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A large and, to me, counterintuitive assumption is backing your argument there: Burning plastic does not release pollutants, and the CO2 released just replaces

by jrmg 4y ago

A large and, to me, counterintuitive assumption is backing your argument there: Burning plastic does not release pollutants, and the CO2 released just replaces CO2 released from burning other fuel (oil, natural gas, etc). Humans have a remarkable capacity to use all that’s available to them if unconstrained. Why would we not burn the plastic _and_ the other fuel? Are you proposing we somehow regulate the ‘swap’ here? I could easily make the opposite argument that “putting plastic in landfill sequesters carbon we’d otherwise burn”. That argument seems more intuitively correct to me.

ars 4y ago
> Why would we not burn the plastic _and_ the other fuel? Why would we? When you turn on the light, or drive in your car, are you thinking "hmm, they burned some plastic, let me drive extra"? No, the only signal you use is the cost of the product. > Are you proposing we somehow regulate the ‘swap’ here? It's automatically regulated by the fact that you have to pay for it. Plastic for fuel is similar in price to other fuels. You're not going to have extra consumption. > “putting plastic in landfill sequesters carbon we’d otherwise burn”. That argument seems more intuitively correct to me. As a technique to advance the argument sure we can talk about that, but "intuitive"????? I feel like you're missing something major if that feels intuitive to you. We should find out what that is, or we'll be talking across each other, without understanding. Are you theorizing we automatically burn every bit of fuel available to us? That's not how it works - people have a need for energy, they check the price of the energy and see if it's worth spending that much to accomplish their need. Plastic for fuel is very valuable because someone already paid (in energy) to extract it from the ground. So now, you don't have to pay for that energy a second time. This is very good for the environment.
- happyopossum 4y ago
  > Why would we? When you turn on the light, or drive in your car, are you thinking "hmm, they burned some plastic, let me drive extra"? No, the only signal you use is the cost of the product. If burning plastic for electricity becomes even remotely common, it will impact the price of gas, and the price of gas is historically correlated to miles driven.
  - ars 4y ago
    It is common in Sweden - they burn all their plastic, and actually buy more plastic from their neighbors to burn. Is the price of gas there significantly different from their neighbors?
    - jrmg 4y ago
      Presumably it is reducing the demand for other fuel sources and making them cheaper on a global level. So gas isn’t cheaper in Sweden, it’s cheaper everywhere.
- kipchak 4y ago
  >Are you theorizing we automatically burn every bit of fuel available to us? That's not how it works - people have a need for energy, they check the price of the energy and see if it's worth spending that much to accomplish their need. Generally on a long timescale people seem to do additional things with additional/cheaper power, versus scaling back their use of previous fuel sources. Look at for example the relationship between biomass and coal, or oil and gas and coal.[1] Middle class groups in groups in developing countries are increasing their burn rate, and increasing their per capita energy use as they do.[2] Eventually if everyone's needs are met and population remains steady we might reach the point where additional supply and a lower price doesn't cause additional usage. [1]https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/global-energy-consumption-source https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/global-energy-consumption... [2]https://www.anthropocenemagazine.org/howmuchenergy/ https://www.anthropocenemagazine.org/howmuchenergy/
- jrmg 4y ago
  Are you theorizing we automatically burn every bit of fuel available to us? That's not how it works - people have a need for energy, they check the price of the energy and see if it's worth spending that much to accomplish their need. I’m _almost_ theorizing that; not every bit, but every economical bit (barring regulation otherwise). Your second sentence actually almost suggests what I’m thinking: if burning plastic is economical, it will drive down the cost of energy overall, and we’ll in turn use more of it because more of those needs will be worth the amount that would need to be spent to accomplish them. Admittedly, perhaps having cheap plastic as a source of fuel might make some oil extraction uneconomical, so perhaps we’ll extract a little less overall because clean tech will become cheaper while we burn the plastic - but I have a lot of faith in humanity’s ability to think up things to do with more fuel. If we’re having to put R&D into energy extraction working on zero-carbon-output options seems better than developing plastic as a source, because they will at least not add to the carbon burned - and we will, yes, get to sequester the carbon in the plastic in landfills.

by jrmg 4y ago

ars 4y ago

> Why would we not burn the plastic _and_ the other fuel? Why would we? When you turn on the light, or drive in your car, are you thinking "hmm, they burned some plastic, let me drive extra"? No, the only signal you use is the cost of the product. > Are you proposing we somehow regulate the ‘swap’ here? It's automatically regulated by the fact that you have to pay for it. Plastic for fuel is similar in price to other fuels. You're not going to have extra consumption. > “putting plastic in landfill sequesters carbon we’d otherwise burn”. That argument seems more intuitively correct to me. As a technique to advance the argument sure we can talk about that, but "intuitive"????? I feel like you're missing something major if that feels intuitive to you. We should find out what that is, or we'll be talking across each other, without understanding. Are you theorizing we automatically burn every bit of fuel available to us? That's not how it works - people have a need for energy, they check the price of the energy and see if it's worth spending that much to accomplish their need. Plastic for fuel is very valuable because someone already paid (in energy) to extract it from the ground. So now, you don't have to pay for that energy a second time. This is very good for the environment.

happyopossum 4y ago
> Why would we? When you turn on the light, or drive in your car, are you thinking "hmm, they burned some plastic, let me drive extra"? No, the only signal you use is the cost of the product. If burning plastic for electricity becomes even remotely common, it will impact the price of gas, and the price of gas is historically correlated to miles driven.
- ars 4y ago
  It is common in Sweden - they burn all their plastic, and actually buy more plastic from their neighbors to burn. Is the price of gas there significantly different from their neighbors?
  - jrmg 4y ago
    Presumably it is reducing the demand for other fuel sources and making them cheaper on a global level. So gas isn’t cheaper in Sweden, it’s cheaper everywhere.
kipchak 4y ago
>Are you theorizing we automatically burn every bit of fuel available to us? That's not how it works - people have a need for energy, they check the price of the energy and see if it's worth spending that much to accomplish their need. Generally on a long timescale people seem to do additional things with additional/cheaper power, versus scaling back their use of previous fuel sources. Look at for example the relationship between biomass and coal, or oil and gas and coal.[1] Middle class groups in groups in developing countries are increasing their burn rate, and increasing their per capita energy use as they do.[2] Eventually if everyone's needs are met and population remains steady we might reach the point where additional supply and a lower price doesn't cause additional usage. [1]https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/global-energy-consumption-source https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/global-energy-consumption... [2]https://www.anthropocenemagazine.org/howmuchenergy/ https://www.anthropocenemagazine.org/howmuchenergy/
jrmg 4y ago
Are you theorizing we automatically burn every bit of fuel available to us? That's not how it works - people have a need for energy, they check the price of the energy and see if it's worth spending that much to accomplish their need. I’m _almost_ theorizing that; not every bit, but every economical bit (barring regulation otherwise). Your second sentence actually almost suggests what I’m thinking: if burning plastic is economical, it will drive down the cost of energy overall, and we’ll in turn use more of it because more of those needs will be worth the amount that would need to be spent to accomplish them. Admittedly, perhaps having cheap plastic as a source of fuel might make some oil extraction uneconomical, so perhaps we’ll extract a little less overall because clean tech will become cheaper while we burn the plastic - but I have a lot of faith in humanity’s ability to think up things to do with more fuel. If we’re having to put R&D into energy extraction working on zero-carbon-output options seems better than developing plastic as a source, because they will at least not add to the carbon burned - and we will, yes, get to sequester the carbon in the plastic in landfills.