Spills

The latest estimate from the Colonial Pipeline spill in August of 2020 in a nature preserve in North Carolina now puts the spilled amount of gasoline at 2 million gallons, up from the company’s original estimate of 63,000 gallons. The company claims that it’s managed to suck three-quarters of the spill out of the ground after what is now believed to be an 18-day spill. The pipeline delivers 100 million gallons of fuel each day, connecting Houston to New York. It’s one of the largest onshore fuel spills in American history, and larger than any other recorded gasoline leaks from a U.S. pipeline.

Mike Soraghan, E&E News

Reported in NumLockNews.com

Uhh, ummm . . . maybe move the decimal point to the right one place, and then multiply by three? Their first guess was close enough for the public relations guys, I guess. Plus 3,000 percent as a recent correction? That was a mighty bad first guess. But then, when over a 100 gallons a second are ripping through the pipe. . . Well, kinda gets you thinking about how much bigger that leak could get, or maybe you don’t really WANT to think about how much bigger it could get. And you don’t want to think about sparks neither. Won’t think about what if a school, or a neighborhood, or a town, or a city were involved. Nope . . .

So sixty-three thousand gallons starts to seem more, well, easy to wrap your mind around–not quite a full 5,000 gallon tanker truck a day being spilled for those 18 days till it got stopped. Yep, that’s a nice believable, manageable round number, a good guess until the news cycle moves on and the remediation can get done quietly with no drama.

Who are we kidding?

Despite the fact that our climate verges on irreparable damage from atmospheric carbon, the fuel industry lumbers on to get more carbon out of the ground and into the environment.

Could Delco get a major LNG export terminal? Facility being shopped for Chester

Penn America Energy wants to construct a massive LNG export terminal in the city of Chester along the Delaware River. The plan faces an uphill battle.

Let’s keep it in the ground folks!

Pennsylvania will grant $1.7 billion in tax breaks to Shell for locating its new Plastics plan in Western PA. But the money isn’t all the legislature gave away. The plant will be permitted to spew pollutants into the air. All this so that the world can have more plastics. The upside? About 500 new jobs for Beaver County. That amounts to $135,000 a year for each of those new jobs for twenty-five years. And the subsidy is not limited to the $1.7 billion, there is no cap!

Read the details in Spotlight PA’s excellent report

Outlooks mixed as contested Pa. plant nears launch

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Shell “Cracks” Pennsylvania’s Tax Code | Good Jobs First

Fossil fuel apologists hasten to remind us that mother nature produces far more methane than oil and gas producers. But we don’t control the methane released by wetlands and thawing permafrost. Society does have the means to control its production of methane through fossil fuel production and agriculture. And, it is this production and burning that continues to wreck the environment. So the “what about mother nature?” question is a diversion from needed action.

Here are a couple of articles that provide updates on how we are doing. Spoiler: not great.

Methane Tracker 2020 – Analysis – IEA

Methane Tracker 2020 – Analysis and key findings. A report by the International Energy Agency.

Interactive country and regional estimates – Methane Tracker 2020 – Analysis – IEA

Methane Tracker 2020 – Analysis and key findings. A report by the International Energy Agency.

Methane emissions (kt of CO2 equivalent) | Data

Methane emissions (kt of CO2 equivalent) from The World Bank: Data

Spotlight PA reports:

SINK HOLES: Chester County commissioners want Pennsylvania regulators to shut down a portion of the Mariner East pipeline, saying at least seven sinkholes have developed since January in one township, per WHYY. The push comes days after Pennsylvania’s Public Utility Commission unveiled a raft of proposed pipeline safety regulations, some inspired by ongoing issues along the Mariner East route.

Your legislators are constantly being pressed by lobbyists to let the industry get by with less regulatory scrutiny, or to cut funding for inspection and enforcement. Utilities are supposed to operate for the public convenience and necessity, not to make it easy for private interests to cut corners.