Redefining Efficiency

S. Gorman Hugh

Description

Today, pollution control regulations define how complex technological systems interact with natural ecosystems and competing human uses of the environment. Redefining Efficiency examines the evolution of this industrial ecology in the United States by tracing numerous pollution concerns associated with the production, transportation, and refining of petroleum over the course of the twentieth century. In doing so, this book demonstrates that a pollution control ethic based on the efficient use of resources emerged early in the century and met with enough success to undermine the first calls for strict government-enforced regulations. Redefining Efficiency also chronicles the failure of this efficiency-based pollution control ethic and its replacement by another. This second ethic required society first to define its environmental objectives and then to institute policies to achieve those objectives. The resulting regulations, by restructuring the economics of pollution control, have since redefined the notion of industrial efficiency.

Sujets

• Droit et juridique

Informations

• Publié par: University of Akron Press
• Date de parution: 01 septembre 2001
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781935603290
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

REDEFINING EFFICIENCY
Series on Technology and the Environment
Jeffrey Stine, Mixing the Waters: Environment, Politics, and the Building of the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway
James Rodger Fleming and Henry A. Gemery, eds., Science, Technology, and the Environment: Multidisciplinary Perspectives
Joel A. Tarr, The Search for the Ultimate Sink: Urban Pollution in Historical Perspective
James C. Williams, Energy and the Making of Modern California
Dale H. Porter, The Thames Embankment: Environment, Technology, and Society in Victorian London
William McGucken, Lake Erie Rehabilitated: Controlling Cultural Eutrophication, 1960s-1990s
Hugh S. Gorman, Redefining Efficiency: Pollution Concerns, Regulatory Mechanisms, and Technological Change in the U.S. Petroleum Industry


TECHNOLOGY AND THE ENVIRONMENT
JEFFREY STINE AND JOEL TARR SERIES EDITORS
HUGH S. GORMAN
REDEFINING EFFICIENCY
POLLUTION CONCERNS, REGULATORY MECHANISMS, AND TECHNOLOGICAL CHANGE IN THE U.S. PETROLEUM INDUSTRY
THE UNIVERSITY OF AKRON PRESS AKRON, OHIO
Copyright 2001 by Hugh S. Gorman
All rights reserved
All inquiries and permissions requests should be addressed to the publisher,
The University of Akron Press, Akron, OH 44325-1703
Manufactured in the United States of America
First edition 2001
04 03 01 5 4 3 2 1
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Gorman, Hugh S. (Hugh Scott), 1957-
Redefining efficiency : pollution concerns, regulatory mechanisms, and technonological change in the U.S. petroleum industry / Hugh S. Gorman.-1st ed.
p. cm. - (Technology and the environment)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 1-884836-74-7 (hardcover) - ISBN 1-884836-75-5(pbk.)
1. Petrolueum industry and trade-Environmental aspects-United States. 2. Industrial efficiency-United States. 3. Environmental protection-United States-History. 4. Pollution-Law and legislation-United States. I. title. II. Technology and the environment (Akron, Ohio)
TD195.P4 G67 2001
363.73 5765-dc21
2001002140
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANCY Z 39.48-1984.
To my father
Contents
List of Figures
List of Tables
Preface

Introduction
PART I. EARLY POLLUTION CONCERENS AND THE DIRECTION OF TECHNOLOGICAL CHANGE
1. Pollution Concerns Articulated
2. Concerns in the Oil Fields
3. Keeping Oil in the Pipelines
4. Refineries, Pollution Concerns, and Technological Change
5. What to Do with Tankers?
PART II. FIGHTING POLLUTION UNDER AN EFFICIENCY ETHIC
6. Validating a Guiding Ethic
7. Success and Failure in the Oil Fields
8. Eliminating Corrosion and Monitoring Flows
9. Creating a Pollution Control Manual
10. The Ocean Ignored As Tankers Grow
PART III. REGULATING INDUSTRIAL ACTIVITY TO MAINTAIN ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY
11. Crude Awakening
12. Redefining Efficiency
13. Environmental Objectives and the Evolution of Tankers
14. Closing the Loop
Conclusion

Notes
Bibliography
List of Figures
1.1. View of the Schuylkill River near Refinery, 1917
2.1. Petroleum Deposit in a Brine-Saturated Porous Formation
2.2. Development in an Early Oil Field
2.3. Earthen Storage of Oil
2.4. Rotary Drilling
2.5. Changing a Cutting Bit
2.6. Indiscriminate Discharge of Fluids
3.1. Pipeline Gang
3.2. Encasing Pipeline in Asphalt
3.3. Lease Tanks
3.4. Storage Tank with Floating Roof
4.1. Early Refinery, 1897
4.2. Basic Hydrocarbons
4.3. Innovation Leading to Continuous Distillation
4.4. Refinery, 1925
4.5. Swimmers near Refinery, Circa 1915
5.1. Cross section of the Gluckauf
5.2. Oil-Loading Dock, 1919
6.1. Wild Mary, 1930
6.2. Orderly Development in the Conroe Field
7.1. Brine-Damaged Stream in East Texas
7.2. Cross Section of East Texas Field
7.3. Brine Collection
7.4. Effects of Poorly Plugged Abandoned Wells
8.1. Pile of Corroded Pipes
8.2. Preventing Corrosion by Grounding Pipes
8.3. Specialized Pipe-Coating Equipment
8.4. Pipeline Pig
9.1. Older Refinery, 1939
9.2. Unsewered Tank Farm, Early 1940s
9.3. Wartime Refinery Expansion
9.4. Refinery Controls, Late 1940s
9.5. Refinery Valves
10.1. Early Offshore Drilling near Santa Barbara
10.2. Fixed Offshore Platform, 1950
11.1. Santa Barbara Cleanup, 1969
List of Tables
2.1. Pollution- and Waste-Related Concerns, Production Sector
3.1. Pollution- and Waste-Related Concerns, Pipeline Sector
4.1. Largest Refineries in the United States, 1915
4.2. Content of Various Crudes
4.3. Pollution- and Waste-Related Concerns, Refining Sector
4.4. Major Oil Pollution Bills, 68th Congress
4.5. Pollution Violations Issued, New York Harbor, 1919-22
5.1. Pollution- and Waste-Related Concerns, Oil Tankers
7.1. Disposal Practices, Richland Field, 1925
9.1. Major Refineries in the United States, 1927 and 1950
11.1. Sulfur Dioxide Emissions, 1966
11.2. Typical Designations for Various Size Tankers
12.1. Meritorious Awards Program for Environmental Innovation, 1971
13.1. Oil Entering the Sea, 1971
13.2. Largest Tanker Spills
13.3. Oil Spill Performance of Various Tanker Designs
Preface
How has industry s response to pollution concerns changed over the course of the twentieth century? It is an important question to ask if we are to get beyond the stereotype of industrial firms being negligent in the years before systematic regulation and resistant in the years after. Although there is some truth to this characterization, it is just the skeleton of a much richer story. Putting a body of evidence on this skeleton not only brings that story to life but also provides new insights into the interaction of pollution concerns, regulatory mechanisms, and technological changes.
Here, I trace the response of a single industry, the U.S. petroleum industry, to pollution-related concerns over the course of the twentieth century. Few other industries can serve as a better window through which to view the changes that have occurred. Indeed, as Daniel Yergin has made clear in The Prize , petroleum flows through the veins of industrial society and the history of the twentieth century is intimately intertwined with efforts to control that flow. Yergin, of course, was interested in global politics, not pollution. But one can also use the petroleum industry to examine the history of pollution control.
In tracing pollution-related concerns associated with the extraction, transportation, and refining of petroleum, I asked the following questions:

What petroleum-related pollution concerns did people articulate at the beginning of the twentieth century and how did those concerns change over time?
How did decision makers in the petroleum industry respond to early pollution concerns in terms of legal arguments, changes in industrial practice, and technological innovation? How did general patterns associated with their responses change over time?
Over the course of the twentieth century, what technological and regulatory changes have influenced industry s response to pollution concerns?
The petroleum industry, of course, is not a monolithic actor. It consists of many different firms and organizations performing a variety of activities, each involving different technological, economic, legal, political, and social constraints. Still, in answering such questions, a coherent story emerges. What takes shape is not a simple story of enforcement and compliance but a process of debate, challenge, and discovery, resulting in the development of an industrial ecology that would have been unimaginable at the beginning of the twentieth century.
The historical record available to address these questions is scattered but voluminous. Numerous secondary sources exist. Many insightful and exhaustive histories of the petroleum industry, individual oil companies, and industry leaders have been written, as have histories of the various industry sectors, oil-producing and oil-refining regions, and petroleum-related technologies. The industry s regulatory history-especially in regard to production rules, tariffs and quotas, and pricing regulations-is also well documented. Although these books do not focus on pollution-related issues, many make some reference to such issues. Government documents and government-sponsored reports that address petroleum-related pollution concerns also abound, usually related to one of the many controversies in which the industry has found itself embroiled over the course of a century. Petroleum-related treatises, textbooks, and trade magazines also mention pollution concerns and provide additional insight into changing public concerns and industry s response to those concerns.
The publicly accessible archival record is also interesting and informative. The corporate records of the Sun Oil Company, housed at the Hagley Museum and Library in Delaware, provide as complete a picture of an oil company as one could hope for. Furthermore, the private papers of industry executives can be found in archives scattered around the United States. In many cases, their papers contain extensive correspondence, minutes, and reports associated with their businesses, their positions in industry-related organizations, and their roles on various industry committees. Presidential libraries and the archival records of government agencies such as the U.S. Bureau of Mines and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency also provide good access to relevant primary sources. Archived transcriptions of oral histories and various clipping files on petroleum-related environmental issues also proved useful. Finally, for insight into the details of the existing regulatory system, I examined the state-level wastewater and air emissions records of three refineries.
Funds for travel to the various archives have come from a variety of sources, including the National Science Foundation (NSF Gra