It’s an open thread.

Today I went out to take some pictures of Progress. These are photos of the construction site of the Cracker Plant that Royal Dutch Shell is building in Beaver County, PA. It’s being built here because of Fracing. We are now able to bring up a ridiculous amount of natural gas quite easily and it is changing the local economy for the better.

It is difficult to capture the sheer size of this endeavor.

This image was taken from across the Ohio river:

This image was taken from a higher vantage point 180 degrees from the above shot:

That crane on the far left is one of the largest cranes in the world. it was brought up the Mississippi River and then up the Ohio on barges.

The opening of the cracker plant is expected to have a major economic impact on both the immediate area and the Pittsburgh metropolitan area in general. The plant is expected to create 6,000 construction jobs to build the site and 600 permanent jobs for employees working at the plant.[2] It is also expected to expand neighboring Center Township, which had already seen a hotel construction boom in anticipation of the plant, as well as keep the Beaver Valley Mall afloat.[17] A building dating to the 1920s in nearby Rochester that once served as a luxury hotel is being restored as such due to demand of the plant,[18] while parts of the Northern Lights Shopping Center in Economy is being demolished for redevelopment, partially due to the plant.[19] In 2018 Mount Airy Casinos won the licensing to build a satellite casino just 12 miles North of the cracker plant, planning to open in 2020.

The plant is also expected to spur long-delayed highway expansion projects. The Southern Beltway, which had already confirmed would be extending its second leg in 2020 from U.S. Route 22 to Interstate 79, moved the project up a year solely as a result of the proposed plant.[20] In West Virginia, Interstate 68 has been proposed to be extended from Morgantown (where it currently terminates with I-79) to Moundsville (where it would terminate with West Virginia Route 2 just south of Wheeling) in response to Marcellus fracking as well as the proposed plant.[21]

Several trade unions are now offering free training to those who want to become skilled tradesmen and women; KDKA’s Jon Delano reports.

The above articles do not even begin to scratch the surface of the positive economic impact that is going on here. To create real wealth one must produce from raw materials, extract it from the ground and make a useful product. Each maufacturing job creates 11 service industry jobs…and this is only the beginning, thanks to Fracing.