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August 20, 2024
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Official Newsletter of the Texas Chemistry Council and the Texas Chemistry Alliance.
| | From optimizing production processes to enhancing safety measures, artificial intelligence (AI) is revolutionizing the way companies operate – driving efficiency, reducing costs, and paving the way for innovative advancements. The petrochemical industry, a cornerstone of global manufacturing and energy production, is no stranger to the transformative evolution powered by AI. |
| | The month, we are featuring Scott McAlister, the innovative founder and owner of Coastal Ice & Water, where he’s turned a passion for chemistry into a thriving business that keeps Texas cool. As a dedicated member of the Texas Chemistry Alliance since 2013, Scott’s not just involved—he’s leading the charge, consistently engaging with industry events and sponsorships, and driving the future of the chemical industry in the Lone Star State. |
| | The DC Circuit Court backs the EPA on the HON Rule, denies the stay on the Methane Rule, and halts the challenge to the RMP Rule. Meanwhile, Texas and Louisiana step into the fight against the HON Rule, and the ACC takes on the TSCA Methylene Chloride Rule. TCC's Logan Harrell breaks down these critical legal and regulatory developments, with more insights and updates available in the full article. |
| | Texas Monthly set out to examine the factors that allow and encourage wastefulness. Chief among these is that while Texas law treats water in lakes and rivers as a public resource to protect, when that water trickles underground, it becomes the property of whoever owns the land above. The odd distinction stands as the result of a court decision issued 120 years ago, when Texas had one tenth as many residents and the technology to pump vast amounts from aquifers wasn’t nearly so advanced. |
| | Texas officials adopted their first-ever statewide flood plan Thursday, recommending $54.5 billion worth of strategies and studies to protect the 1 in 6 Texans who live or work in flood hazard areas. The delayed "Ike Dike," a series of gates, floodwalls and dunes proposed to protect the Houston-Galveston region from storm surge, ranked first on the state’s final list of flood mitigation projects. It also accounted for nearly half of the plan’s budget. |
| | The Texas A&M University System board of regents approved $15 million in funding to add the Texas A&M Coastal Bend Occupational Advanced Skills Training program to the five-story building's third floor. This "COAST" program is an expansion of the Texas A&M Engineering Extension Service's Rio Grande Valley Advanced Manufacturing Innovation Hub, located in Brownsville. Courses in manufacturing, cybersecurity, Occupational Health and Safety Administration, process improvement, robotics, pneumatics and hydraulics and electrical systems will be offered. |
| | Air Alliance Houston calls them the "Dirty Dozen" – the top 12 industrial air polluters and contributors to climate change in the Houston area. Houston is also known as the "Energy Capital of the World." Also, almost 50% of the nation's petrochemical capacity is produced along the Houston Ship Channel. While the industry is a major source of employment and benefits the economy, a new story by a local nonprofit claims they are polluting the air we breathe. |
| | Using federal data from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Toxic Release Inventory, or TRI, Environment America compiled a list of 141 U.S. facilities that create pre-production plastic, which often consists of nurdles usually no larger than a grain of rice. Familiar plastics, like bottles and containers, are created by melting and molding these tiny building blocks. Even before becoming a usable item, these microplastics can contribute to the plastic pollution crisis, as they are not regulated as pollution in the U.S. |
| | The challenge of the Environmental Protection Agency cancer risk assessment for ethylene oxide by a Texas petrochemical manufacturer, the American Chemistry Council and the Louisiana Chemical Association was rejected by the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. It ruled that EPA correctly rejected an alternative study by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality that found less cancer risk. |
| | The United States, one of the world's biggest plastic makers, will support a global treaty calling for a reduction in how much new plastic is produced each year in a major policy shift, a source close to U.S. negotiators told Reuters. The change away from its earlier calls to leave such decisions up to each country puts the U.S. in direct opposition to countries like Saudi Arabia and China. |
| | An industry organization is pushing back after the U.S. reportedly announced that it will support a global treaty calling for a reduction in how much new plastic is produced. Matt Seaholm, the president and CEO of the Plastics Industry Association, said the Biden-Harris administration's decision "turned its back" on residents whose livelihoods depend on the industry. The American Chemistry Council (ACC) said the shift signals that the Biden administration "caved" to the wishes of environmental groups. |
| | On July 19th, the White House announced that it is joining cities and states across the U.S. in taking action to reduce single-use plastics with a new strategy “Mobilizing federal action on plastic pollution: progress, principles, and priorities.” The multi-pronged strategy includes goals to phase out the federal procurement of single-use plastics from food operations, events and packaging by 2027, and from all federal operations by 2035. It also provides funding to initiatives to reduce plastic waste, provides platforms for further research and includes new rules to reduce air pollution from plastic producers. |
| | The Environmental Protection Agency July 24 took a step forward in its plan for detailed health reviews of vinyl chloride and four other chemicals used to make plastics, framing it as part of government efforts to reduce cancer risks. The decision is not entirely unexpected, after the agency in December put the chemicals on an initial list for study and possible limits. |
| | Many chemical facilities “have not fully recognized that the effective remote isolation of equipment is critical to quickly stopping releases of hazardous materials” and protecting workers, the Chemical Safety Board says. It’s a key takeaway of a recent CSB report that calls for improved remote isolation, which allows process equipment to be shut off from a safe distance. The report stems from CSB analysis of incidents involving a lack of such equipment, including a fatal explosion and fire in April 2019 at the KMCO production facility in Crosby, TX, and a November 2019 fire and explosion at the TPC Group chemical plant in Port Neches, TX. |
| | There’s about to be a new methane eye in the sky. SpaceX is scheduled to launch on Friday the Tanager-1 satellite. The nonprofit Carbon Mapper is behind the satellite and will make the data available once it’s operational in the coming months. Tanager-1 is the second methane-detecting satellite launched in the past six months by a nonprofit, reflecting the growing scrutiny around the potent greenhouse gas and the satellites’ low cost relative to others used for atmospheric monitoring. |
| | The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has announced $15 million in funding to address adoption challenges preventing later-stage commercialization, demonstration and deployment of industrial decarbonization technologies. Dubbed the Collaborative Alignment for Critical Technology Industries – Industrial Decarbonization Lab Call, the program aims to bring stakeholders together to address challenges that result when entities work on similar industrial decarbonization strategies in isolation, boosting collaboration and best practices alignment in three sectors: chemicals and refining, concrete and cement and metals. |
| | Several plastics reclaimers and recycled resin end users recently shared details about their operations in earnings calls. From capital project spending at ADS to chemical recycling expansions at LyondellBasell, here’s a roundup of recycling operations news. |
Top | | Dow and Freepoint Eco-Systems Supply & Trading LLC announced an agreement for an estimated 65,000 metric tons per year of certified-circular, plastic waste-derived pyrolysis oil to produce new, virgin-grade equivalent plastics in Dow's U.S. Gulf Coast operations. |
| | A midsummer price increase for polyethylene and polypropylene resins has surprised some buyers. North American prices for PE and PP resins each climbed an average of 5 cents per pound in July, according to buyers and market watchers contacted by Plastics News. PET bottle resin also bumped up by 1 cent. Supply concerns over brief outages caused by Hurricane Beryl, which hit the Houston area in early July, played a role in the price hikes. |
| | A South-Korean semiconductor chemical manufacturing company and Samsung supplier, Soulbrain, struck a deal with the city of Taylor to build a $575 million plant. On July 25, the city of Taylor and the Taylor Economic Development Corporation agreed to an initial minimum capital investment of $175 million on the plant, which will create a minimum of 50 jobs, according to a news release. |
| | Parasite-contaminated water from the Amazon rainforest’s Cumbaza River — then the village’s main source of drinking water — was sickening residents. A newly installed solar-powered system that supplies clean drinking water to the 300 or so households in San Roque has improved the health of residents. For this project, led by Water Mission, an engineering nonprofit, Chevron Phillips Chemical’s Performance Pipe division donated 3.7 miles of black high-density polyethylene (HDPE) pipe along with HDPE pipe fittings. |
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Upcoming Events
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August 29, 2024 | ABC - Southeast Texas Office Nederland, TX |
| September 5, 2024 | Pasadena Convention Center Pasadena, TX |
| September 12 - 14, 2024 | Pasadena Convention Center and Fairgrounds Pasadena, TX |
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