Megan Hall: Welcome to Possibly, where we take on huge problems like the future of our planet and break them down into small questions with unexpected answers. I’m Megan Hall.
Today, we’ve got another episode in our running series on plastics. You probably already know that plastic causes issues when we’re done with it, littering beaches, roadsides, and even our own bodies. But its origin story is just as problematic — and the fossil fuel industry plays a big part in it.
We had Janek Schaller and Leo Nachamie from the Possibly team look into this.
Janek Schaller: Hi, Megan!
Leo Nachamie: Hello!
Megan Hall: So how are oil and gas connected to plastics?
Janek Schaller: We spoke with Professor Sherri Mason to find out. She teaches at Gannon University in Erie, Pennsylvania.
Sherri Mason: I moved here in summer of 2018, and as I was moving here, everybody was talking to me about, “What about the Shell plant?”
Janek Schaller: Sherri is talking about the Beaver County Shell Petrochemical Facility. It’s just north of Pittsburgh. She saw it for the first time when she was driving south from Erie.
Sherri Mason: I came over this horizon and this, like, whole city kind of rose out in front of me …
Leo Nachamie: The 14 billion-dollar Beaver County facility opened in 2022. And the state of Pennsylvania was thrilled. They’d offered Shell more than a billion dollars in tax breaks to bring the project to their state.
Megan Hall: Whoa! What does this factory do?
Janek Schaller: It makes tiny little plastic pellets, known as nurdles.
Sherri Mason: These little three millimeter balls of plastic…they like clear white lentils.
Janek Schaller: Those lentils are the building blocks that make up every single plastic product you can think of — everything from plastic bottles to packaging.
Megan Hall: So, why did Shell and the state put so much money into a factory that makes plastic pellets?
Leo Nachamie: Sherri says fossil fuel companies are still marketing oil and gas as fuel sources, but as the country shifts toward renewable energy, the industry is relying on plastics as a backup plan. And Pennsylvania is the perfect place for this project.
Megan Hall: Why?
Janek Schaller: This is where we get back to the connection between oil and gas and plastics. Pennsylvania produces a lot more energy than it needs, mostly because it harvests natural gas from fracking…
Megan Hall: That’s where companies shoot water deep into the ground to release methane from rock formations… right?
Janek Schaller: Exactly. Here’s the thing: about half of all of the fracking going on in Pennsylvania is targeting younger rock formations.
Leo Nachamie: When you frack younger rock, the fuel that you get has more ethane and propane in it than the fuel from older reserves.
Megan Hall: And why’s that a big deal?
Leo Nachamie: Sherri says ethane and propane aren’t the best ingredients for making fuels like gasoline — they actually serve a different purpose.
Sherri Mason: Because of the mixture of what’s coming out in this gas, this is considered better to be used as a starting material for making plastics.
Megan Hall: Oh! I’m beginning to see the connection here. And they’re using that starting material at the plant in Pennsylvania?
Janek Schaller: Yep, remember, that’s what the Beaver County plant does.
Sherri Mason: It’s called a cracker plant, and not crackers like you eat, but to crack a molecule.
Leo Nachamie: The plant starts with ethane and cracks it into polyethylene, which is what those nurdles we talked about earlier are made out of.
Sherri Mason: Ethane to ethene to polyethylene, is the process that that whole facility is aimed to do. That’s all it does.
Janek Schaller: And the use of oil for plastics is only expected to grow. The International Energy Agency predicts that plastics will account for nearly half of the increase in demand for oil over the next two decades.
Leo Nachamie: That’s a larger share than the predicted demand from trucks, aviation, and shipping.
Janek Schaller: But still, Sherri says most people have no idea about the link between oil and plastics.
Sherri Mason: If you saw that plastic bottle is being connected to an oil rig, you’d be like, ‘Ew, I don’t want to put my mouth on that!’”
Leo Nachamie: Even if the jury is still out on just how harmful plastics are when they get into our bodies, researchers like Sherri say we still need to pay attention to where these products come from.
Megan Hall: Got it! Thanks, Janek and Leo.
That’s it for today. You can find more information, or ask a question about the way your choices affect our planet, at ask possibly dot org. You can also subscribe to Possibly wherever you get your podcasts or follow us on social media at “ask possibly”
Possibly is a co-production of Brown University’s Institute for Environment and Society, Brown’s Climate Solutions Initiative, Ocean State Media and WBRU.
