Tuesday, May 9, 2017

Texas oil booms characterized by pollution and waste

processhistory : "Mirroring the industry’s lawless oil towns, for much of the twentieth century, Texas’ oil industry regulation was minimal. In the 1920s and 1930s, gushers spewed oil across the desert. In West Texas, most oil was located on top of subsurface salt domes, which once tapped, spewed salt brine water across the desert. Oil storage tanks and drilling slush pits—used to collect chemicals, mud, and other debris produced during drilling—were unlined, often leaking into surrounding ranchland. Legislators critiqued such practices as gratuitous waste of a precious resource."
Economic calculation of EROEI. Are you including health costs and cleanup? What abut permanent damage to ecology? These are the uncounted costs of autosprawl, while profits is extracted from the oil well to the cul-de-sac.

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