How far from an oil refinery would you have to live to feel safe?

[_Rick_]

Seconded.
I once lived a couple of miles or so from a fuel storage facility in the 'burbs of Geneva, and within sight of some Gasworks.
Every other day it smelled of...something. Sweetly sickly, and probably not very healthy.
It was okay for 6 months, but I wouldn't want to live there.

this was the sight from the balcony:

 

[HardcoreRobot]

I lived here - https://maps.google.com/maps?q=17.710973,-64.744117&num=1&t=h&z=19
for 9 years as a child. no adverse effects yet. note that giant yellow pad ~750' west is where they stored mountains of sulfur. periodically boats would come and take it away. certainly some interesting smells, but as a kid i didnt know any different.

 

[poofyhairguy]

I worked in several of the bay area refineries. There's no way I'd live closer than 20 miles from a refinery. Under NORMAL operating conditions, 3 miles would probably be fine...but "normal" operations just aren't all that normal.
It seems like they're always flaring off various fractions...and when they have a problem, the folks in the immediate area are always either evacuated, or told to "shelter in place," meaning you have to stay indoors with all the doors and windows shut.

This.

Plus they are always slipping past the rules. When I lived near a few refineries I had letters from them apologizing for the times they burned off something really bad. Easier to ask forgiveness than permission.

 

[notposting]

I've never been in an oil refinery, but have been in large industrial plants before. The daily emissions and all that would be bad enough, along with the general shitsville-ness of the neighborhood that would be near them (southwest Detroit springs to mind).

I know enough guys who worked at Marathon refinery here to know I want nothing to do with them. There were often enough "drop everything and run like hell" incidents that they never really wanted to go back, OT be damned. If one of those fuckers goes up, yeah, 20 miles upwind seems about right.

 

[BurnItDwn]

In the USA, I'd be willing to live within a few miles of an Oil Refinery.
If I was living in another part of the world, I would possibly want to be MUCH farther away...

 

[Hacp]

Oil refineries are perfectly safe.

 

[ultimatebob]

Oil refineries are perfectly safe.

Yeah... and that nice lady in the natural gas commercials makes fracking sound perfectly safe, too

 

[Pocatello]

Yeah... and that nice lady in the natural gas commercials makes fracking sound perfectly safe, too

Don't forget about clean coal.