Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Meanwhile, in Nimbyville, South Dakota...

...residents are complaining to each other about the high cost of gas while waiting for the "Stop The Refinery!" committee meeting to start.

Maybe they think that the gas fairy drinks crude from the well and pisses fuel into the tanks of their John Deeres.

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think we should first build a refinery or two right outside of Crawford, TX. Let's see how long Bush stays "home" after those are up and running. I think you'd see him hightailing it to Maine to be with daddy where they can bicker about off shore drilling.--Hackman420

Tam said...

"zomg bush is teh worst preznit EVAR!"

Jesus wept.

Anonymous said...

I live in Union County, South Dakota. The project has not been secretive for over a year. Consider the fact that the county vote already passed.

My understanding is many of the farmers who accepted $$ for options on their land also voted no during the vote. They can keep the money and their land. Other landowners whose land wasn't selected voted no out of jealousy concerning their neighbors windfalls.

The issue has little to do with pollution, loss of ag land (less than 2% in the county), etc. and more to do with greed and ignorance.

NotClauswitz said...

Drill the Coast! California needs more marine-life platforms, it's GOOD for the environment! :-) Chevron's trying to upgrade the facility in Richmond but the locals have turned it into an identity-politic issue and are fighting it.
They really are morons.

José Giganté said...

I have to wonder who might be behind this? The conspiracy devil on my left shoulder says BIG OIL! while the conspiracy angel on my right shoulder says ENVIRONMENTAL WHACK JOBS!

Or could it be that, as anon sez, a bunch of the locals are jealous, greedy, ignorant dumbasses?

Tam said...

Yeah, I'm thinkin' "Option C", myself.

kmac said...

Yeah, it's W's fault no refineries have been built in America for over thirty years.

Tam said...

It's ALL Dubya's fault.

He's not just your average mediocre-to-shitty President, he's the Antichrist!

Zendo Deb said...

I grew up around oil refineries. The new ones aren't nearly as obnoxious as the old ones. There is an old Texaco plant site in Illinois that is vacant 20 years after the plant was dismantled because they are cleaning up the mess. Of course that plant was built in 1910 or something.

The river valley - that contains a still-active oil refinery and a few closed steel mills - is a wonder of nature. There is actually a hiking trail/state park that goes right by the working refinery and the site of the old refinery.

While I wouldn't like to live across the street from a refinery, owning land that could be turned into commercial property might not be bad - from an investment point of view. Oil workers like to stop for a drink after work say, or grab a bite to eat. They need groceries. And industry tends to breed industry. There are businesses all around that working refinery.

That's not to say that there isn't some risk. At some point, one of the catalytic cracking towers at a local refinery developed a leak. A spark eventually ignited it. It sheared off at the ground and took off like a rocket. I think it did land in a field, but it busted windows for miles around. More exciting even than a storage tank fire - which also happens from time to time.

kmac said...

Actually, I was being facitious about W being the problem. As far as energy, every president since Ford shares equal blame.

Anonymous said...

The gargantuan fly upon whose back this speck of ointment rests very uneasily is the idea that any of this should reside in the domain of herd opinion.

Every one of these people has a price. It should be enough to buy them out and then carry on with the risk, entirely on Hyperion, for good or ill.

This whole thing is as fucked-up as a football-bat, on every axis from one end to the other.

Jeezis.

Jeffro said...

Kansas had a shot at this refinery, but our brilliant gubernatorial branch scared Hyperion away. The Secretary of the Kansas Department of Health and Environment stopped a coal fired generating plant because it would emit eleven million tons of CO2/yr, and Hyperion's output would check in at seventeen mil per. They read the writing on the wall.

Needless to say, I'll be glad when our governor is gone.