#RegulatoryCapture: A bill that would have tripled the fines paid by oil refineries for emitting #toxicpollutants, like those released last year in Martinez stalled. Western States #Petroleum Association a powerful #corporate #fossilfuel #lobbying group has spent millions to influence #policy decisions by the #California #Legislature and state officials over the past half decade.

#BusinessAsUsual #WhatClimateEmergency #healthybottomline

https://www.mercurynews.com/2023/09/11/oil-lobby-pressure-dooms-state-bill-aimed-at-curbing-refinery-pollution/

I don’t know about you, but I’m siding with Argentina on this one. The idea that Argentina could get justice when they’re the away team is a farce. This is *especially* true in matters of petroleum.

Here’s the judgment: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.440752/gov.uscourts.nysd.440752.493.0.pdf

Case: Petersen Energia Inversora, S.A.U. v. Argentine Republic

#petroleum #oil #ypf #argentina🇦🇷 #unitedstates

If anyone for some reason is looking for a review essay assignment on #petroleum, #shipping, #capitalism, Mah's Petrochemical Planet would go well with Oil Beach and Negative Ecologies by David Bond.

@academicchatter @geography #Anthropology #STS

@bhawthorne @cstross

Many people who consider themselves "green" or "environmentalist" think that converting cars, home heating, industrial power use, etc from fossil fuels to electrical means we can "stop fossil fuels".

If by that they mean "burning oil", then fine.

If they instead mean "stop mining / extracting / pumping oil", it's not going to happen.

#Petroleum is the single most valuable and useful chemical feedstock on the planet. We need it, just not for burning.

#oil #everywhere

> ... the agency’s testing protocols for persistence, bioaccumulation and toxicity are “unsuitable for complex mixtures” and contended that these substances are similar to existing petroleum-based fuels....
> When Doa first saw the 1-in-4 cancer risk for the jet fuel, she thought it must have been a typo. “... let alone a 1.3-in-1,” said Doa. “This is ridiculously high.”
#MariaDoa #Pascagoula #Mississippi
#BioAccumulation #Persistence #Petroleum
/HT @iffybooks and @diogenes

#LongBeach #Petroleum Club. Zoom and note derrick sculpture on left hand side.

On this story: Ecuador is one of the top countries of origin for California's oil consumption

(& I have a half-assed draft in progress wherein a California petroleum lobbyist accuses Californians who want to end domestic oil production in the state of wanting to kill sloths in the Amazon)

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/aug/19/ecuador-prepares-for-once-in-a-lifetime-vote-to-stop-oil-drilling

#oil #petroleum #California #Ecuador

Today in Labor History August 19, 1953: The U.S. CIA and British MI6 help Iranian royalist troops overthrow the liberal-leaning Premier Mohammed Mossadegh. As Prime Minister, he introduced reforms such as social security, land reforms and higher taxes including on rental income. He also nationalized the nation’s petroleum industry, which the Anglo-Persian Oil Company (APOC/AIOC), later known as British Petroleum (BP) could not tolerate. As a result, they installed the brutal, pro-Western Shah Mohammed Pahlevi. The brutality of his regime, the torture, secret police, disappearances and mass imprisonment of opponents, set the stage for the Islamic Revolution in 1979, and over 40 years of US aggression against Iran.

#WorkingClass #LaborHistory #persian #coup #iran #cia #petroleum #bp #Revolution

Welp: "The #EPA approved a component of boat fuel made from discarded plastic that the agency’s own risk formula determined was so hazardous, everyone exposed to the substance continually over a lifetime would be expected to develop cancer"

https://www.propublica.org/article/epa-approved-chevron-fuel-ingredient-cancer-risk-plastics-biofuel

@ProPublica #plastic #Pollution #petroleum #poison #alliteration

Origination of Produced Water (Brine) in the Williston Basin | #NorthDakota #NDSU #petroleum #oil #gas #geology

https://www.ag.ndsu.edu:8000/agriculture/extension/publications/origination-produced-water-brine-williston-basin

Researchers create #plastic alternative that's #compostable in home and industrial settings

Story by Isabelle Butera, August 7, 2023

"The team worked with #polylactic acid, or #PLA, which has been used in packaging for over a decade. Instead of #petroleum (like typical plastic), it uses plant sugars and breaks down into water, carbon dioxide and lactic acid.

"But PLA can only break down in the heat of industrial #composters, not home composters. Even in industrial composters, PLA doesn't always break down quickly or completely.

"It can take as much as 20 days before PLA starts to be digested by microbes in an industrial compost setting, researchers said.

"To accelerate this process, the team incorporated what's called a 'thermoplastic starch' into PLA. This carbon-based starch helps the microbes in compost more easily break down the bioplastic.

"Adding the thermoplastic starch will not compromise the quality of PLA, such as the strength, clarity and other desirable features, researchers said in the release.

"Additionally, the bioplastic can be composted alongside food scraps. That means you wouldn't have to rinse food out of takeaway containers or coffee out of a disposable cup before throwing it out."

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/researchers-create-plastic-alternative-that-s-compostable-in-home-and-industrial-settings/ar-AA1eUVo7?rc=1&ocid=winp1taskbar&cvid=01880b7d92d94edcf8a04253ffe86689&ei=7

#PFAS #PFOS #WaterIsLife #FoodPackaging #Solutions

#SaudiArabia extends #petroleum #productioncut until September #FuelSupply

https://www.naturalnews.com/2023-08-04-saudi-arabia-extends-oil-production-cut-september.html

Governor #Newsom Appoints the First Director of New Oil #Watchdog | California Governor https://www.gov.ca.gov/2023/08/01/governor-newsom-appoints-the-first-director-of-new-oil-watchdog/ #CAPol #PriceGouging #Petroleum

"In the past 30 days, nearly 5,000 heat and rainfall records have been broken or tied in the U.S. and more than 10,000 records set globally, according to NOAA. Texas cities and towns alone have set 369 daily high temperature records since June 1."

This is truly frightening.

#climatechange #fossilfuels #petroleum

https://www.alaskasnewssource.com/2023/07/22/sick-hearing-about-record-heat-scientists-say-those-numbers-paint-story-warming-world/

While we are still trying to find ways to clean up problems like oil spills in the ocean, microorganisms in the seas have their own insights to impart.

Oil rich soil from the Guaymas Basin has provided German scientists understanding of a mechanism by which archaea in the Alkanophaga break down alkane molecules and thus degrade petroleum through oxidation.

#Remediation #Bioremediation #Oil #Petroleum #Archaea #Alkanophaga #Science #Biology #Scicomm

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41564-023-01400-3

Global oil production averaged 89.8 million barrels of oil per day in 2021. Here are the world's largest oil producers.

#Oil #Visualization #DataVisualization #Petroleum
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/visualizing-the-worlds-largest-oil-producers/

Shell estimated to make hundreds of millions trading russian gas since the Ukraine invasion

👉 Only three companies traded more russian liquified gas, two of them russian,
👉 while only four countries supplied more to Shell’s traders in 2022.

On 8 March 2022, #Shell was embarrassed. Shell’s then-CEO Ben van Beurden said sorry and promised to stop dealing in all russian hydrocarbons: no #oil, no #petroleum products, no #gas

Read more here🔗 https://www.globalwitness.org/en/campaigns/stop-russian-oil/shell-estimated-make-hundreds-millions-trading-russian-gas-ukraine-invasion/

#Ukraine 🇺🇦 #StandWithUkraine

A bituminised desert?

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-07-03/back-roads-travels-strzelecki-track-heather-ewart/102477130
#Strzelecki #Desert #Bitumen #Petroleum #hydrocarbons #Roads #climate #Biodiversity

A Stratotanker will fly over Ohio today with an honor guard of F-16s to commemorate 100 years of midair fill-ups. "Air refueling embodies our resolve to defend freedom and project power, leaving an indelible mark on aviation history," an air commander said in a press release. #gas #gasoline #jetfuel #petroleum https://www.wcpo.com/news/local-news/hamilton-county/cincinnati/air-force-to-fly-over-paycor-stadium-parts-of-ohio-and-west-virginia-tuesday

Kill kill kill!

#OPEC
#petroleum

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/06/26/opec-says-oil-demand-will-hit-110-million-barrels-per-day-in-2045.html