It's the Rheo Thing

Science Magazine last week had an excellent review of fracking and water well contamination. It presented the technology in a fair manner although I think it was a little spotty on exactly how a gas well is dug and what can go wrong during this step that leads to contamination of aquifers. After all, the natural gas is located far beneath aquifers. How can it end up in someone's water well thousands of feet higher up?This picture from the article shows a typical well, but I don't think it is […]

The Chinese government caused a stir last week when they announced their "Green Fence" - a ban on the importation of plastics intended for recycling. And you know, they are right. Look at what Peter Wang, CEO of America Chung Nam, the primary recovered paper supplier to Nine Dragons Paper in China recently said:"If China customs found a syringe, even if it's just one, in a bale of plastic, it's considered medical waste and the whole shipment would get rejected," he said. "And in paper, if they […]

As promised on Friday, Dow Chemical has announced that they will appeal the $1.2 billion verdict against them for price-fixing polyurethance components.A close reading of the links above will show that the announcement actually preceded my prediction by about 30 minutes. I honestly didn't see the ChemicalWeek article on my Feedly reader until this morning, but since I am so good at post-prediction, how about I tell you that I think the winning Powerball numbers for last Saturday's drawing will […]

It's official. Dow Chemical now has to pay triple damages after being found guilty of price fixing urethane components. That means that the $400 million dollar fine that the jury established is now a whopping $1.2 BILLION dollar fine. $400 million is so small that Dow could have almost hidden that in the annual report, but with $1.2 billion, that is going to show up loud and clear.Do you hear that sound coming from the general direction of Midland, Michigan? That's the sound of lawyers […]

Large chemical companies are constantly buying and selling the various divisions in their collection. Often the rearrangements make sense, and other times they don't. A couple of recent announcements from the business world capture this perfectly.First, Plastemart is reporting that the BOPP (biaxially oriented polypropylene) film operations of ExxonMobil are being sold to Jindal, an Indian company. This is following the trend of more-and-more BOPP being made by companies not headquartered in […]