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Not one mention of petrochemicals in this thread. The main thing environmentalists (among others) seem to forget is that you can't make plastic out of sunlight

Not one mention of petrochemicals in this thread. The main thing environmentalists (among others) seem to forget is that you can't make plastic out of sunlight. Or air. Or by pedaling a bicycle. Oil (and natural gas, especially in the US where petrochemical refineries use it for ethane) will continue to be in demand if for no other reason than to be used as a feedstock for plastics and a litany of other chems that make modern life possible.

ph0rque 10y ago
But you can make plastics from plants.
- newswriter99 10y ago
  Not sustainable or cost-effectively. Not yet anyway. Look at most of the bio-converters in the US. They're expensive, usually down for one reason or another, and half the time they end up killing their microorganisms via failing to filter out byproduct like cyanide gas: http://www.biofuelsdigest.com/bdigest/2014/09/05/on-the-mend-why-ineos-bio-isnt-reporting-much-ethanol-production/ http://www.biofuelsdigest.com/bdigest/2014/09/05/on-the-mend...
  - Retric 10y ago
    That's an odd view of Sustainable with Oil being a finite supply. Further, cost-effective assumes cheap oil with massive economies of scale and 10's of billions in R&D vs small scale trials of new tech.
anarazel 10y ago
Sure, but the amount of oil needed for that is completely dwarfed by other uses of oil. See e.g. http://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/index.cfm?page=oil_use http://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/index.cfm?page=oil_use
ninkendo 10y ago
Petrochemicals are only 4% of the oil market: http://www.bpf.co.uk/Press/Oil_Consumption.aspx http://www.bpf.co.uk/Press/Oil_Consumption.aspx If switching to solar from oil would eliminate 96% of our use of fossil fuels, I'm pretty sure those "environmentalists" you refer to would still be happy. But honestly whenever somebody brings up plastics in a discussion about sustainable energy or climate change I always assume they just like being contrarian.
- newswriter99 10y ago
  I'm not doing it to be contrarian, apologies for the tone. I'm just trying to point out that people tend to see political cartoons like the following: https://postimg.org/image/5zi56imjd/ https://postimg.org/image/5zi56imjd/ As gospel. Without considering the fact that pipelines are both statistically safer than road or rail transport. AND without considering that the oil and gas is going to be used for more than just gasoline.
  - epistasis 10y ago
    You seem to be preemptively trying to head off an attitude that has not yet been shown in this thread. Petrochemicals that are not burned are not contributing to co2 emissions. Also, there are other sources of those long carbon chains besides pumping them out of the ground. And at such a tiny percentage of oil use, they are not a big concern.
norea-armozel 10y ago
You wouldn't have the sheer number of wells operating is all that would occur with the majority of power being generated from non-petrol sources. If anything, this would extend the lifetime of such fields beyond mere decades which is a good thing IMO. Plus, aircraft will still use some kind of petrol fuel since electric "turbofans" are just garbage right now and probably for the foreseeable future.
philipkglass 10y ago
You can make pretty much any hydrocarbon, including those used to make plastics, starting from carbon dioxide and hydrogen. You can get carbon dioxide out of seawater via electrochemical pH shift and hydrogen via electrolysis. Or, probably better due to starting with more concentrated feedstocks, you can get synthesis gas from high temperature gasification of biomass and top up any hydrogen deficits with electrolytic hydrogen. It's less selective, also less finicky, than low temperature enzymatic/fermentation processes. Alkanes, aromatics, alkenes... it's all accessible starting from methanol. China's already making plastic feedstocks from methanol on an industrial scale though the methanol comes from coal rather than CO2 and clean electricity.
crpatino 10y ago
You know... the Fossil-Fuels-Fairy is not going to put another million dinosaurs in the oven just because you happen to throw a tantrum over non-renewable resource depletion. Having established this fact, the importante of solar, - and all other renewable energy sources as well, - grows even more instead of diminishing. We need to start using solar et all right away, not until after fosil fuels have gotten depleted; so that we can treat oil as an strategic reserve that is used for those applications that do not have any other alternative. Petrochemicals, - at least some of them, - being one example.

ph0rque 10y ago

But you can make plastics from plants.

newswriter99 10y ago
Not sustainable or cost-effectively. Not yet anyway. Look at most of the bio-converters in the US. They're expensive, usually down for one reason or another, and half the time they end up killing their microorganisms via failing to filter out byproduct like cyanide gas: http://www.biofuelsdigest.com/bdigest/2014/09/05/on-the-mend-why-ineos-bio-isnt-reporting-much-ethanol-production/ http://www.biofuelsdigest.com/bdigest/2014/09/05/on-the-mend...
- Retric 10y ago
  That's an odd view of Sustainable with Oil being a finite supply. Further, cost-effective assumes cheap oil with massive economies of scale and 10's of billions in R&D vs small scale trials of new tech.

anarazel 10y ago

Sure, but the amount of oil needed for that is completely dwarfed by other uses of oil. See e.g. http://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/index.cfm?page=oil_use http://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/index.cfm?page=oil_use

ninkendo 10y ago

Petrochemicals are only 4% of the oil market: http://www.bpf.co.uk/Press/Oil_Consumption.aspx http://www.bpf.co.uk/Press/Oil_Consumption.aspx If switching to solar from oil would eliminate 96% of our use of fossil fuels, I'm pretty sure those "environmentalists" you refer to would still be happy. But honestly whenever somebody brings up plastics in a discussion about sustainable energy or climate change I always assume they just like being contrarian.

newswriter99 10y ago
I'm not doing it to be contrarian, apologies for the tone. I'm just trying to point out that people tend to see political cartoons like the following: https://postimg.org/image/5zi56imjd/ https://postimg.org/image/5zi56imjd/ As gospel. Without considering the fact that pipelines are both statistically safer than road or rail transport. AND without considering that the oil and gas is going to be used for more than just gasoline.
- epistasis 10y ago
  You seem to be preemptively trying to head off an attitude that has not yet been shown in this thread. Petrochemicals that are not burned are not contributing to co2 emissions. Also, there are other sources of those long carbon chains besides pumping them out of the ground. And at such a tiny percentage of oil use, they are not a big concern.

norea-armozel 10y ago

You wouldn't have the sheer number of wells operating is all that would occur with the majority of power being generated from non-petrol sources. If anything, this would extend the lifetime of such fields beyond mere decades which is a good thing IMO. Plus, aircraft will still use some kind of petrol fuel since electric "turbofans" are just garbage right now and probably for the foreseeable future.

philipkglass 10y ago

You can make pretty much any hydrocarbon, including those used to make plastics, starting from carbon dioxide and hydrogen. You can get carbon dioxide out of seawater via electrochemical pH shift and hydrogen via electrolysis. Or, probably better due to starting with more concentrated feedstocks, you can get synthesis gas from high temperature gasification of biomass and top up any hydrogen deficits with electrolytic hydrogen. It's less selective, also less finicky, than low temperature enzymatic/fermentation processes. Alkanes, aromatics, alkenes... it's all accessible starting from methanol. China's already making plastic feedstocks from methanol on an industrial scale though the methanol comes from coal rather than CO2 and clean electricity.

crpatino 10y ago

You know... the Fossil-Fuels-Fairy is not going to put another million dinosaurs in the oven just because you happen to throw a tantrum over non-renewable resource depletion. Having established this fact, the importante of solar, - and all other renewable energy sources as well, - grows even more instead of diminishing. We need to start using solar et all right away, not until after fosil fuels have gotten depleted; so that we can treat oil as an strategic reserve that is used for those applications that do not have any other alternative. Petrochemicals, - at least some of them, - being one example.