Beaver, Pennsylvania, cracking plant to continue flaring of gas.

[John1956PA]

The cracker plant opened for operation in November 2022. Its purpose is to convert ethane gas form the fracking fields to polymers which are used for the production of plastic bottles. Apparently, the influx of gas has been greater than the plant is able to handle, and some of the gas has to be wasted by burning it off in what is known as "flaring." The Beaver County Times published the article linked below. I was able to access it without a subscriber account. The article notes that numerous instances of releases beyond the plant's permits have occurred since November.

https://www.timesonline.com/story/news/local/2023/03/28/shell-expect-continuous-flaring-at-ethane-cracker-plant-during-maintenance-shutdown-beaver-county/70055541007/

[gab13by13]

1. Daughter lived about 5 or 6 miles from the cracker plant,

beautiful house on a golf course. When I visited I would get free golf balls from errant shots.

One of the main reasons she moved was the cracker plant. Also the train derailment wasn't that far away.

[mountain grammy]

2. Sounds like she made a smart decision.

[orthoclad]

3. East Palestine chemicals

ethane->vinyl chloride->PVC

Methane is the main component of frack gas, mixed with ethane, which makes the monomer vinyl chloride, which makes the plastic polyvinyl chloride. Do they separate pipelines from the wellhead, or just waste the gas they don't want, cost-of-doing-biz-wise.

They probably get a tax deduction for the wasted gas.

from the link:
"Pennsylvania's Department of Environmental Protection issued Shell violation notices in recent months for exceeding its rolling limit on air contaminants that can cause or worsen respiratory illness and lung disease. The company, which put its multi-billion-dollar plastics plant fully online in November 2022, has submitted roughly 30 malfunction reports to the DEP since September. Many of these incidents led to unplanned gas flaring, used as a safety mechanism to prevent pressure buildup and burn off excess hydrocarbons at the plant."

Plastic. Air pollution. GHG. Shell hits the petrochemical trifecta.