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Nice achievement, but I just don't see the environmental angle. The article implies that this might help solve the ocean plastic problem, but the plastic in the

by dTal 7y ago

Nice achievement, but I just don't see the environmental angle. The article implies that this might help solve the ocean plastic problem, but the plastic in the ocean isn't the plastic we carefully collected - it's the plastic that "got away". We won't be turning that into jet fuel any time soon. And of course, taking the larger view, plastic is still made from fossil oil. Making it profitable to burn it is not going to help CO2 levels. The CO2 problem is larger than the ocean plastic problem, and even if we could turn ocean plastic into jet fuel - it's probably a bad trade.

carlmr 7y ago
We probably can't turn ocean plastic into jet fuel, but if there's an economic interest in converting plastic to jet fuel we could learn the future amount of plastic that ends up in the ocean. Recycling has failed because it needs strict adherence and even then the products from plastic recycling are rarely the nice kind of plastic you need to build consumer goods.
chr1 7y ago
If there was a use for collected plastic, a lot less of it would "get away", currently most of collected plastic ends up in landfills anyway. Burning jet fuel obtained from plastic would not decrease CO2 level, but it would not increase it either, as there is lots of other jet fuel to burn.
- helloguillecl 7y ago
  It would increase it if it leads to more fuel supply.
- dTal 7y ago
  If it were profitable to turn plastic into jet fuel, that would imply that plastic-derived jet fuel is cheaper. If the price of jet fuel goes down, more gets burned.
  - chr1 7y ago
    By that logic you can argue that banning plastic bags will decrease the use of oil, making it cheaper for those who want to burn it. Or that buying tesla makes oil cheaper and in some other place more of it gets burned. In all of these cases the effect is tiny.
    - dTal 7y ago
      It's a question of supply and demand. If your final goal is to burn less oil, then you want to 1) reduce the supply and 2) reduce the demand. Buying Tesla reduces demand: good. Turning plastic to oil increases supply: bad. Your plastic bag example is interesting because I think it's accurate - having plastic compete with combustion as a use for crude oil is good from an emissions standpoint, because when the wells run dry, less of it will have been burned. (Plastic bags are indeed a bit of a silly example because there's so little plastic in them - we ban them because they cause disproportionate environmental harm)
perfunctory 7y ago
I think you are right. Going fossil -> plastic -> fossil doesn't sound super efficient. And single use plastic should be just banned.
inflatableDodo 7y ago
This tech could be useful in a majority renewable economy. If we assume that there is a certain amount of single use plastic that fulfills useful funtions that are hard to replicate, then turning that into jet fuel is kind of useful, as jet fuel needs high energy density and is one of the things we probably are not going to electrify any time soon. The CO2 is not new emission, but is just displaced, plus any CO2 cost of the process, which is somewhat reduced if the rest of the power and transportation has already transitioned across to other power sources. This is not a way of solving anything per-se, but is a potential technology in an economy where we have already banned burning oil that hasn't been used a few times, and then only in things that absolutely require it.
- dTal 7y ago
  >The CO2 is not new emission, but is just displaced How do you figure? It wasn't going to be burned before. Now it is. The sustainable way to make jet fuel would be some kind of renewable-powered carbon sequestration - for example, the process described in the paper, but fed with biomass. Burning old plastic is just fossil fuel with extra steps - looked at another way, it's a way to make fossil fuel cheaper by making it earn money as plastic before it gets burned. It's not a win.
  - inflatableDodo 7y ago
    >It wasn't going to be burned before. Now it is. Unless we are burning it in a second load of planes built specially for the occaision, it will replace the jet fuel from virgin crude that was going to be used for those trips. I agree that it would be better to feed it with recent biomass, though I would note that this process would also presumably work with plastic made from recent, rather than fossil biomass and we may find that making some single use plastic, (sometimes having a single use wrapper is important), from biomass and then jet-fueling it at the end, might not be a bad way to go, at least until we have developed really good power storage in other ways.
jvanderbot 7y ago
Unless plastic gets away because there isnt a high enough price per kg to incentivise collection (sadly, by homeless and poor probably). This could raise price dramatically for post consumer plastic.
stronglikedan 7y ago
> isn't the plastic we carefully collected - it's the plastic that "got away". From what I understand, it is the plastic we carefully collected, but didn't properly dispose of. Instead, it was sold to someone else who wasn't so careful or of dubious morals, and they didn't let it get away, they just plain threw it away. If that's truly the case, then hopefully we could cut out the inept or unscrupulous middlemen, and use it for something instead of disposing it.

by dTal 7y ago

carlmr 7y ago

We probably can't turn ocean plastic into jet fuel, but if there's an economic interest in converting plastic to jet fuel we could learn the future amount of plastic that ends up in the ocean. Recycling has failed because it needs strict adherence and even then the products from plastic recycling are rarely the nice kind of plastic you need to build consumer goods.

chr1 7y ago

If there was a use for collected plastic, a lot less of it would "get away", currently most of collected plastic ends up in landfills anyway. Burning jet fuel obtained from plastic would not decrease CO2 level, but it would not increase it either, as there is lots of other jet fuel to burn.

helloguillecl 7y ago
It would increase it if it leads to more fuel supply.
dTal 7y ago
If it were profitable to turn plastic into jet fuel, that would imply that plastic-derived jet fuel is cheaper. If the price of jet fuel goes down, more gets burned.
- chr1 7y ago
  By that logic you can argue that banning plastic bags will decrease the use of oil, making it cheaper for those who want to burn it. Or that buying tesla makes oil cheaper and in some other place more of it gets burned. In all of these cases the effect is tiny.
  - dTal 7y ago
    It's a question of supply and demand. If your final goal is to burn less oil, then you want to 1) reduce the supply and 2) reduce the demand. Buying Tesla reduces demand: good. Turning plastic to oil increases supply: bad. Your plastic bag example is interesting because I think it's accurate - having plastic compete with combustion as a use for crude oil is good from an emissions standpoint, because when the wells run dry, less of it will have been burned. (Plastic bags are indeed a bit of a silly example because there's so little plastic in them - we ban them because they cause disproportionate environmental harm)

perfunctory 7y ago

I think you are right. Going fossil -> plastic -> fossil doesn't sound super efficient. And single use plastic should be just banned.

inflatableDodo 7y ago

This tech could be useful in a majority renewable economy. If we assume that there is a certain amount of single use plastic that fulfills useful funtions that are hard to replicate, then turning that into jet fuel is kind of useful, as jet fuel needs high energy density and is one of the things we probably are not going to electrify any time soon. The CO2 is not new emission, but is just displaced, plus any CO2 cost of the process, which is somewhat reduced if the rest of the power and transportation has already transitioned across to other power sources. This is not a way of solving anything per-se, but is a potential technology in an economy where we have already banned burning oil that hasn't been used a few times, and then only in things that absolutely require it.

dTal 7y ago
>The CO2 is not new emission, but is just displaced How do you figure? It wasn't going to be burned before. Now it is. The sustainable way to make jet fuel would be some kind of renewable-powered carbon sequestration - for example, the process described in the paper, but fed with biomass. Burning old plastic is just fossil fuel with extra steps - looked at another way, it's a way to make fossil fuel cheaper by making it earn money as plastic before it gets burned. It's not a win.
- inflatableDodo 7y ago
  >It wasn't going to be burned before. Now it is. Unless we are burning it in a second load of planes built specially for the occaision, it will replace the jet fuel from virgin crude that was going to be used for those trips. I agree that it would be better to feed it with recent biomass, though I would note that this process would also presumably work with plastic made from recent, rather than fossil biomass and we may find that making some single use plastic, (sometimes having a single use wrapper is important), from biomass and then jet-fueling it at the end, might not be a bad way to go, at least until we have developed really good power storage in other ways.

jvanderbot 7y ago

Unless plastic gets away because there isnt a high enough price per kg to incentivise collection (sadly, by homeless and poor probably). This could raise price dramatically for post consumer plastic.

stronglikedan 7y ago

> isn't the plastic we carefully collected - it's the plastic that "got away". From what I understand, it is the plastic we carefully collected, but didn't properly dispose of. Instead, it was sold to someone else who wasn't so careful or of dubious morals, and they didn't let it get away, they just plain threw it away. If that's truly the case, then hopefully we could cut out the inept or unscrupulous middlemen, and use it for something instead of disposing it.