Chevron’s refinery in Richmond, CA, caught fire last night, forcing area residents to “shelter in place” and sending dozens to hospitals with smoke inhalation. According to the local news affiliate:
The fire started at the refinery’s “4 Crude Unit” at 6:15 p.m. Monday, according to a statement from Chevron. The company said a small leak in the diesel processing unit grew and caught fire.
A shot time later, at least two steady eruptions of flame were visible from CBS 5 cameras. A pair of thick plumes of smoke were also rising into the skies of the East Bay well into the night.
Refinery officials were quick to apologize for “inconveniencing our neighbors.” Meanwhile, a midnight deadline expired for Chevron to pay $19 billion in damages to Ecuador for environmental damages in the Amazon region.
Oil prices are expected to rise as a consequence of the refinery fire, although Chevron will presumably continue to earn $85 million per day in profits (not gross earnings, profits) — an amount which could pay many times over for the hospital treatment of Bay Area residents suffering from smoke inhalation, but which presumably won’t.
Meanwhile, Mitt Rommey continues to explain to wind energy supporters in his own party why wind energy tax credits are really dangerous to America. Because, you see, the free market should be allowed to pick the winners in the energy wars. And if a few grandmothers with lung disease in the Bay Area are losers? Well, you can’t make a free market without killing a few 99%ers.
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Dammit, Cowgirl, sometimes you’ve got to spill a little 99% milk to save the American pie!
If you were a Real American(tm) you’d understand that.
The pies are gluten-free and vegan.
create its own wind? You see, libs, oil and gas are pat of the solution. A market-based solution. With winners and losers. Except if it’s Solyndra, because picking winners and losers doesn’t include occasionally backing losers. Rinse and repeat.
Well, yeah, maybe oil fires are kinda messy, but have you considered the dangers of those flying whirly-gigs?
If one those suckers decided to spin off and hit the ground, the divot would be almost as big as the one ArapaGOP makes with his Big Bertha at Castle Pines!
You’re not supposed to take a divot with your driver.
Don’t worry, it isn’t pollution…if you live far enough away… “Dilution is the solution to pollution”, didn’t you know? It will only inconvenience a very small number of quite unimportant people, right?
and, may I opine…(recognizing snark when I see it)
The “Free Market Experiment” is a construct of consummate greed. It is the great purveyor of “disaster capitalism”, think Banda Aceh, think U.S. economy. Mitt Romney will rival any third world monarch or autocrat in his slavish devtion to the advancement of personal power for the wealthy and well connected.
If “Rmoney the Richbot”, with the help of the republican voter suppression campaign and the interference of the courts, manages to become president, then you need to start hanging out with the richest friends you can make, because they will be the only ones with enough to eat.
Are you thinking Bhopal?
a manmade disaster that has cost the company involved some dough…wasn’t it Dow ?
Anyway, Naomi Klein talks about this in “the Shock Doctrine”.
As I recall the story, when the tsunami wiped out the shoreline in this tropical paradise, many tribes who had lived there since antiquity were devastated, wiped out in some cases. When survivors and family members from higher ground returned, they were blocked by fences and guards. It seems that, immediately after the tsunami, super wealthy investors filed claims on the beach front…the natives having none. Lots o’ money to be made.
I don’t always recommend books…but when I do…I recommend this one. 🙂
Union Carbide.
your sweet bippy that no taxpayer dollars will be wasted subsidizing the firefighting, cleanup, or remediation from this mess . . . thank god for the rugged go-it-alone can-do spirit of American capitalists!
gas prices you’re about to see at the pump . . . Obama’s fault!
Looks like this:
I do NOT remember that chin looking so much like testicles. Is that doctored?