Coke Mountain, Detroit

[Detroit68]

Not that kind of coke....petroleum coke...from Alberta oil sands...piling up along the river front. Apparently the Canadians aren't too happy with the view. This is the most popular article trending on NYTimes this morning:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/18/bu...anted=all&_r=0

[d'oh]

The Koch bros. are sick f#cks, the sickest ever.. They need to be stopped somehow..

[Bham1982]

Couldn't that coke pile be leaking into the Detroit River, and therefore affecting the Great Lakes? How can this be legal?

[Wesley Mouch]

Once, we celebrated industry. Then we thought 'financial services' were better. We'll see how environmental disinvestment in the North America does while the world creates new Universities to solve these problems instead of being scared of industiry.

Hidden in the article under pounds of BS about how bad it is that this is being 'dumped' here:

There is also strong demand from India and Latin America for American petroleum coke, where it mainly fuels cement-making kilns.

After you peel away the layers of BS here, you might be able to see that Detroit has received millions of dollars of investment by Marathon to reduce our use of overseas oil. Detroiters have jobs making this stuff that India and Latin America want. Americans [[and Canadians I presume) have jobs moving it around on freighters in the St. Lawrence seaway.

“Most of the Canadian oil earmarked for the U.S. Gulf Coast is to replace declining heavy oil imports from Mexico and Venezuela that produces the same amount of petcoke, so it doesn’t create a new issue,” he wrote in an e-mail.

No new enironmental issues here. No statement in article that anything is environmentally irresponsible. Only quotes of radicals who hate all oil production anywhere. No mention of Marathon's massive investment in Detroit.

Marathon Petroleum’s plant in Detroit processes 28,000 barrels a day of the oil sands bitumen.

Shout for joy. Jobs for Detroiters. This isn't a magic process that Mr. and Mr. Koch are doing by themselves. This is hundreds or thousands of workers moving the lifeblood of America and Canada through our city.

I want industry in the US. I want industry in Detroit. I want jobs in Detroit. And I want responsible environmental management of industry.

The only way to an environmentally sound future is not by doing nothing. Its by doing things right. Let's lead the way in Detroit. Let's show China and India how you can create electricity and steel and do it with minimal environmental impact. Let's create new ways -- not just be against industrial progress.

[Bham1982]

Once, we celebrated industry. Then we thought 'financial services' were better. We'll see how environmental disinvestment in the North America does while the world creates new Universities to solve these problems instead of being scared of industiry.

No one is scared of industry. This has nothing to do with industry. It's horrible pollution leeching onto our waterways, and, no, there aren't substantial economic or jobs benefits. And, no, we shouldn't follow China's "lead" and poison our air, water, and food. China is an environmental catastrophe, and anyone with money is looking to get out.

[Wesley Mouch]

Couldn't that coke pile be leaking into the Detroit River, and therefore affecting the Great Lakes? How can this be legal?

Read this article from the ultra-liberal CBC: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/windso...r-windsor.html

Says that its about as dangerous as a pile of dirt.

[Wesley Mouch]

No one is scared of industry. This has nothing to do with industry. It's horrible pollution leeching onto our waterways, and, no, there aren't substantial economic or jobs benefits. And, no, we shouldn't follow China's "lead" and poison our air, water, and food. China is an environmental catastrophe, and anyone with money is looking to get out.

'horrible pollution leeching': Where do you get this from?

Agreed, we should NOT follow China's lead. We should instead lead China by proper stewardship of our resources, industry, and environment.

[JBMcB]

It's about as dangerous as a big pile of charcoal. If the whole thing dumped into the river it might effect the pH of lake Eerie by a hundredth of a percent.

[MikeM]

You know where it's going from here? Canada. Every shipload so far has been taken to Nova Scotia. Most of it ends up on a coal shipping dock [[in uncovered piles) in Sydney, N.S. From there it will probably be shipped to other countries around the world. Some of it has also been shipped to a power plant in Nova Scotia to be burned as fuel.

[renf]

Within the last three months, there were reports that DTE would burn the pet coke instead of coal at one of there downriver plants.

Perhaps, more than anything else Detroit and Michigan need more jobs. Manufacturing jobs are extremely important. But there have been tremendous
improvements in labor productivity so there will be, at best, a very slow growth of manufacturing jobs. Marathon invested 2.1 billion or more to modernize their refinery in southwest Detroit. Their own press reports suggested that investment would add no more than 145 new jobs. Right now, the medical
sector is the major job creator.

[rex]

coke mountain... the answer to Detroits financial struggles

[Richard]

coke mountain... the answer to Detroits financial struggles

You can mix it with concrete at 70% and it sets at 1000 psi per day, if you are pouring multiple floors of a building you can pour a floor a day which saves a bunch of money in time and material costs.

You have lots road work and tracks to lay why not save millions by useing a by product instead of resources not to mention safer to the installers .

When mixed with concrete it also becomes a sound deadner and can be used for acoustics.

Maybe not a jobs answer but can really play a part on cost savings in building a future.

[Richard]

Within the last three months, there were reports that DTE would burn the pet coke instead of coal at one of there downriver plants.

Perhaps, more than anything else Detroit and Michigan need more jobs. Manufacturing jobs are extremely important. But there have been tremendous
improvements in labor productivity so there will be, at best, a very slow growth of manufacturing jobs. Marathon invested 2.1 billion or more to modernize their refinery in southwest Detroit. Their own press reports suggested that investment would add no more than 145 new jobs. Right now, the medical
sector is the major job creator.

The manufacturing jobs are there just not the skilled labor,the adverage age of a skilled machinist is 58 , cad operators are even more in demand and can make upwards of 70k a year.Can a nurse make that?

The only delay in bringing back manufacturing jobs is the labor force not by saying it is never coming back.

[steve from virginia]

Good grief, it's a pile of garbage only it's black, it has little energy content, it's simply waste.

Why not dump it in the middle of town? Pay people to dump it, pay others to clean it up.

Marathon needs to send its waste back to Canada.

Notice waste isn't being dumped in Los Angeles or New York City, although there are certainly some in those places who would rationalize it.

[nain rouge]

The manufacturing jobs are there just not the skilled labor,the adverage age of a skilled machinist is 58 , cad operators are even more in demand and can make upwards of 70k a year.Can a nurse make that?

Oh, please. A CAD operator is like the equivalent of a computer programmer, which is hardly a traditional skilled industrial job. And I know some machinists, and it's not that good of a field to get into. The jobs are slowly being eliminated and you have to constantly watch your back, plus the pay generally isn't even that great for what you're doing. If you're not going to give people job security and good pay, then why would you expect the next generation to aspire to such positions? Until industrial corporations make a true commitment to this country and the welfare of workers, there's no point in whoring yourself out for whatever scraps they'll toss our way.

[Richard]

Oh, please. A CAD operator is like the equivalent of a computer programmer, which is hardly a traditional skilled industrial job. And I know some machinists, and it's not that good of a field to get into. The jobs are slowly being eliminated and you have to constantly watch your back, plus the pay generally isn't even that great for what you're doing. If you're not going to give people job security and good pay, then why would you expect the next generation to aspire to such positions? Until industrial corporations make a true commitment to this country and the welfare of workers, there's no point in whoring yourself out for whatever scraps they'll toss our way.[/COLOR]

My bad I forgot about the part of these are the days where unskilled labor commands $100 per hour in a 3 day work week but paid for 5 with two hour lunch breaks .

Funny how tens of thousands in the south make a very livable wage doing those jobs and do not consider themselves whoring.

Before you get into the low standard of living of the south remember the difference between an assembly line worker in Birmingham Ala. verses Detroit is $65 per year down to the cost of a roll of toilet paper.

Of course there is always food stamps and section eight and free phones.Maybe it is all in ones attitude .

[nain rouge]

What exaggerations. Believe me, I've been around, and Metro Detroiters will take low-paying jobs. While some people like to believe there is a conspiracy among the poor to "cheat the system", the reality is that it's only a small minority that really does or wants to live that way.

[RaumVogel]

This is the solution.We need to rebuild the infrastructure in this country. Why not use this material for that purpose. We will use it in a less environmentally threatening way than China will.

You can mix it with concrete at 70% and it sets at 1000 psi per day, if you are pouring multiple floors of a building you can pour a floor a day which saves a bunch of money in time and material costs.

You have lots road work and tracks to lay why not save millions by useing a by product instead of resources not to mention safer to the installers .

When mixed with concrete it also becomes a sound deadner and can be used for acoustics.

Maybe not a jobs answer but can really play a part on cost savings in building a future.

[Wesley Mouch]

...snip... Until industrial corporations make a true commitment to this country and the welfare of workers, there's no point in whoring yourself out for whatever scraps they'll toss our way.

Rhetorical scraps aside, and with a large dose of generalization, I agree here. America's corporations have lost touch with their workers, and they are losing touch with their customers as well. They are hurting themselves and us in the pursuit of profits over all else. I defend their right to do so -- in the hopes that more enlightened companies kick their asses, but Corporate America is screwed up.

[steve from virginia]

Marathon is dumping its waste in Detroit, it is not creating jobs.

The company is making a bunch of excuses/telling a bunch of lies why it cannot ship its wastes back to the source. The real reason is it would cost Kochs and Co some money. The Koch empire is well connected, the brothers act with impunity, there is nobody in or out of the government that is willing to stand up to them because they buy- and own politicians and are 'media savvy'.

Petro coke can be used as a building material but so can nuclear waste. Coke can be mixed with concrete but how many people are using concrete in 2013? Is there a need for more buildings in Detroit to abandon?

Here is a city filled with tens of thousands of vacant, ruined buildings and there is a call for more, ones made out of toxic trash?

Wake up: the 'Glory Days' of the 1950s with doowop bands and tailfins are never coming back, ever. EVER. Santa Claus is NOT going to come down the chimney ... with some industry ... that is going to take the City of Detroit by the hand and lift it up to the Promised Land. Such industries do not exist, they cannot exist, the resources to support them ... do not exist, they have been burned up for nothing, they are gone, Baby gone.

Evidence is the gigantic pile of black trash: it is what the bottom of the energy barrel looks like, we're scraping it.

The only future for Detroit -- and the rest of the cities, by the way -- is struggle and hardship, toil and pain. Detroit right now ... is the entire world's future ... New York's, Los Angeles', Shanghai's. That future is going to demand the best and the most from every one -- courage, patience, endurance, fortitude and self-sacrifice. There is no turning back, there are less resources, less easy money ... not enough to spackle over problems as has been the way of business and life in the modern world over the past 60 years. When these things are gone there won't be the subsidies that have been keeping everyone's pet industries afloat ... including Marathon ... and the concrete industry and the auto industry and the airplane industry and oil industry and all the rest of them.

Burning coke is highly polluting, worse than coal. Does it need to be burned? Aren't there enough developmentally disabled children in Detroit already? Does the city need more of them running wild in the streets? Why not burn all of Canada's coke in Detroit, there can be more jobs chasing down crazy homicidal teenagers and burying their victims. Why not sell the teenagers machine guns? that would also be good for someone's stinking ... 'business', would create some more stinking 'jobs'.

Best thing to do with the pile of coke is to put a couple of trailers on top of it and compel the two Koch brothers and their families to live right there on top of the pile 24/7 -- with armed guards if necessary -- until the pile is taken away.

Otherwise, the city should suspend Marathon's business license and shut them down ... until the pile is gone. You would be amazed how fast people can get things done when they are properly motivated.

[EastsideAl]

The solution to all of our problems... going back to the days of coal burning, only worse...

Goes so well with going back to the good ol' days of no wage and hours laws and no occupational health and safety rules.

[EastsideAl]

Read this article from the ultra-liberal CBC: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/windso...r-windsor.html

Says that its about as dangerous as a pile of dirt.

You do realize that that the "ultra-liberal" CBC is owned by the Canadian government, who have a significant vested interest here.

[Wesley Mouch]

You do realize that that the "ultra-liberal" CBC is owned by the Canadian government, who have a significant vested interest here.

Yes, they are 'owned' by the government. They are in no way a mouthpiece for the conservative Harper government. Harper and company rightly hate the CBC. The feeling is mutual.

[Wesley Mouch]

This is the solution.We need to rebuild the infrastructure in this country. Why not use this material for that purpose. We will use it in a less environmentally threatening way than China will.

Much like the argument for 'ethical oil'. Is it better to extract tarsands from Alberta with Union labor under strong environmental standards? Or is it better to buy oil from the MidEast and feed Wahabbi fundamentalism, nuclear Iran, and obscene wars like Iraq.

[Bham1982]

Much like the argument for 'ethical oil'. Is it better to extract tarsands from Alberta with Union labor under strong environmental standards? Or is it better to buy oil from the MidEast and feed Wahabbi fundamentalism, nuclear Iran, and obscene wars like Iraq.

Are those our only choices? I'd say there's a third way.