How much taxpayer money should a foreign oil company get just for building a refinery in the USA?

Photo above – Shell’s new ethane refinery in Pennsylvania. How much taxpayer money would you serve up, to keep this dusk to dawn glow on the horizon?

Good news, everybody. This time it isn’t the American taxpayer getting fleeced. Just residents of Pennsylvania. Politicians “invested” $90 million to persuade Shell to build a $14 billion refinery in their state. And taxpayers are kicking in an additional $60 million a year in subsidies, possibly forever. Sweet deal, eh? (see link below)

Let me ask the obvious question, and answer it, before moving on. Why don’t we find out about secret deals like these BEFORE they get finalized, so we can stop them? Answer: most of the details don’t come up in press conferences held by politicians, and the media does little to no reporting. ("But look at all the jobs which could be created")

Moving on - now it gets worse. The ginormous Shell plant isn’t even turning crude oil into gasoline, so we can drive to work or McDonalds. No gasoline is being refined, even though Pennsylvania is the site of America’s very first oil well (Titusville, in 1859.) What’s that $14 billion Shell refinery processing then? Ethane . . .

Where does ethane (pronounced “eh-THANE”) come from? Not corn squeezin’s, like I assumed. (that would be "ethanol", which is missing one of ethane's 6 hydrogen atoms). Can just anyone refine ethane at home? Probably not. You start by injecting millions of gallons of fresh water into the Marcellus shale formation in western PA. which fractures the rock (hence, “fracking”, as in "we're fracked"). Then voila - ethane gas and contaminated ground water too toxic to drink magically appear.

Well, there has to be a silver lining, right? Is ethane some sort of hydrocarbon miracle which could power our homes and cars, without carbon emissions? Nope . . . not yet at least. Ethane goes straight to a plastic factory, to become soda bottles, store packaging, etc. And eventually to become “microplastic particles” as the weather grinds them down to about 1 micron (one millionth of a meter – you need a microscope to see one). At which point this microplastic residue ALSO enters our drinking water, with effects which are open to debate, but none of which are claimed to improve our health.

To recap – Pennsylvania paid $90 million in taxpayer money to jumpstart Shell’s ethane plant, and another $60 million annually to keep it humming. To ensure there will be no shortage of plastic bottles, and polluted ground water.

Because I’m a skeptic, I don’t think all of this happened by accident. It's not impossible that somebody received campaign contributions or got their college aged kids enrolled in a Shell summer “internship”, or something similar. But there’s no evidence (in the link, at least) of who got what, so we can only speculate. And that would be unfair. We should probably wait for the release of the 3 million FBI ethane/Shell investigation documents before pointing fingers.

I’m just sayin’ . . .



Shell failing promises as it seeks exit from PA

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/shell-failing-promises-as-it-seeks-exit-from-pa/ar-AA1WpXE6?ocid=msedgntp&pc=HCTS&cvid=6992f35b39d346719e03f4d19f2c0ce2&ei=129