Beat Refineries Into Renewables
You’ve heard the old saying about beating swords into plows. Congressional candidate Jeremy Cloward proposes applying the same logic to the fossil fuel industry.
Cloward wants to put an end to the Shell Oil’s operations refining crude oil in Martinez, upstream from San Pablo Bay. Cloward’s campaign comments,
“The Shell Oil Refinery in Martinez has been refining crude oil since 1915. Today, refining crude oil products is 85% of the company’s business. With the United States and the world already moving past peak oil supplies it is time to retool the Shell Oil Refinery to produce alternative energy fuels. We support the reorganization and retooling of the Shell Oil Refinery to produce alternative energy fuels that are consistent with the new era before us.”
Refining crude oil since 1915? Americans are even using the same kind of telephone technology that we had back in the 1980s. Why should we be using the same energy sources we had 100 years ago?
One point I’d like to hear more details on from the Cloward campaign: What kind of alternative energy fuels would the refinery produce? Biofuels can burn relatively cleanly, but they result in carbon emissions just as high as gasoline.
