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Drilling for Energy Answers in Texas Students take an inside peek at the energy industry in Houston, Texas

By Greg Andeck

Our Boeing 747 touched down at the George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston, Texas, on a Friday afternoon in October. I was one of 21 Nicholas School MEM students about to embark on a journey into the epicenter of the world’s energy industry as part of a special course, “Hydrocarbons:Production to Policy. ”We would spend the next four days touring oil refineries and chemical plants, peppering plant managers with questions about their operations and taking in the atmosphere of a state best known for big boots, big trucks and big attitude.

  What we learned was surprising. Many of us, said Drew Stuyvenberg, had preconceived notions of “filth-covered men emerging from smoke and fire, geysers of oil shooting hundreds of feet above the coastal plain, factories filled with pools of industrial effluent, or pipes discharging toxic runoff into streams teeming with mutated fish and dead birds.”

  But instead, we found the refinery, petrochemical, and plastics industries—at least the ones we visited—to be extremely clean and sterile. As Kristin Grenfell said, “Instead of wanting to bathe after leaving the plant, I had the distinct feeling that I should wipe my feet before going in.”

   Houston is quite simply the energy and chemical capital of the world. All of the major oil companies—Shell, BP, ExxonMobil, ChevronTexas, and 5,000 other energy related firms—call Houston home, due to the large reserves of oil or “black gold” that exist underground and a port allowing easy shipment of petroleumbased products.

  After spending the night at the Westin Hotel downtown, we boarded the tour bus and were whisked away to the first stop on our agenda: Formosa Plastics Corp. The company produces nearly 1 million tons of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) and petrochemicals like polyethylene, polypropylene, vinyl, and olefins each year. In a 1970s—style boardroom two managers began their PowerPoint presentation: a detailed description of each component of their plant, covering an incredible 1,200 acres of Texan dirt. “Here is PVC unit 1, over here is the VCM unit, LLPE is in the lower right, PP is one of our newer plants, HDPE…, CA…, EDC…, EG…, AS…”

  Bob Wallace, director of special projects at Formosa, passed around a bag full of small, opaque plastic beads. “We make these at our plant and then have them shipped off to Coca Cola where they are manufactured into bottles. This is high quality stuff.” I looked down at my plastic Nalgene water bottle and now realized exactly where it came from—right here in Houston.

  Accompanying us to Formosa was environmental attorney, Jim Blackburn. This man offered us David- and Goliath-like tales of his lifelong battle with chemical and energy companies. Blackburn was instrumental in reaching a landmark environmental agreement with Formosa Plastics in which the company agreed to adopt basic principles of sustainability including zero discharge of wastewater, something almost unheard of in the industry. The result has been extremely positive for the local community and for Formosa; the environmental compliance record has improved dramatically and the worker injury rate is at an all time low.

  Blackburn recounted the struggles of a corporation working to become greener, especially one that is inherently “brown.” Occasionally, Formosa has gotten off track, Blackburn said, but environmentalists must be flexible enough to devise new and creative ways where both sides can win. “It is very difficult to bring a company and its critics together. At Formosa we ran into a sustainability failure. But failure is part of the process. We’re back on track now.”

  No pictures were allowed as we toured the plant, a policy that has been enforced since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, and we had to wear flame-retardant vests, earplugs and hard hats. “Looking good!” remarked classmate Ivan Urlaub to the course instructors, Simon Rich and Pogo Davis, who smiled. Rich, former CEO of Louis Dreyfus, and Davis, former director of sustainability at ConocoPhillips, had done this sort of thing before.

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