Jump to content

Texas -- a failed state


Brisketexan

Recommended Posts


The Texas Tribune has a report on uncapped oil wells, and the story probably belongs in the climate thread, but the report focuses on the paltry amount of money designated to address the problem and how none of the money has been spent. Uncapped oil wells are a serious problem. For instance, one well just upped and created a brackish, 60 acre lake, which is emitting hydrogen sulfide, among other toxic substances. 
 

Texas is not a serious state.

 

https://www.texastribune.org/2025/02/04/texas-leaking-abandoned-oil-water-wells-tceq-railroad-commission/

  • Rage+1 5
Link to comment
Share on other sites

17 minutes ago, Willfully Horn said:


The Texas Tribune has a report on uncapped oil wells, and the story probably belongs in the climate thread, but the report focuses on the paltry amount of money designated to address the problem and how none of the money has been spent. Uncapped oil wells are a serious problem. For instance, one well just upped and created a brackish, 60 acre lake, which is emitting hydrogen sulfide, among other toxic substances. 
 

Texas is not a serious state.

 

https://www.texastribune.org/2025/02/04/texas-leaking-abandoned-oil-water-wells-tceq-railroad-commission/

Lake Boehmer: https://maps.app.goo.gl/EbryBFdJ232Em2KGA

  • Rage+1 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 1/22/2025 at 6:14 PM, tx 3 putt said:

these three idiots are in charge of the worlds 8th largest economy, just a fyi ...

 

IMG_2723.jpeg

Ann Richards had more cajones than these 3 combined when it came to standing up for Texans.

On 1/29/2025 at 1:21 PM, CooterBrown said:

Senate Bill 14 – Texas DOGE – Improving Government Efficiency

This could be the worst of them all.  

 

Who remembers the John Sharp Audits of the 80s?

On 2/3/2025 at 12:18 PM, royiv said:

Texas Republicans back at it trying to reduce access to voting.

https://www.texastribune.org/2025/02/03/texas-voting-countywide-election-day/

Yeah, that's about as dumb as returning to hand counting ballots.  And it's not just the money for extra machines.  With the current climate it's hard enough to find election workers for 20-30 polling places.  Try doing that for triple the poll sites.   

Good place for the Texas DOGE to start.  See how they justify their fellow Republicans being so grossly inefficient. 

  • Like 1
  • Rage+1 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 minutes ago, wild_turkey said:


If this passes, wouldn’t it effectively end IVF in this state?

From the article, pretty much yeah, or at least make it a dicey thing to do legally.

 

Quote

What about IVF (In Vitro Fertilization)?
In vitro fertilization (IVF) could also face devastating restrictions under this bill. The IVF process typically involves fertilizing multiple eggs outside the body to increase the chances of a successful pregnancy. However, not all fertilized embryos are implanted; some are discarded, stored, or donated for research.

Since the bill grants full legal rights to embryos at the moment of fertilization, any unused or discarded embryos could be treated as victims of homicide. Fertility clinics and doctors who follow standard IVF procedures could be charged with criminal offenses for failing to implant every fertilized egg.

Additionally, couples seeking fertility treatments might face intense legal scrutiny over how embryos are handled, effectively reducing access to IVF. Patients could be forced to undergo unwanted procedures, such as implanting all viable embryos, or risk legal action for “destroying” an embryo.

The result is a full-scale assault on reproductive autonomy. By criminalizing widely used birth control methods and essential fertility treatments, HB2197 does not protect life. It undermines the fundamental right of individuals to make private healthcare decisions. Under the guise of “equal protection for the unborn,” Texas Republicans are further entrenching state control over reproductive choices, with devastating consequences for women, families, and healthcare providers across the state.

By redefining life as beginning at fertilization, this bill criminalizes abortion at all stages and threatens access to commonly used contraceptives and fertility treatments like IVF.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 2/1/2025 at 8:53 PM, Horn Dog said:

As posted in the hotwheels thread…what’s the plan?  Texas imports from Canada are predominantly oil and energy products used by the refineries.  How is Abbott gonna hurt Canada with his “huge economy”?  By not importing oil to refine??  Thats like threatening to punch yourself in the nuts if you don’t get your way.

Note: I haven't read, or posted on this thread before. I only posted here as a response to a linked post, and a few of the recent comments.

I agree. I general, economics are best served by refining Canadian oil in US refineries. That is a macro, default statement.

There may be a few refineries that are still dependant on sweeter and lighter grades of crude,and those light sweet crude oils cost considerably more than the heavier and sour crude oils.  

On 2/1/2025 at 9:14 PM, Horn Dog said:

My understanding (admittedly limited) is refineries are configured to refine oil from specific regions.  Those configured to refine Canadian crude can’t just start using oil from elsewhere and reconfiguring a refinery is expensive and time consuming.  So I guess Abbotts plan is to just mothballl those refineries to appease his orange daddy.

IMG_3430.gif.cd32b58d9c356a00d0c6edf8f8305e8b.gif

Refineries are designed for a particular slate of oil, not necessarily from a specific region.

Most US refineries were designed to refine crude oil from ... wait for it... the US. The declines in US production in the ~ 80's precipitated a refining industry shift towards refining heavier and more sour grades of crude from Canada, Mexico, and South America.

That does not mean they cannot refine other grades of crude oil. The  issues become (i) how much is overall capacity reduced by refining a non-preferred grade of crude, i.e., is the refinery capacity reduced from 200,000 bbl/day to 180,000 bbl/day because of the change in feedstocks, and (ii) how much is the production of the money products (gasoline, diesel, transportation fuels) decreased, and replaced by increases of the "other" products, lubricants, solvents, sulfur, asphalt, etc.  

On 2/1/2025 at 9:21 PM, bolverk said:

I guess we didn't need their precious fucking Keystone pipeline so badly after all.

Nope. Just pay more for gasoline. No biggie.

Preferred transportation options:

Pipelines

(big gap)

Ships, Rail cars, trucks, 5 gallon cans.

It is a matter of cost, and safety. Pipelines are cheaper, and safer.  Anything else results in higher costs to end users, and an increased risk of accidents due to introducing more people into the equation. 

Crude oil and petroleum products are preferentially shipped by pipelines, until you reach the end of the pipeline. 

 

On 2/2/2025 at 1:40 AM, tx 3 putt said:

canadian oil is heavy and dirty 

Heavy v. Light is indicative of the viscosity and weight of the oil, where sweet v. sour is indicative of the sulfur compounds in the oil.

All oil is dirty, even the Pennzoil 10W-30 out of the can. 

The Canadian tar sands oil/bitumen is both heavy and sour.

On 2/3/2025 at 9:00 AM, Dnaguy said:

 

 

I’ve been out of the oil / petrochemical game for a while but this is what I at least think I know about the subject. (Please surly Petro bosses correct what I get wrong)

Canada’s main ‘crude oil’ is bitumen. Bitumen is like asphalt or tar and in Canada more or less solid. Hence tar sands. You don’t drill for it, You open pit mine it. It’s designated an extra heavy crude.

Venezuela also has extra heavy crude as well. It’s pretty damn close to bitumen and at least a super close cousin to it.

So in Texas there were a lot of refineries set up for Venezuelan crude. We used to be super tight with them before Chavez. So that Citgo shit came here. Then when Venezuela turned, it was about the time Canada turned in the spigot of tar sand oil. 
Boom! We could replace the lost oil with an analog.

But without Venezuelan oil or Canadian tar sands, the need / economics of heavy crude refineries is pretty nil 

The stuff coming out of the eagle ford or Permian is light crude which you don’t send to a heavy crude refinery. It would require a lot of retrofitting / mods. Which probably isn’t economically feasible. Better to just send it to another refinery build for light crude and add capacity there.

So if this thing really comes to pass, you’ll likely see closures in gulf coast refineries due to lack of raw material and reverberations in the supply chain as C4 monomers and product streams dry up even more than they already have (a lot more C2’s and c3’s now due to crackers coming online and the lighter feed sticks from fracking since the 2010’s)

This will have a significant effect on the petrochemical industry and downstream petrochemical market IMO.

 

The US refines heavier crude oil from Canada & Mexico and exports the lighter, sweet crude oil produced in the Permian (Delaware & Midland Basins).

More refineries are shutting down every year. I believe the last grassroots refinery built in the US went online in the 70's.

I cannot see politics and ignorance getting to the point that refinery retrofits are feasible. Those are 30-50 year decisions, unlike presidential elections. 

Canadian oil feeds US refineries, which satisfies the US needs, as well as a significant export volume to Europe. The oil from the shale boom is not a good fit for US refineries. Any changes to the status quo means higher gasoline and diesel prices. Shutting down US refineries over tariffs is a very low probability.

"C4 monomers and product streams dry up even more than they already have..." No idea what you are trying to say with C4 monomers and C2's and C3's.  Correlating box cars to telephones and rocks?

Processing Natural Gas, not crude oil refineries, yields the feedstocks for petrochemical plants, and the blending stocks for motor gasoline.  Refineries make propane and butane, but much, much smaller quantities than come from the gas processing plants.

The higher crude oil production from the various shale plays has seen a proportional increase in produced gas volumes, but those gas volumes are much higher because the gas/oil ratios are much higher from the shale production than from conventional wells. This boom in gas volumes and had a corresponding boom in the production of Natural Gas Liquids (NGL), Ethane (C2) for the Pet-Chem plants to make plastics, Propane (C3) for the Pet-Chems and for rural heating, and the heavier NGL's (iC4, nC4, and C5+) for motor gasoline blending stocks, and for the Pet-Chem's.  All of these NGL satisfy US demand, with the surplus going to the export market.

On 2/3/2025 at 9:18 AM, bolverk said:

Last week, I read an article about refining in the Midwest (yes, apparently, there are refineries up there), which stated that Midwestern refineries are almost entirely dependent on Canadian oil. So, I imagine those will also feel the pain, if not worse.

Edit: I hope I'm not stepping on any toes, but I believe that @Schulz2.0 works at one in Denver. What say you?

On 2/3/2025 at 11:02 AM, Schulz2.0 said:

Yes, the company is work for is Canadian. They make a ton of money off open pit mining tar sands, processing it to the point it can go into pipelines, and send it to the US to get processed by refineries. I'm not an engineer or have anything to do with crude blends, but it'll increase the costs for refineries to get heavier, sour crude they need. That's particularly true for Midwest refineries. They still blend heavier crude with lighter crude, depending on their refinery specs and what products they want to produce. @PTINS might have more knowledge.

A lot of US NGL (the C5+ fraction of natural gas liquids) goes to Canada, to be used as the diluent to blend with the tar sands oil to make is "light" enough to flow through a pipeline. 

The Canadian tar sand oil does not flow to the US without the US produced diluent that is "exported" to Canada. US Policies (Yes to Tariffs, No to Pipeline) = stupidity. 

I expect at some point a degree of reasonableness will make its way to the White House/Energy department and this will; get a lot of fanfare without much actually changing.

Glad I'm retired so I don't have to worry about this shit anymore.

  • Hook 'Em 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 2/4/2025 at 11:22 AM, pyrohornIII said:

From the article, pretty much yeah, or at least make it a dicey thing to do legally.

 

 

Makes zero sense. An embryo or zygote may have full rights, but that does not include the right to be inside a woman’s uterus. That is her choice because it’s her uterus. That goes for those fertilized outside and inside of an embryo.  
 

we should all have the right to remove any foreign body from inside us. 

  • Hook 'Em 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Makes zero sense. An embryo or zygote may have full rights, but that does not include the right to be inside a woman’s uterus. That is her choice because it’s her uterus. That goes for those fertilized outside and inside of an embryo.  
 
we should all have the right to remove any foreign body from inside us. 

If that bill were to pass, it would not only shut down IVF to future couples who need it, but it could create some significant legal problems for people who have already used it.

Destroying an embryo would be considered murder. Suppose you’ve already been through IVF and you have unused embryos that are still frozen. What if you don’t have plans to use them? They will force implantation of all embryos or donate to another couple? What if the mother dies and only the father is left alive with embryos that he cannot biologically carry? Would he be legally required to find a surrogate mother?

I guess you could say this is too radical to actually ever happen but look around at the radical shit happening lately.

If I hypothetically had frozen embryos right now, perhaps I would hypothetically consider transferring them to another state, but Ken Paxton has previously indicated he would go after Texan women who leave the state for an abortion, so why should this be any different?
Link to comment
Share on other sites



×
×
  • Create New...