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| Elon Musk |
The next step for Space Exploration Technologies, Inc., Elon Musk's SpaceX, is what's called a P.E.A. or Preliminary Endangerment Assessment.
It appears that Musk has hidden or deliberately obscured what he actually intends to do at Boca Chica.
According to what SpaceX has submitted to the P.E.A., these are the physical additions Musk wants to make to the Starbase Compound:
SpaceX is proposing additional launch-related construction, including expanding the solar farm near the launch and landing control center, adding infrastructure and facilities at the VLA, parking lots, a liquid natural gas pretreatment system, a liquefier, a payload processing facility, and trenching and pull-offs along State Highway 4.
At the VLA, SpaceX is proposing to construct a redundant launch pad and Draft Programmatic Environmental Assessment for the SpaceX Starship/Super Heavy Launch Vehicle Program at the SpaceX Boca Chica Launch Site in Cameron County, Texas S-11 commodities, a redundant landing pad, two integration towers, tank structural test stands, a desalination plant, additional support buildings, and a power plant.
What Musk calls a liquid natural gas pretreatment system and liquifier is what is commonly called an LNG plant, but he uses somewhat coded language so as not to alarm.
What SpaceX does not mention in their P.E.A. submission is a pressurized gas pipeline.
Such an LNG plant and the 250 megawatt gas plant requires pressurized gas pipeline capable of moving 50 million cubic feet of natural gas per day.
According to ESG Hound, Elon Musk’s rocket company consulted with contractors and government employees about installing a new “Rocket Fuel” Pipeline..
The graphic below shows the area SpaceX inquired multiple times for the right-of-way for their needed pipeline:
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| Area SpaceX Inquired About Constructing Pressurized Gas Pipeline |
ESG Hound continues:
The existing 4 inch pipe in the ground was “permanently abandoned” in 2016 according to Texas RRC documents, meaning it can never be returned to service, per DOT rules.
A pipe that moves 50 million cubic feet per day would need to be pressurized and would be at minimum 10 inches in diameter.
That volume is roughly the amount of wet/field natural gas needed to power the proposed 250 MW power station.
I have confirmed SpaceX’s inquiries about a natural gas pipeline on this tract with multiple sources.
The pipeline is not mentioned once in the Programmatic Environmental Assessment released last month, which is all but certainly a cut and dry violation of NEPA.
The fact that they did not disclose this in a P.E.A., ESG Hound says, is a felony.
A desalination plant sounds harmless enough but the end result can lead to poisoning the water. The salts and minerals that are removed from the water must be disposed of. They are often dumped into nearby drainage systems. The problem is that the very components of salt water, when concentrated and returned to the water often alter the water chemistry to the point that it will no longer sustain life. Many of the minerals found in trace amounts in a sample of salt water are toxic when concentrated, as they are when they are removed from the water. Even the salt, in high enough concentrations will kill sea life. Where can Musk discharge his toxic soup? He can inject it into the ground where it becomes part of the water table, he can dump it on the tidal flats where it kills the huge expanses of alga that feeds the insects and invertebrates that, in turn, feed the hundreds of thousands of migrating birds that use those flats or they can pump it into South Bay and wipe out an important fish nursery. SpaceX wins but the rest of was lose.
ReplyDeleteThe richest man in the world taking from some of the poorest people in the country and our politicians are all for it. I guess those $200,000.00 grants courtesy of Elon Musk and SpaceX may have something to do with the lack of resistance by most elected officials to whatever Musk wants to do out there.
A desalination plant sounds harmless enough but the end result can lead to poisoning the water. The salts and minerals that are removed from the water must be disposed of. They are often dumped into nearby drainage systems. The problem is that the very components of salt water, when concentrated and returned to the water often alter the water chemistry to the point that it will no longer sustain life. Many of the minerals found in trace amounts in a sample of salt water are toxic when concentrated, as they are when they are removed from the water. Even the salt, in high enough concentrations will kill sea life. Where can Musk discharge his toxic soup? He can inject it into the ground where it becomes part of the water table, he can dump it on the tidal flats where it kills the huge expanses of alga that feeds the insects and invertebrates that, in turn, feed the hundreds of thousands of migrating birds that use those flats or they can pump it into South Bay and wipe out an important fish nursery. SpaceX wins but the rest of was lose.
ReplyDeleteThe richest man in the world taking from some of the poorest people in the country and our politicians are all for it. I guess those $200,000.00 grants courtesy of Elon Musk and SpaceX may have something to do with the lack of resistance by most elected officials to whatever Musk wants to do out there.
You describe ways to dispose of the salt to contaminate our environment. There's ways to dispose of the salt that does not harm the environment. If he doesn't dispose of it correctly he will have lawsuits and fines. You create problems that will not occur. You can have a desalinaton plant without contamination. It's already being done all over the world. You just seem to mention that it IS safe for the environment if done correctly.
ReplyDelete