Jaden Cloobeck, C’22
In this video essay, I discuss the now-defunct Philadelphia Energy Solutions (PES) refinery as an unintentional monument to the negative consequences of power, by which I mean both socio-political power and fossil fuel energy.
For more on environmental justice in Southwest Philadelphia, see the following:
• Fredric L. Quivik, “Abundance, Dependence, and Trauma at Philadelphia’s Point Breeze Petroleum Refinery: A Mirror on the History of Pennsylvania’s Oil Industry,” Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 139, no. 3 (October 2015): 265–92, https://hsp.org/blogs/fondly-pennsylvania/abundance-dependence-and-trauma-philadelphia%E2%80%99s-point-breeze-petroleum.
• Mark A. Hughes, “Following Refinery Blast, Philadelphia Looks to a Cleaner Future,” 30 January 2020, https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/podcast/following-refinery-blast-philadelphia-looks-to-a-cleaner-future/.
• Linda Villarosa, “Pollution is Killing Black Americans: This Community Fought Back,” New York Times Magazine, 28 July 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/28/magazine/pollution-philadelphia-black-americans.html.