had many challenges, it has been an exciting time for the Department, the country, and for me personally.

>>>>> See the full text of the letter here. <<<<<

I want to conclude by making a few observations about the importance of the Department of Energy missions to our (a) economic prosperity, (b) dependency on foreign oil and (c) climate change.

The United States spent roughly $430 billion dollars on foreign oil in 2012. This is a direct wealth transfer out of our country. Many billions more are spent to keep oil shipping lanes open and oil geo-politics add considerable additional burdens. Although our oil imports are projected to fall to a 25 year low next year, we still pay a heavy economic, national security and human cost for our oil addiction.

The average temperature of our planet is rising, with majority of the temperature increase occurring in the last thirty years. During the three decades from 1980 to 2011, the number of violent storms, floods, droughts, heat waves, wildfires, as tabulated by the reinsurance company Munich Re, has increased more than three-fold. They also estimate that the financial losses follow a trend line that has gone from $40 billion to $170 billion dollars per year. Most of those losses were not insured, and the country suffering the largest losses by far is the United States.  As the President said in his recent Inaugural Address, “some may still deny the overwhelming judgment of science, but none can avoid the devastating impact of raging fires, and crippling drought, and more powerful storms.”

The overwhelming scientific consensus is that human activity has had a significant and likely dominant role in climate change. There is also increasingly compelling evidence that the weather changes we have witnessed during this thirty year time period are due to climate change.

Virtually all of the other OECD countries, and most developing countries including China, India, Mexico, and Brazil have accepted the judgment of climate scientists. 

Many countries, but most notably China, realize that the development of clean energy technologies presents an incredible economic opportunity in an emerging world market. China now exceeds the U.S. in internal deployment of clean energy and in government investments to further develop the technologies.

While we cannot accurately predict the course of climate change in the coming decades, the risks we run if we don’t change our course are enormous. Prudent risk management does not equate uncertainty with inaction.

Our ability to find and extract fossil fuels continues to improve, and economically recoverable reser­voirs around the world are likely to keep pace with the rising demand for decades. As the saying goes, the Stone Age did not end because we ran out of stones; we transitioned to better solutions.

The same opportunity lies before us with energy efficiency and clean energy. The cost of renewable energy is rapidly becoming competitive with other sources of energy, and the Department has played a significant role in accelerating the transition to affordable, accessible and sustainable energy.

Ultimately we have a moral responsibility to the most innocent victims of adverse climate change. Those who will suffer the most are the people who are the most innocent: the world’s poorest citizens and those yet to be born. There is an ancient Native American saying: “We do not inherit the land from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children.” A few short decades later, we don’t want our children to ask, “What were our parents thinking? Didn’t they care about us?”

…… More ……..

The journey that I began with you four years ago will continue for many years. I began my message talking about my vision of what I wanted to do with the Department. Some of those goals have been realized, and we have planted many seeds together. Just as today’s boom in shale gas production was made possible by Department of Energy research from 1978 to 1991, some of the most significant work may not be known for decades. What matters is that our country will reap the benefits of what we have started.

Stephen Chu, Secretary, U. S. Department of Energy, February 1, 2013

>>>>>>>>>> ………. <<<<<<<<<<

NOTE: See also “Energy Secretary Steven Chu Resigns, Chastises Climate Deniers And Clean-Energy Critics.”