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Great, now instead of turning the 95% of all extracted oil into greenhouse gases, we now can turn the 99+%. That is efficiency.
by gmuslera 4y ago
Great, now instead of turning the 95% of all extracted oil into greenhouse gases, we now can turn the 99+%. That is efficiency.
- kemiller 4y agoWell one hopes this is an enabler of a more-closed loop process for plastics. But… yeah.
- Xylakant 4y agowe always could - burning the plastic always was an option, and effectively happens in a lot of places (incinerator). Recycling into oil would give us the option to use it as input to either new plastic or other hydrocarbon based products. Now, whether this works as advertised is an open question.
- koheripbal 4y agoThis is a very mature industry. I'm skeptical it's economical at all.
- Xylakant 4y agoIt's also an area where the economics are changing - renewable energy is cheap during peak hours. So if you can build a process that can essentially soak up that energy you could try and do arbitrage. Whether that's enough to make that economically viable depends on the capital investment required, but it's at least possible in the near future.
- soperj 4y agoThe alternative is polluting the entire planet with micro-plastics for a 5% savings in greenhouse gasses.
- hinkley 4y agoThis does nothing to prevent micro plastics. Micro plastics are plastics that have escaped into the environment, which by definitions means we are no longer collecting them for disposal or recycling. All this does is keep some recycling programs from shutting down, and most of those are collecting bulk #1 and #2 which as far as I’m aware are not the major source of micro plastic pollution. Patagonia has a fucked up plan of using recycled polyester in everything lately and I don’t see how nobody is noticing that a major source of urban micro plastics is going to be coming from dryer lint. Which means synthetics and dryers are a bad combo. I line dry all my exercise clothes, but most people don’t.
- Xylakant 4y agoif you're worried about microplastics from drying your patagonia fleece in the dryer, worry about other things first. Car tires get ground up into microplastic and estimates range between 10 and 28% of the total microplastic pollution in the oceans [1]. And that's not surprising - the weight loss of a single tire over its lifetime likely exceeds the entire weight of your fleece jacket. Drive less car miles before worrying about patagonia clothes. [1] https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/tires-unseen-plastic-polluter https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/tires...
- HPsquared 4y agoFor tires, is anyone working on biodegradable or otherwise eco-friendly tire materials? Something that is biocompatible. Although you don't want tires breaking down and causing accidents... Tires have a lot of conflicting design requirements.
- mandmandam 4y agoBio tires would be great, but the more immediate, easy and efficient solution is public transport investment to reduce car use.
- LarryMullins 4y ago
- settrans 4y agoOnly if it increases demand for oil. Realistically, this oil would replace oil that would otherwise have to be pumped from the ground.
- osrec 4y agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34441324 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34441324