What is an ethane cracker plant anyway?

Posted by Focus on Arts and Ecology on - -

Dear Tu,

Recently, we’ve been talking a lot about ethane cracker plants. There’s a reason for that: They’re a big player in fossil fuel infrastructure and have a major impact on our health and climate.

Ethane crackers are plants that perform the first step in the process of transforming ethane – a component of natural gas – into plastics products.

Building new ethane cracker plants means more dangerous pipelines, more polluting facilities in our communities, and more dirty fossil fuels in our lives. It also means more of the greenhouse gas emissions driving the climate crisis.

This is particularly evident in the Ohio River Valley, where fossil fuel infrastructure is already polluting the air, contaminating the water, and contributing to the dirty emissions warming our fragile world.

And ethane cracker plants themselves create dangerous emissions. The Shell plant is expected to produce 1.6 million tons of ethylene, resulting in 1.34 MMTCO2 emissions. This is equivalent to introducing over 290,000 cars on the road.

TAKE ACTION NOW

The fossil fuel industry wants to make this region a global hub for ethane production, creating even more pollution and related health impacts. Seven ethane cracker facilities have been proposed since 2014 across the Ohio River Valley. Construction of these plants increases regional dependency on natural gas because it is the source of ethane for the plants.

And we know natural gas obtained through fracking is not a “bridge fuel” to a clean energy economy. It is a bridge to nowhere – burning natural gas from fracking wells releases CO2 and sometimes powerful methane into the atmosphere, fueling climate change at a time when we must do everything we can to stop it.

So what can you do?

Regardless of whether or not you live in the Ohio River Valley, you can help to educate yourself and others on the dangers of ethane cracker plants and expanded natural gas infrastructure by joining a Climate Reality chapter and taking local action now.

We hope you’ll join us!

- Your friends at Climate Reality

Photo: Brook Lenker. March 5, 2018. Provided by FracTracker Alliance, fractracker.org/photos

TAKE ACTION WITH US

STOP MORE ETHANE CRACKER PLANTS FROM BEING BUILT.

TAKE ACTION NOW