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

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.