I saw this recently at an exhibition about plastics. The distilling process suggested to me that you cannot get plastics (naphtha is the precursor) from oil in a world that does not also use Diesel and gasoline etc as fuels. Because they are all produced at the same time and are by products of each other.
Does anyone know if it is potentially possible to increase the yield of naphtha if there is no (or low) need for fossil fuels?
There's lots of ways of shifting the ratios of produced materials and converting them into each other, so it's mostly a question of cost (and cost distribution across products), not of reduced demand making other products entirely unavailable.
Absolutely yes, Gasoline is the most demanded product so their production chains are built around re-processing components into as much additional gasoline as possible.
Residual products from oil are a convenient feedstock for plastic but it can be made from other sources. Corn is a good example.
If we stopped using gas/diesel/jet fuel and stopped refining oil completely the biggest tertiary products the world would miss out on are vaseline and petroleum based fishing lures
The gist is that if we decide that we need any fixed amount of any of the oil products, that product becomes expensive and the remaining products become inexpensive byproducts of its production.
Without fossil fuels, tens of millions of people will starve to death. Fossil fuels are here to stay precisely because no other energy source exists that is as energy dense, portable, safe, and cost-effective. Everything else is just hype and salesmanship.
What is the basis for this extraordinary assertion?
Without adaptation, climate change could depress growth in global agriculture yields up to 30 percent by 2050. That's 2 billion dead. By 2100 it could be more.
With some really clever policy it could be less, but there is no evidence of clever policy from anyone.
> our lineage of argumentation is non-conclusive as 30% change doesn't equate 2 billion death
World's population is expected to reach 9.7 billion by 2050. We grow enough food for 10 billion. Climate models say there will be 30% less food, so only enough to feed 7 billion.
These numbers are common knowledge, none of them are disputed. [1] Put 2 and 2 together.
What will happen to the 3 billion people that have nothing to eat?
The people is the impoverished global south can feed extra 1 billion by getting rid of animals, but then what?
Are the other 2 billion going to learn photosynthesis? Is the developed world going to give up food?
Put forward an actual counter argument, provide numbers, back them up with expert opinions.
The most defining quality of fossil fuels is that they are precisely not here to stay, even if you want to grant that they are otherwise unimpeachable.
Everything not-fossil-fuel is safer by orders of magnitude. A PV panel will output around as much energy per kg as fossil fuel burnt for electricity in a month. PV or wind are about half the price of coal or gas per kWh.
The only place fossil fuels win is power density, but that's not a deal breaker compared to the downsides.
Yes, we should be demanding alternatives to all petrochemicals. It seems that we take for granted that plastics are just a fact of life now but this is a big reason -- along with other more popular ones like microplastic pollution, ocean wildlife destruction etc. -- that we should move away from them where possible.
Because there are shorter and longer hydrocarbons in the oil as well. Most of the longer hydrocarbons can be cracked apart, but the shorter (both liquid and gaseous) and extremely long (e.g. tar, bunker fuel, ...) hydrocarbons will still be present and need to be dealt with.
Plastics are made chaining small molecules into long chains. The property of the plastic deepens on the initial small molecule, how many of them you chain and other stuff.
Also, if the initial molecule has only two "sticky" points and form a linear chain, or has three or more "sticky" points and then form a net of interlocked chains. Or something in between.
Also depending on what is in the initial molecule, the chain may be like a single smooth rope, or have some dangling parts like a Christmas light line.
And you can also mix two or more initial molecules, and there are a few methods to make them "sticky", and ...
In particular, the size and shape of the initial molecule is very important. You want a very specific one to get the properties of each plastic, not a mix random chemical stuff.
Back to oil... Oil has a mix of hydrocarbons of very different sizes and shapes. Some are linear, some have side chains, some have cycles. (This differences are also important if you want to use them as fuel or lubricant.)
To make plastic you must add two "sticky" points to the hydrocarbons, changing some part of them, for example adding oxygen or nitrogen. But before that, you must select the correct length and shape of the hydrocarbon.
To select the length and shape of the hydrocarbon, the fist step is to boil it, and let the vapor condensate at different temperatures. The short hydrocarbons have a low boiling point and the long hydrocarbons have a high boiling point. Then each part is further proceed and used as a different kind of fuel or for different chemical reactions (to make plastic and other stuff).
Does anyone know if it is potentially possible to increase the yield of naphtha if there is no (or low) need for fossil fuels?