The Beaver County Shell Ethane Cracker alone needs up to 1000 new fracking wells annually to generate feedstock for plastic production. The cracker will produce climate change pollution equal to 433,000 new cars on the road yearly.
The tri-state area, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia, have hundreds of thousands of oil and gas wells leaking methane (a greenhouse gas on steroids that is 87 times more potent of a greenhouse gas than CO2) gas refining and processing makes the Ohio River Valley one of the largest sources of methane emissions in the county.
All of this fracking, refining, and plastic production has locked the Ohio River Valley into dependence on fossil fuels and catastrophic climate change.
The oil and gas industry is counting on the need for petrochemicals and plastics to ensure profits as governments implement climate change action and the world shifts to renewable energy like wind and solar.