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Is chemical/plastic production really a source of emissions? After all, oil is used in the production of plastic because plastic has a bunch of carbon in it.
by carry_bit 8y ago
Is chemical/plastic production really a source of emissions? After all, oil is used in the production of plastic because plastic has a bunch of carbon in it.
- newswriter99 8y agoIn the US plastic is produced via cracking natural gas into ethane. In Europe and China they still use crude oil and crack it into naptha, but that's starting to decrease as they turn to cheaper natgas.
- Reason077 8y agoYes, it is. The chain of industrial processes that converts oil to plastics are energy intensive, and the chemical processes involved often have direct emissions as well. Not to mention the emissions from extracting, refining, and transporting the oil in the first place.
- StavrosK 8y ago> The chain of industrial processes that converts oil to plastics are energy intensive But that energy can come from renewables, no?
- blattimwind 8y agoPlastics reactors themselves don't really do much (if tuned properly, most aren't because it's cheaper), the emissions are mostly from the refinery processes before it. You can't make plastics from raw oil. Obviously running these still requires a lot of power for heating, cooling and so on. Large-scale extruders for producing the plastic pellets everyone uses for e.g. injection moulding require a fair bit of electricity as well (think dozens of MW per screw pair / channel).