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He's not wrong, everything is plastic packaged in more plastic. So far industry has been totally unwilling to change that en masse. Often doubling down in fact.

by asdff 3y ago

toomuchtodo 3y ago
Saudis grappling to cope with a trajectory they have no control over. With EV, heat pumps, utility scale battery storage ramp rates, not much demand left if its only aviation and plastics. Certainly not enough volume to maintain long petrol delivery supply chains, not to mention refineries reaching end of life and no one wants to invest in an industry with a death date. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39575172 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39575172 | https://electrek.co/2024/03/02/1-in-5-new-car-sales-globally-in-were-evs-in-2023-oil-demand-iea/ https://electrek.co/2024/03/02/1-in-5-new-car-sales-globally... ("HN: IEA: 20% of 2023 new car sales globally were EVs, curbing oil demand") https://www.ft.com/content/b255d7b9-88f6-4481-a3a6-87542d2b728b https://www.ft.com/content/b255d7b9-88f6-4481-a3a6-87542d2b7... | https://archive.today/eC5Pp https://archive.today/eC5Pp ("Zombie car factories on the rise in China as buyers opt for EVs") https://cleantechnica.com/2023/09/21/the-ev-revolution-in-5-charts/ https://cleantechnica.com/2023/09/21/the-ev-revolution-in-5-... ("The EV Revolution in 5 Charts") https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/21419505/oil-gas-price-plastics-peak-climate-change https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/21419505/oil-gas-... ("Big Oil’s hopes are pinned on plastics. It won’t end well.") https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-02-21/scotland-s-fuel-binge-offers-glimpse-of-future-without-refinery https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-02-21/scotland-... | https://archive.today/nrat5 https://archive.today/nrat5 ("Scotland’s Fuel Binge Offers Glimpse of Future Without Refinery") https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/aeo/narrative/production/sub-topic-03.php https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/aeo/narrative/production/sub-to... ("Refinery closures lower domestic crude oil distillation operating capacity, but refinery utilization rates remain flat over the long term")
snek_case 3y ago
Ok but, could we not use green electricity to capture carbon out of the air and make plastic that way? Might be more expensive, sure, but seems possible? We can also probably reduce our use of plastic in packaging by quite a bit. Drinks used to be packaged in glass bottles. We could go back to that.
- asdff 3y ago
  We could do a lot of things to save the earth. Action is much harder than hand waiving though. How do "we" go back to glass? Who is we? Who makes this order? How is it enforced? We can say OK we need to shut down all the gas plants and convert to nuclear starting this Wednesday, but that doesn't mean anything because good ideas don't just happen in this world. Business cases happen, and if the idea is a good one its a happy accident. We need to develop a framework where it is more profitable to turn to green choices than alternatives before we can expect the world to wake up and change overnight. And setting up such a system is impossible when indirect action and chaos theory has created the system we currently have today, one too big for anyone to fully understand or shift with a few lever pulls to no other consequence.
- ars 3y ago
  You would emit more CO2 switching to glass than you would save. It's not worth it. Glass is heavy, breakable, and not worth recycling (the planet's crust is made of glass so there's no real reason to recycle it, the glass shards harm the recycling of everything else, and the weight consumes extra energy in transport.) And yes, you could make plastic directly out of air. And you can recycle the plastic back into air by burning it. It's a very clean process.
- Gibbon1 3y ago
  If you do the right kind of searches you'll see people are working on using cellulose as a chemical feedstock and for plastics. That sort of research was dead since after WWII until recently.
vegardx 3y ago
Compared to the amount of oil used for making fossil fuels plastic is almost a rounding error. So he's technically right, but not really if you look at th bigger picture.
- asdff 3y ago
  Ehh we can go back and forth on semantics all day but I think the point still stands that as long as there is a demand for plastics there will be no phasing out oil.
- voisin 3y ago
  Do you have a source for this percentage?

He's not wrong, everything is plastic packaged in more plastic. So far industry has been totally unwilling to change that en masse. Often doubling down in fact.

by asdff 3y ago

He's not wrong, everything is plastic packaged in more plastic. So far industry has been totally unwilling to change that en masse. Often doubling down in fact.

toomuchtodo 3y ago

Saudis grappling to cope with a trajectory they have no control over. With EV, heat pumps, utility scale battery storage ramp rates, not much demand left if its only aviation and plastics. Certainly not enough volume to maintain long petrol delivery supply chains, not to mention refineries reaching end of life and no one wants to invest in an industry with a death date. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39575172 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39575172 | https://electrek.co/2024/03/02/1-in-5-new-car-sales-globally-in-were-evs-in-2023-oil-demand-iea/ https://electrek.co/2024/03/02/1-in-5-new-car-sales-globally... ("HN: IEA: 20% of 2023 new car sales globally were EVs, curbing oil demand") https://www.ft.com/content/b255d7b9-88f6-4481-a3a6-87542d2b728b https://www.ft.com/content/b255d7b9-88f6-4481-a3a6-87542d2b7... | https://archive.today/eC5Pp https://archive.today/eC5Pp ("Zombie car factories on the rise in China as buyers opt for EVs") https://cleantechnica.com/2023/09/21/the-ev-revolution-in-5-charts/ https://cleantechnica.com/2023/09/21/the-ev-revolution-in-5-... ("The EV Revolution in 5 Charts") https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/21419505/oil-gas-price-plastics-peak-climate-change https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/21419505/oil-gas-... ("Big Oil’s hopes are pinned on plastics. It won’t end well.") https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-02-21/scotland-s-fuel-binge-offers-glimpse-of-future-without-refinery https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-02-21/scotland-... | https://archive.today/nrat5 https://archive.today/nrat5 ("Scotland’s Fuel Binge Offers Glimpse of Future Without Refinery") https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/aeo/narrative/production/sub-topic-03.php https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/aeo/narrative/production/sub-to... ("Refinery closures lower domestic crude oil distillation operating capacity, but refinery utilization rates remain flat over the long term")

snek_case 3y ago

Ok but, could we not use green electricity to capture carbon out of the air and make plastic that way? Might be more expensive, sure, but seems possible? We can also probably reduce our use of plastic in packaging by quite a bit. Drinks used to be packaged in glass bottles. We could go back to that.

asdff 3y ago
We could do a lot of things to save the earth. Action is much harder than hand waiving though. How do "we" go back to glass? Who is we? Who makes this order? How is it enforced? We can say OK we need to shut down all the gas plants and convert to nuclear starting this Wednesday, but that doesn't mean anything because good ideas don't just happen in this world. Business cases happen, and if the idea is a good one its a happy accident. We need to develop a framework where it is more profitable to turn to green choices than alternatives before we can expect the world to wake up and change overnight. And setting up such a system is impossible when indirect action and chaos theory has created the system we currently have today, one too big for anyone to fully understand or shift with a few lever pulls to no other consequence.
ars 3y ago
You would emit more CO2 switching to glass than you would save. It's not worth it. Glass is heavy, breakable, and not worth recycling (the planet's crust is made of glass so there's no real reason to recycle it, the glass shards harm the recycling of everything else, and the weight consumes extra energy in transport.) And yes, you could make plastic directly out of air. And you can recycle the plastic back into air by burning it. It's a very clean process.
Gibbon1 3y ago
If you do the right kind of searches you'll see people are working on using cellulose as a chemical feedstock and for plastics. That sort of research was dead since after WWII until recently.

vegardx 3y ago

Compared to the amount of oil used for making fossil fuels plastic is almost a rounding error. So he's technically right, but not really if you look at th bigger picture.

asdff 3y ago
Ehh we can go back and forth on semantics all day but I think the point still stands that as long as there is a demand for plastics there will be no phasing out oil.
voisin 3y ago
Do you have a source for this percentage?