Free Republic

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — A specialty chemical company plans to expand in North Carolina and create 200 jobs over five years. Gov. Roy Cooper’s administration announced Monday that Albemarle Corp. expects to invest more than $10 million over five years on an expansion in Cleveland County that will add 170 jobs through 2022. The company also expects to add 30 jobs at its headquarters in Charlotte. The company already employs 150 people in Kings Mountain and 130 in Charlotte....

You may want to rethink having that bowl of corn flakes for breakfast. New research by experts at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles show that cereal is making people obese. Published in the journal of Nature Communications, the paper states that chemical ingredients commonly used in breakfast cereals are having distressing effects on our bodies. Looking at the effects of three different chemicals commonly ingested or exposed to humans, they found that each one was damaging the hormones needed to communicate between our brains and our stomach. When all three were combined, the damage was worse. One of the...

Pollution from illegal marijuana farms deep in California's national forests is far worse than previously thought, and has turned thousands of acres into waste dumps so toxic that simply touching plants has landed law enforcement officers in the hospital. The volume of banned or restricted pesticides and illegally applied fertilizers in the woods dwarfs estimates by the U.S. Forest Service in 2014, when a top enforcement official testified that the pollution was threatening forest land in California and other states. California accounts for more than 90 percent of illegal U.S. marijuana farming, with much of it exported to other states...

Once in operation, the plant is expected to produce 1 billion pounds of propylene oxide -- a chemical used in the manufacture of bedding, furniture, carpeting, coatings, building materials, and adhesives -- and 2.2 billion pounds of tertiary butyl alcohol annually. LyondellBasell announced July 21 that it will build the world's largest plant manufacturing propylene oxide and tertiary butyl alcohol (TBA) in Channelview, Texas, an industrialized suburb of Houston. The project is estimated to cost approximately $2.4 billion, representing the single-largest capital investment in the company's history, and will be built at the LyondellBasell Channelview Complex. A related ethers unit,...

The shale revolution in the U.S. has led to a boom in domestic natural gas production, to the point that America is expected to become a net exporter of natural gas on an average annual basis by 2018. Abundant gas at home has also led to a renaissance in the petrochemical industry in the U.S., which had suffered a downturn in 2008 and 2009. But then came the shale revolution, and chemical companies in the U.S. now use the affordable ethane—a natural gas liquid derived from shale gas—as a feedstock. Abundant and cheap, shale gas and ethane are now feeding...

For over two years now, environmental activists and anti-industry groups have been raging against the U.S. government, the European Union, and practically anybody else that would listen about the herbicide glyphosate. Glyphosate is a weed killer and the main ingredient in RoundUp. Weed killers are obviously a critical tool for American farmers and farmers around the world. The left-wingers are attacking weed killers despite the chemical receiving a clean bill of health from both the EPA and Europe’s main food safety and chemical authorities. PRI.org reported late last year that “in November 2015, the European Food Safety Authority, or EFSA,...

For over two years now, environmental activists and anti-industry groups have been raging against the U.S. government, the European Union, and practically anybody else that would listen about the herbicide glyphosate. Glyphosate is a weed killer and the main ingredient in RoundUp.  Weed killers are obviously a critical tool for American farmers and farmers around the world. The left-wingers are attacking weed killers despite the chemical receiving a clean bill of health from both the EPA and Europe’s main food safety and chemical authorities. PRI.org reported late last year that “in November 2015, the European Food Safety Authority, or EFSA,...

WHEELING — West Virginia’s congressional delegation is showing a unified front in pushing for an ethane storage hub for central Appalachia, and they hope state leaders in Ohio and Pennsylvania join them. U.S. Sens. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., and Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., were joined Thursday by Rep. David McKinley, R-Wheeling, and American Chemistry Council President Cal Dooley for a news conference to tout the economic benefits of placing the hub near oil and gas reserves in Appalachia rather than near chemical industry operations on the Gulf Coast. Manchin and Moore, along with Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, last week introduced the...

ANKARA, Turkey – Turkey was holding a suspicious shipment bound for Venezuela from Iran because it contained lab equipment capable of producing explosives, a customs official said Tuesday. Suleyman Tosun, a customs official at the Mediterranean port of Mersin, said military experts were asked to examine the material, which was seized last month, and decide whether to let the shipment to go to Venezuela. Authorities detected the equipment during a search of 22 containers labeled "tractor parts," Tosun said. They were brought to Mersin by trucks from neighboring Iran, he said. Turkey's Interior Ministry said an investigation was under way....

The household cleaning agent chlorine, in heavy concentration is purchased by Iran and and fitted with detonators, to provide President Bashar Assad with a vehicle for cheating on his undertaking to surrender Syria’s chemical arsenal under the year-old US-Russian chemical disarmament accord. And Assad is indeed getting away with using chlorine bombs, with crippling effect, especially on children, every few days. On April 7, Israel Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon offered chapter and verse to prove that the Syrian army had perpetrated a chemical attack on civilians in he town of Harasta on March 27, causing scores of serious injuries and...

ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) -- All expanded polystyrene products used for packaging food products, including foam carriers, could be banned from all Maryland food businesses if pending legislation is passed in the General Assembly this session. The legislation, sponsored in the House by Delegate Brooke Lierman, D-Baltimore, will prohibit a person or business from selling or providing food in an expanded polystyrene food service product beginning Jan. 1, according to a Department of Legislative Services fiscal analysis. The bill, which has also been cross-filed in the state Senate, also bans the sale and use of loose fill packaging.

While initial reports indicated that the smell originated from a chemical plant, the source has yet to be definitively determined.

Rust remover, anyone? Or maybe a dash of cement with your meal? Swapping your “full-fat” Coke for a diet alternative might seem like the sensible, healthy thing to do. But think again. Last week, experts at Imperial College, London claimed sugar-free drinks won’t help you lose weight or avoid Type-2 diabetes. In fact, they could stimulate your appetite and make you gain weight. And worse, some sugar-free soda has ingredients you wouldn’t usually dream of consuming — chemicals found in rust remover, steel cleaner, and cement, albeit in tiny quantities. They also have ingredients that in high doses have been...

Just in time for the holidays, an industrywide shortage of canned whipped topping, such as Reddi-wip, appears to be looming after a fatal explosion at a Florida nitrous oxide plant in late August stunted the supply chain. Conagra Brands, the Chicago-based food manufacturer that makes Reddi-wip, confirmed Monday that its supply of nitrous oxide — a propellant for aerosol toppings — was affected by the blast. Spokeswoman Lanie Friedman said stores still have the product in stock, but supplies may be limited in the peak holiday season, when consumers are indulging in pies, hot chocolate and other desserts that call...

Imagine that I’m a mad scientist (or perhaps just a geneticist who doesn’t blink an eye while fiddling with nature’s design) and I want to see what happens when I introduce substantial genetic changes into a chimpanzee.In my experimentation, I double the chimp’s height, change it’s hair color to yellow, induce mutations to change eye color, give it the ability to see better at night, increase muscle strength in its lower body so that it can jump long distances, and several dozen other changes. The end result looks different, acts different, has changes in physiology, its capacity to tolerate heat,...

Freakish green snow blanketed the Russian Ural Mountains today - caused by pollution at a chrome factory. The disturbing emerald scene was caused by an 'accident' at a plant in Pervouralsk, in the industrial Chelyabinsk region, said officials. They insisted there was no danger to the health of locals. 'The accident today happened on a pipe between a pump and a cleaning station,' said a spokesman at Russian Chrome company. 'Some of the water pumped from under the ground went on the surface.'

The Environmental Protection Agency has released a list of toxic chemicals that will be the first reviewed under a recently enacted law that gives regulators increased authority to ban substances shown to endanger human health. […] The list includes such common chemicals as asbestos and trichloroethylene that have for decades been known to be hazardous, yet EPA lacked the legal authority necessary to ban their manufacture or use. …

A new study about aloe vera gel, used to treat sunburns and other skin issues, might make some consumers feel even more burned, especially those partial to store brand products. Bloomberg hired a lab to test various store brands, and it found the aloe gel sold at stores like Walmart, Target and CVS is lacking one important ingredient — aloe vera. The report said all of the brands listed aloe vera juice as a prominent ingredient but the three specific chemical markers that would indicate the presence of aloe were missing. The four gels Bloomberg tested were Walmart's 'Equate Aloe...

I am frankly shocked this information is not making front page news right now. Monsanto will do anything to bury this story… and as of right now, it’s working. Not a single mainstream media outlet has covered this appalling new report that shows millions of people being poisoned by a chemical that does not belong in our food. This chemical is ending up in processed foods like Cheerios, Ritz Crackers, and Oreos and being consumed by humans across the world. The health of millions of people is on the line and this news must go mainstream! That’s why I’m calling on every single one of you...

Classified documents obtained by the Al Arabiya network and released Thursday have revealed that the Syrian regime moved a chemical weapons stockpile with the help of Iran and knowledge of Russia. Furthermore, additional documents also reveal that Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad has also sought cross border cooperation with the State of Israel. The confidential files were acquired by Al Arabiya with the assistance of members of the Syrian opposition who refused to elaborate on how they got hold of the documents. Al Arabiya said it verified and authenticated hundreds of these documents and that it has decided to disclose the...