I agree with the letter " The Continuing Need for Petroleum Products ," but I offer a different perspective.
I too worked on the Celeron/All American/Plains pipeline project. And Exxon's Santa Ynez Unit, and Chevron Point Arguello, and Unocal Point Pedernales, and others not built. I said at the time, 1986, and I still believe: when the total cost of searching for, extracting, refining, and cleaning up after petroleum is greater than its value as energy, we will use petroleum as source for chemicals. It will be too valuable to waste and too costly to burn. For a whole host of reasons, many say we are already there.
I suggest society should rationally consider the total —present and future — costs of all existing and potential energy supplies. I believe the sooner we make the transition away from wasteful burning of a precious commodity, “the essential supply,” the better off we and our planet will be. So rather than “build somewhere else,” we need to say, enough already, and responsibly manage what petroleum is already developed to its greatest long-term value. It makes no sense to burn our petrochemical future.