If you follow this blog you know that I spent that last two weeks in class at work, learning the care and feeding of large natural gas fueled engines that we use to move gas up the pipeline from down here where it’s produced to points east and north where it is needed. The subject matter was an interesting change from my normal scope of duties and the instructor was an expert on the subject and one darned good teacher.
One of the things I learned was that when these engines were designed, the EPA was some sort of bad dream only found in the diseased minds of abusers of heavy drugs. That was then. This is now. Students of engine operations know there is a certain proportion of fuel to air that produces maximum power. We can’t run many of our engines there. Why? Because we’re not interested in maximum power any more. We’re interested in minimum pollution, and that ‘maximum power’ thing give a higher level of oxides of nitrogen.
That’s okay, though. We learned how to operate there, and we tested our engines regularly to see that they met the goal, and if one was acting up and emissions went up, we dutifully took it off line and fixed it. Life loped along. So they changed the rules. Where we could hit a “twenty” on the spotted owl-killing scale, they dropped the number to five. Okay, you guys on the pipeline, tighten up your acts. So the engineers twiddled and tightened things even more. And goals were met. But the baby seals were still crying from their big, soulful eyes, so the number was changed again.
You know, it’s getting VERY hard to meet the numbers. And our people tell the rulemakers. And the rulemakers say “Meet the numbers or face fines.” And our people say, “We can’t meet these numbers. We’ll have to shut down horsepower.” And the rulemakers say “Meet the numbers.” And that’s where we’re heading.
The policy-makers apparently think that we’ll keep lights on and homes heated by means of windmills and unicorn farts. I’m telling you that we folk who work in a real world have real and immutable laws to work with, things like Ohm’s Law and Boyles’ Law, and these laws and others like them say that you can’t move gas from the well to the end user without horsepower. ”’there are other laws too, and those laws, despite the attitude of the current administration, say that when it gets to the point that it costs more to do a thing, then you stop doing it, and that’s where a lot of industries, mine included, are headed.
Right now the daily fine for operating outside the emissions numbers is $27,500 a day for each violating unit, for each day you can’t prove you were IN compliance. You can’t make money like that. We do our level best, but the industry sees what is coming down the line for us. All we have to do is LOOK at Kalifornica, and we know that Kalifornica basically exists ONLY because people in the states abutting the borders DON”T have the same rules as Kalifornica. And the present administration wants us ALL to be like Kalifornica.
I can tell you about measuring parts per BILLION components in engine exhaust for chemicals like formaldehyde, and the only cure for THAT right now it to put a catalytic converter in the exhaust. And these things cost MORE than the engine they’re installed on and are as big a a small house AND they don’t last forever. And who’s gonna pay for this? You. The government makes rules, and we ALL pay. It’s a hidden tax. They don’t call it a tax, but they make a rule and YOU pay.
And folks, my industry is just a little slice of the pie that is modern America. Somewhere along the line, we’re going to recognize that the caresses we feel on our shoulders are really a hand reaching for our throats.
What happens then may be terrible to behold.
