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Plastic-based fuels may present an “unreasonable risk” to human health
- msandford 4y agoFrom what I can tell they aren't biofuels at all. They're just approved under a biofuels approval program.
- perihelions 4y agoThanks; I've edited the title to correct this. (s/biofuels/fuels/)
- themitigating 4y agoIt says biofuels are not biofuels in the first paragraph. Thank god someone pointed out your title error else it would have looked like biofuels, like renewable sources, were a danger to human health.
- hannob 4y agoThis confusion is part of the problem. I've been watching this space a bit, and it tends to be that all types of energy from waste schemes are sometimes advertised as "bioenergy" or "like bioenergy" or "renewable". To actually evaluate these, one relevant factor is what waste we are talking about. If the source is plastics then of course the more accurate term would be "fossil fuels", because that's what plastics is usually made from.
- consumer451 4y ago> according to agency records obtained by ProPublica and The Guardian, the production of one of the fuels could emit air pollution that is so toxic, 1 out of 4 people exposed to it over a lifetime could get cancer > That risk is 250,000 times greater than the level usually considered acceptable by the EPA division that approves new chemicals.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- hammock 4y agoI know it’s not disclosed, but which toxin do we think this would be?
- selectodude 4y agoBenzene and vinyl chloride would be my guess. A ton of plastics have benzene precursors.
- rieg3c 4y agoEPA doing it's thing
- vorpalhex 4y agoWhat's the chemical? I don't think I saw it named. How likely is the risk assessment true?
- perihelions 4y ago- "the EPA had blacked out sections, including the chemicals’ names" If you follow the linked PDF, the publicly disclosed descriptor is "Distillates, hydrotreated light P-21-0158". That's for the one with the insane toxicology ("The cancer risk estimate for inhalation of stack air for P-21-0158 was 2.5E-01"). https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/23607053/sl-sanitized_consent_order_p_21_0144c.pdf https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/23607053/sl-sanitized...
- pharrington 4y ago> In a subsequent phone call, Allen said: “We do take care of our communities, our workers and the environment generally. This is job one for Chevron.” The only possible way this can be true is if Chevron pays everyone in the effected area $100,000 so they can move out.
- ZeroGravitas 4y agoThank goodness that some of these projects coincidentally got funded via something that could be tied to environmentalism, or it would just be business as usual, and no one would care. Now there's at least some small chance that the "see, green stuff kills you too" response may cause enough fuss for the US to do what most other developed nations would do as a matter of course in terms of protecting their citizens from pollution.
- jdthedisciple 4y agoHere's my cynical take: Sounds like the environmentalists will soon advertise their campaigns with "Get cancer to save the climate!".
- mort96 4y agoWhy's that? Do you often see a trend of environmentalists championing releasing a bunch of toxic chemicals into the environment? Aren't they usually the group most strongly opposed to releasing harmful chemicals into the environment?
- corbulo 4y agoThey're usually more about strongly opposing the appearance of releasing harmful chemicals. See Nuclear Energy NIMBYism, lithium/ cobalt mining, emissions and supply chain required to make solar panels, and wind turbine blade disposal. To call any of it "clean" energy is quite a stretch.
- FooBarBizBazz 4y agoThis is sad. So long as we're going to be making plastics, it seemed that pyrolysis and/or incineration made sense to destroy the plastic waste. Then reduce the amount of plastics at the start of the pipeline. (Obviously it's more efficient to make fuel directly from oil, but that's not the point. Narrowly from an energy perspective, the comparison to make is (a) make plastic from oil, separately make jet fuel from oil, burn the jet fuel, and send plastic to the landfill, vs (b) make plastic from oil, use it, then turn it into jet fuel and then burn that. Obviously you don't make plastic as only an inefficient intermediate step in jet fuel production.) But if the pyrolysis process is going to release potent carcinogens up the smokestack, then that changes everything. The article is a little bit bad, in that it doesn't clearly explain whether the fuel itself is carcinogenic, or if it's a byproduct of the pyrolysis process that is. It also doesn't explain what those chemicals are (I assume they are hydrocarbons, cousins of benzene), or why they are not burned in the process that powers the pyrolysis. Is the combustion too dirty, not high-temperature enough? Are volatile gasses leaking through some insufficiently-selective distillation process? Are products just recklessly being vented to atmosphere? There are plenty of examples of corporations doing horrible things to make a buck, and the corporate/PR/lawyer-speak from Chevron does nothing to allay my fears. But I assume there are also chemists involved who do give a shit and are not setting out to poison people nearby. We've heard from the whistleblower. We've heard from the lawyer/PR flaks. I'd like to hear from some chemists.
- darksaints 4y agoFrom what I understand of the process, simple incineration (i.e. put it in a barrel and burn it) is the problem. High temp incineration does break up nearly every possible carcinogen of hydrocarbon origin into simpler non-carcinogenic compounds, with the caveat that if it’s high temp while using atmospheric oxygen it will likely produce a lot more NOx emissions, which is also bad.
- bigodbiel 4y agoPlastic based fuels sounds like petro fuel with extra steps! As for the plastic waste, instead of dumping it into the ocean, we blow it into the atmosphere.
- AlgorithmicTime 4y ago[dead]
- mort96 4y agoWell, as long as we're blowing fuel combustion byproducts into the atmosphere anyways, the fuel might as well be recycled from garbage. If it was really possible to convert plastic waste into a fuel that's no worse than normal fuel, it would've been a good thing (at least if it didn't require additional energy to produce compared to normal fuel), even though the overall goal is to cut down or eliminate the need for fuel over time.
- ZeroGravitas 4y ago> One recent study by scientists from the Department of Energy found that the economic and environmental costs of turning old plastic into new using a process called pyrolysis were 10 to 100 times higher than those of making new plastics from fossil fuels. I think they might have linked to the wrong paper, that one doesn't cover pyrolisis and none of the economics cost are even 2x using new fossil fuels. Diagram: https://pubs.acs.org/cms/10.1021/acssuschemeng.2c05497/asset/images/large/sc2c05497_0002.jpeg https://pubs.acs.org/cms/10.1021/acssuschemeng.2c05497/asset...
- photochemsyn 4y agoThe most ridiculous part of the EPA approach: > "But the agency won’t turn over these records or reveal information about the waste-based fuels, even their names and chemical structures. Without those basic details, it’s nearly impossible to determine which of the thousands of consent orders on the EPA website apply to this program. In keeping this information secret, the EPA cited a legal provision that allows companies to claim as confidential any information that would give their competitors an advantage in the marketplace." There's no explanation of this other than regulatory capture. Might want to look into how many people from the EPA Chevron has been hiring as consultants etc., or how much money Chevron has been giving to politicians who approve EPA heads, the hiring practices of EPA heads, and so on. I'd guess much of the problem is that they only partially breakdown the plastics into the desired long-chain hydrocarbons that make up the jet fuel, so there's likely a big pile of partially-broked down plastics that they then have to dispose of, which is a likely source of carcinogenic polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and so on, plus dioxin which is particularly problematic as a hormone mimic and disruptor of basic cellular processes (see Agent Orange, Vietnam): "Dioxin formation during combustion of nonchloride plastic, polystyrene and its product" (2005) https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16097324/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16097324/
- perihelions 4y ago- "There's no explanation of this other than regulatory capture. Might want to look into how many people from the EPA Chevron has been hiring as consultants etc., or how much money Chevron has been giving to politicians who approve EPA heads, the hiring practices of EPA heads, and so on." If you read down to the last paragraph, the EPA's Inspector General has an open investigation into this division of the EPA, on precisely those allegations ("whistleblowers’ allegations of corruption and industry influence"). They link to this investigative series from the Intercept, https://theintercept.com/series/epa-exposed/ https://theintercept.com/series/epa-exposed/ ("Whistleblowers speak out about the Environmental Protection Agency’s practice of routinely approving dangerous chemicals", 2021-)
- JustSomeNobody 4y ago> The Environmental Protection Agency recently gave a Chevron refinery the green light to create fuel from discarded plastics as part of a “climate-friendly” initiative to boost alternatives to petroleum. But, according to agency records obtained by ProPublica and The Guardian, the production of one of the fuels could emit air pollution that is so toxic, 1 out of 4 people exposed to it over a lifetime could get cancer. You can bet your asses that Chevron is lobbying the hell out of Congress. And, thanks to "Citizens United", we'll never know how much.
- myshpa 4y agoChange my mind: 90%+ of plastic is not necessary. Not necessary: - plastic bottles (good only for coca-cola's profits etc., 90% of bottled drinks contain microplastics, use glass) - food wrappers (use paper & natural wax, not pfoas) - plastic shopping bags (use textile bags like our grandma's did) - eshop packages (ever received goods in plastic bags wrapped in insane amounts of additional plastic?) - tea bags made with plastic (yes, they're there, not biodegradable, lots of microplastics in your tea) - tooth brushes (what's wrong with wood/bamboo ?) - textiles ( cotton / hemp / flax. you think you need to run in modern textiles because it's raining ? stay home, i don't need your pfoas in my water ) - polystyrene for home insulation (why not support plant based alternatives, like hemp / hempcrete) - fishing nets (70% of macro plastic at sea comes from fishing gear, just eat plants people, there are not that many fish left anyway) Necessary: - health care - what have i forgot? Better to stop producing the crap, than to have to find ways how to utilize it without harming everything and everybody. It's good only for the packaging industry, nobody else.
- kevviiinn 4y agoA lot is used in bio research labs as well
- hammock 4y ago>natural wax The only commercially viable wax is paraffin, which is petroleum derived >bamboo All of the bamboo products for sale are glued together with petroleum derived adhesives and often finished with petroleum based products like mineral oil
- pfdietz 4y ago"Less than 6% of plastic is recycled in the U.S. Much of the rest — millions of tons of it — ends up in the oceans each year, [...]" Calling bullshit on that second sentence.
- tchock23 4y agoHave another source we can check out if this one is ‘bullshit’ in your opinion?
- pfdietz 4y agoLet's google quickly. https://www.voanews.com/a/science-health_us-among-top-contributors-ocean-plastic-pollution/6197943.html https://www.voanews.com/a/science-health_us-among-top-contri... "The U.S. generated a staggering 42 million metric tons of plastic waste in 2016 — more than any other country in the world, according to the analysis. Up to 2.2 million metric tons of this waste ended up in the ocean." So, 5.2%. Is that "much" of the stated 94% that isn't recycled? Plastic directly released to the ocean in the US (as opposed to US plastic shipped overseas, then released to the ocean) is estimated at < 0.01 kg/capita (2019). That looks low, maybe too low; it's three orders of magnitude below that other estimate. https://ourworldindata.org/plastic-pollution https://ourworldindata.org/plastic-pollution
- bob_theslob646 4y agoIt's not b**** because you have no idea whether or not the plastic that is generated actually ends up in the ocean. We used to ship most of our ways to other countries. So if the plastic is actually generated in the United States, it is possible that it could actually end up in another country and the end up in the ocean. I agree with you that the wording is not necessarily the best but it is not facetious to think that plastic created in the United States'could'end up in the ocean. You are correct that 94% of it does not end up in ocean, but the % is still too high.
- throwayyy479087 4y agoWhat are the fuels produced by this? Is this a miracle that allows us to profitably recycle all plastics, or a cynical subsidy play?
- blurbleblurble 4y agoIsn't this just burning plastic?