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So he's trying to increase his greenhouse gas emissions as much as possible? Plastic waste is carbon that isn't going into the atmosphere, not very fast at lea

So he's trying to increase his greenhouse gas emissions as much as possible? Plastic waste is carbon that isn't going into the atmosphere, not very fast at least. Turning it back into oil and then burning that is the very opposite of what we should be doing with it.

colechristensen 3y ago
Plastic is just fuel that spent it's wild teenage years as something useful. We should burn our garbage and use the energy for useful things. Pumping our environment full of artificial hormones and getting everybody full of random plasticy bits is bad. Until we have so much renewable energy that we don't need fossil fuels, burning garbage displacing burning coal/oil/gas is a net positive.
- tsimionescu 3y ago
  Proper sequestration of plastic garbage in well managed garbage dumps is much better. Turning plastic into fuel and then burning the fuel is far less energy efficient than burning extracted fuel, so it's worse in the most critical way right now: it releases more greenhouse gas. Of course, it's much better to produce less plastic in the first place.
  - Ekaros 3y ago
    I think if we compare burying plastic to properly controller industrial incineration in combined production that is both electricity and heat is likely better option. As that means we do not need to extract and process the fuel we would use for same purpose. Now refining plastic to fuel used in other ways or small scale burning is likely just idiotic.
    - tsimionescu 3y ago
      I very much doubt this. Burning plastic is much less energy efficient than burning oil. However, plastic contains a similar amount of carbon/kg as oil. So, sequestering a kg of plastic while extracting a kg of oil is better than doing it the other way around. Even if we look at production costs, extracting and transporting liquids from the ground is also less energy intensive than transporting and processing solid plastic waste.
- jacquesm 3y ago
  Burning plastic, especially recycled plastic has the risk of producing all kinds of unintended by-products, some of which can be highly toxic.
  - actionfromafar 3y ago
    On the flip side, a lot of plastic toxicity is burnt away in the furnace. The rest, is what filters are for. Seems a lot easier to deal with it at the co-generation plant than in a garbage heap.
    - jacquesm 3y ago
      The toxicity that you burn away is much less than the one that you get in return. Dioxins for instance: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666765723000972 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S266676572...
  - colechristensen 3y ago
    If you’re burning it in a barrel behind the garage maybe. Actual waste to electricity plants do a whole lot to ensure corn emissions.
- butlike 3y ago
  Yeah, uncontrolled chemical reactions to get rid of waste aren't the best answer, imo
xyst 3y ago
I’m far from an expert on recycling of plastic. However, the options I see are as follows: - it sits in a landfill where the plastic eventually (many years down the line) breaks down into microplastics. - it gets sent into to a recycling facility (fuel/time/energy spent to transport), then it may or may not get “burned” or processed with other like plastics and eventually recycled (iirc, plastic can really only be recycled through this process a few times) - it gets sent to city recycling facility but repackaged and sold to some other state or country for processing (+more fuel consumption/time/energy). Then depending on the country, or state it’s processed in same fashion as option 2 and thus incurring more GHGs - or maybe it somehow ends up in your local street, rivers, lakes, oceans and eventually degrade into microplastics and eventually into the food/water you live on
- toomuchtodo 3y ago
  Plasma gasification is the cleanest mechanism to convert plastics to energy while rendering byproducts inert, there just isn't much will to implement. Energy output can contribute towards direct air capture of carbon to mineralize, the rest can be from renewables. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_gasification https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_gasification https://netl.doe.gov/research/Coal/energy-systems/gasification/gasifipedia/westinghouse https://netl.doe.gov/research/Coal/energy-systems/gasificati... https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0378382022003101 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03783... ("Plasma gasification versus incineration of plastic waste: Energy, economic and environmental analysis") https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38722984 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38722984 (u/CptFribble: "I am once again asking you to consider plasma gasification. Here is my standard comment, copied again") https://news.mit.edu/2021/inentec-turning-trash-into-valuable-chemical-products-clean-fuels-0106 https://news.mit.edu/2021/inentec-turning-trash-into-valuabl... (Control-F "Recycling plastic") HN Discussion stream on the topic: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=plasma+gasification&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu... (the art project is fine though)
  - mulmen 3y ago
    Where do we get more plastic after we plasma gasify what we have? Can the byproducts be used to make more plastic?
jayd16 3y ago
It specifically calls this out in the article... but its an art project not a way of life.
- smackeyacky 3y ago
  and thought provoking too, whether that was the artists intention or not. Has a good callback to history (wood gas cars) Has an interesting take on plastic waste - it's currently free which is weird when you think about it. Is horrendous for the environment so would never scale but again do our current activities scale in a way that is acceptable any more. Doesn't matter if you like it or not - as art it works well.
djha-skin 3y ago
And instead we should continue to burn gasoline? Your premise implies that he wouldn't have burned anything if he didn't burn plastic. This is largely false for most of the population. You're going to burn _something_ somewhere, whether coal or natural gas at the power plant or most likely gasoline in your car. You might as well burn things that need to be cleaned up anyway.
- tsimionescu 3y ago
  Yes, we should absolutely burn gasoline before burning plastic. Plastic should be buried, not burned. Of course, ideally we should be riding electrified public transport consuming renewable energy instead of ICE cars - but not everything that's less than ideal is as bad. And burning plastic is probably one of the worse ways of powering a car. Maybe coal-powdered would be worse, but I wouldn't bet on it. The article itself how much more CO2 this art project produces compared to a gasoline car.
h0l0cube 3y ago
This is covered in the fine article: > On the other hand, the CO2 emissions from fuel production and combustion are not praiseworthy. First, there is the burning of plastic on the roof. Making 1 liter of diesel requires burning 1 kg of plastic, which results in 2-2.7 kg of carbon emissions. Second, there is the combustion of diesel fuel while driving, which emits 2.7 kg of carbon dioxide per liter. Together, that becomes 4.7 to 5.4 kg CO2 per liter. Consequently, with a fuel economy of 7.14 liters per 100 km, the Volvo emits 33.6 to 38.6 kg of greenhouse gases per 100 km. > In contrast, the emissions of the average fossil fuel-powered car in Europe amount to 25.8 kg/100 km, including crude oil production, fuel refining, and vehicle manufacturing The emissions of a small electric car like the Nissan Leaf amount to 10.9 kg/100km in Europe, including the emissions of electricity production. The article make some other interesting points: > Much of the plastic waste that the Volvo 240 burns burns anyway. Not in cars but in incinerators. That is the case for 44% of plastic waste in Europe. > The carbon emissions are the same. So is the air pollution, although it’s easier to put a flue gas scrubber on thousands of incinerators than on millions of cars. The main difference is that burning plastic waste in incinerators to power electric cars allows many of us to externalize the side effects of car driving. An incinerator can be (and always is) located in a poor neighborhood, where it causes high incidences of cancer and other health problems despite air pollution control. And moreover, this isn't really meant to be for widespread adoption: > In contrast, Schalkx’s Volvo internalizes all the side effects of driving automobiles. The car is not a pleasure to drive, at least not regularly. It is dirty. Its interior stinks of plastic, which cannot be healthy – Gijs keeps the car windows open no matter the weather. Furthermore, he needs to spend a lot of time collecting plastic and making fuel, and all these disadvantages make him think twice before he gets behind the wheel. There's plenty more interesting points, and the article is relatively short and worth the read.
- wkat4242 3y ago
  Good point. Most of it is indeed incinerated here.
  - yreg 3y ago
    But an incineration plant has probably better filters on its chimneys than the homebrew mobile refinery.

colechristensen 3y ago

Plastic is just fuel that spent it's wild teenage years as something useful. We should burn our garbage and use the energy for useful things. Pumping our environment full of artificial hormones and getting everybody full of random plasticy bits is bad. Until we have so much renewable energy that we don't need fossil fuels, burning garbage displacing burning coal/oil/gas is a net positive.

tsimionescu 3y ago
Proper sequestration of plastic garbage in well managed garbage dumps is much better. Turning plastic into fuel and then burning the fuel is far less energy efficient than burning extracted fuel, so it's worse in the most critical way right now: it releases more greenhouse gas. Of course, it's much better to produce less plastic in the first place.
- Ekaros 3y ago
  I think if we compare burying plastic to properly controller industrial incineration in combined production that is both electricity and heat is likely better option. As that means we do not need to extract and process the fuel we would use for same purpose. Now refining plastic to fuel used in other ways or small scale burning is likely just idiotic.
  - tsimionescu 3y ago
    I very much doubt this. Burning plastic is much less energy efficient than burning oil. However, plastic contains a similar amount of carbon/kg as oil. So, sequestering a kg of plastic while extracting a kg of oil is better than doing it the other way around. Even if we look at production costs, extracting and transporting liquids from the ground is also less energy intensive than transporting and processing solid plastic waste.
jacquesm 3y ago
Burning plastic, especially recycled plastic has the risk of producing all kinds of unintended by-products, some of which can be highly toxic.
- actionfromafar 3y ago
  On the flip side, a lot of plastic toxicity is burnt away in the furnace. The rest, is what filters are for. Seems a lot easier to deal with it at the co-generation plant than in a garbage heap.
  - jacquesm 3y ago
    The toxicity that you burn away is much less than the one that you get in return. Dioxins for instance: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666765723000972 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S266676572...
- colechristensen 3y ago
  If you’re burning it in a barrel behind the garage maybe. Actual waste to electricity plants do a whole lot to ensure corn emissions.
butlike 3y ago
Yeah, uncontrolled chemical reactions to get rid of waste aren't the best answer, imo

xyst 3y ago

I’m far from an expert on recycling of plastic. However, the options I see are as follows: - it sits in a landfill where the plastic eventually (many years down the line) breaks down into microplastics. - it gets sent into to a recycling facility (fuel/time/energy spent to transport), then it may or may not get “burned” or processed with other like plastics and eventually recycled (iirc, plastic can really only be recycled through this process a few times) - it gets sent to city recycling facility but repackaged and sold to some other state or country for processing (+more fuel consumption/time/energy). Then depending on the country, or state it’s processed in same fashion as option 2 and thus incurring more GHGs - or maybe it somehow ends up in your local street, rivers, lakes, oceans and eventually degrade into microplastics and eventually into the food/water you live on

toomuchtodo 3y ago
Plasma gasification is the cleanest mechanism to convert plastics to energy while rendering byproducts inert, there just isn't much will to implement. Energy output can contribute towards direct air capture of carbon to mineralize, the rest can be from renewables. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_gasification https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_gasification https://netl.doe.gov/research/Coal/energy-systems/gasification/gasifipedia/westinghouse https://netl.doe.gov/research/Coal/energy-systems/gasificati... https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0378382022003101 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03783... ("Plasma gasification versus incineration of plastic waste: Energy, economic and environmental analysis") https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38722984 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38722984 (u/CptFribble: "I am once again asking you to consider plasma gasification. Here is my standard comment, copied again") https://news.mit.edu/2021/inentec-turning-trash-into-valuable-chemical-products-clean-fuels-0106 https://news.mit.edu/2021/inentec-turning-trash-into-valuabl... (Control-F "Recycling plastic") HN Discussion stream on the topic: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=plasma+gasification&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu... (the art project is fine though)
- mulmen 3y ago
  Where do we get more plastic after we plasma gasify what we have? Can the byproducts be used to make more plastic?

jayd16 3y ago

It specifically calls this out in the article... but its an art project not a way of life.

smackeyacky 3y ago
and thought provoking too, whether that was the artists intention or not. Has a good callback to history (wood gas cars) Has an interesting take on plastic waste - it's currently free which is weird when you think about it. Is horrendous for the environment so would never scale but again do our current activities scale in a way that is acceptable any more. Doesn't matter if you like it or not - as art it works well.

djha-skin 3y ago

And instead we should continue to burn gasoline? Your premise implies that he wouldn't have burned anything if he didn't burn plastic. This is largely false for most of the population. You're going to burn _something_ somewhere, whether coal or natural gas at the power plant or most likely gasoline in your car. You might as well burn things that need to be cleaned up anyway.

tsimionescu 3y ago
Yes, we should absolutely burn gasoline before burning plastic. Plastic should be buried, not burned. Of course, ideally we should be riding electrified public transport consuming renewable energy instead of ICE cars - but not everything that's less than ideal is as bad. And burning plastic is probably one of the worse ways of powering a car. Maybe coal-powdered would be worse, but I wouldn't bet on it. The article itself how much more CO2 this art project produces compared to a gasoline car.

h0l0cube 3y ago

This is covered in the fine article: > On the other hand, the CO2 emissions from fuel production and combustion are not praiseworthy. First, there is the burning of plastic on the roof. Making 1 liter of diesel requires burning 1 kg of plastic, which results in 2-2.7 kg of carbon emissions. Second, there is the combustion of diesel fuel while driving, which emits 2.7 kg of carbon dioxide per liter. Together, that becomes 4.7 to 5.4 kg CO2 per liter. Consequently, with a fuel economy of 7.14 liters per 100 km, the Volvo emits 33.6 to 38.6 kg of greenhouse gases per 100 km. > In contrast, the emissions of the average fossil fuel-powered car in Europe amount to 25.8 kg/100 km, including crude oil production, fuel refining, and vehicle manufacturing The emissions of a small electric car like the Nissan Leaf amount to 10.9 kg/100km in Europe, including the emissions of electricity production. The article make some other interesting points: > Much of the plastic waste that the Volvo 240 burns burns anyway. Not in cars but in incinerators. That is the case for 44% of plastic waste in Europe. > The carbon emissions are the same. So is the air pollution, although it’s easier to put a flue gas scrubber on thousands of incinerators than on millions of cars. The main difference is that burning plastic waste in incinerators to power electric cars allows many of us to externalize the side effects of car driving. An incinerator can be (and always is) located in a poor neighborhood, where it causes high incidences of cancer and other health problems despite air pollution control. And moreover, this isn't really meant to be for widespread adoption: > In contrast, Schalkx’s Volvo internalizes all the side effects of driving automobiles. The car is not a pleasure to drive, at least not regularly. It is dirty. Its interior stinks of plastic, which cannot be healthy – Gijs keeps the car windows open no matter the weather. Furthermore, he needs to spend a lot of time collecting plastic and making fuel, and all these disadvantages make him think twice before he gets behind the wheel. There's plenty more interesting points, and the article is relatively short and worth the read.

wkat4242 3y ago
Good point. Most of it is indeed incinerated here.
- yreg 3y ago
  But an incineration plant has probably better filters on its chimneys than the homebrew mobile refinery.