The Chevron refinery in Salt Lake City just received notice of a civil penalty from the EPA for violating the Clean Air Act by failing to install pollution controls for NOx, mono-nitrogen oxides. The fine is $384,000.
Chevron has lost that much in the cushions of their CEO's couch. Literally, that represents 8 minutes of Chevron's $26 billion in profits for 2012.
Chevron was fined only $1 million for a spectacular refinery fire that sent 15,000 Richmond, California, residents to the hospital last summer. The corporation spent $10 million lobbying Congress last year and came away with $700 million in tax breaks.
Little wonder how Chevron and the other members of the Big Oil club are able to do what they please, with impunity, including force feeding us hydrofluoric acid.
With the help of the masterminds of the oil industry, we are indeed, "running the entire planet to failure."
At a recent hearing in California on matrix acidizing, Paul Deiro of the Western States Petroleum Association, said, "We use acid because it's effective. I'm unaware of any disasters related to this." He urged the legislators to avoid "unnecessary" regulation of acidizing.
Indeed, if something is "effective" in making hydrocarbons rise magically from deep in the ground, and the drillers are "unaware of any disasters," then what else do we need to know?
What demons could possibly be released by destroying the planet for oil? But this is not the movies, and just looking the other way won't save us.
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