Southwestern Pennsylvania is set to gain a major economic boost from the construction of a new petrochemical refinery. Shell Oil Co. will announce today that a site near Monaca has been chosen for the multi-million-dollar ethane cracker.Go to the link to see who will announce the new project. Something tells me these states are not going to let the EPA ban fracking. Especially when EPA's first reports from Pennsylvania suggest that fracking is not harming the drinking water. Is this all being choreographed? The timing is very, very interesting.
Ohio, West Virginia and Pennsylvania had all sought the plant and offered Shell major tax incentives. Monaca is just 20 miles from both the Ohio and West Virginia borders, so workers in all three states are likely to benefit.
After methane, ethane is the second-largest component of natural gas. Ethane is the initial building block of vinyl chloride, then polyvinylchloride, PVC. Polyvinyl chloride, commonly abbreviated PVC is the third-most widely-produced plastic, after polyethylene and polypropylene. PVC is widely used in construction because it is durable, cheap, and easily worked. PVC production is expected to exceed 40 million tonnes by 2016. [Wiki]
The implications of all that is currently going on in the domestic energy program are absolutely incredible.