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Peak plastic

warrenellis.com

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Re: Peak plastic

#11

Post by jws »

tocomment wrote: post #4

I see no reason we can't make plastic out of biomaterials like corn. By the way, I never understand why they don't make roofs on houses out of plastic. It seems like they'd never degrade or leak, and it would be faster to install. Are shingles really that cheap?

There are premium roofing shingles and tiles made from plastic. If you see an unusual color of slate roof with regular shaped tiles or a repeating pattern of a couple feet, you may be looking at one.

Cost wise, they fall between asphalt shingles and clay tiles or slate (that's a big spread). They can last better than asphalt and should need fewer repairs if you live in a hail or extreme wind area.

Here is a project that got plastic slate recently. http://www.professionalroofing.net/webexclusives/webexclusiv... The extreme labor cost and difficulty of access to repair justified the extra material cost.

Re: Peak plastic

#12

Post by dkastner »

redwood wrote: post #7

The thing is, of the oil taken out of the earth, what percent has been used for plastic? I'm not sure but a very small portion. Now even if we're at peak oil now which is certainly not necessarily true, the Hubbert Curve (where the definition of peak oil comes from) shows that peak occurs when 50% of the oil has been extracted. Thus we can assume we have at least half the oil available to humanity not yet extracted (…

The $1000 question is what the downside of the curve will look like. Will it be a sharp drop-off or a long plateau and decline? It's looking more like the latter at the moment.

Re: Peak plastic

#13

Post by dkastner »

kijin wrote: post #9
tocomment wrote: post #4

I see no reason we can't make plastic out of biomaterials like corn. By the way, I never understand why they don't make roofs on houses out of plastic. It seems like they'd never degrade or leak, and it would be faster to install. Are shingles really that cheap?

Shingles are made of asphalt, derived from the lowest grade of oil. It's so cheap we paint it all over our roads, too.

Not only is it made from the lowest-grade oil, but this low grade oil constitutes the majority of all the oil (and near-oil substances) that's left, e.g. tar sands, oil shale.

Re: Peak plastic

#14

Post by dkastner »

kijin wrote: post #6

Well, we'll probably find out a way to synthesize plastic out of other materials rich in hydrocarbons, like algae. It's going to be pretty expensive at first, but I can see biofuels occupying their own niche even in an economy that is dominated by hydrogen or some other "clean" resource.

While it's true there are more sources of plastic other than fossil fuels, the big disadvantage is the extra amount of energy and water needed. I doubt we'll be able to scale alternative plastics to match the levels produced from fossil fuels. But I do think we can get a lot of plastic from simply recycling it (maybe dig it back up from landfills). We can also reduce a lot of plastic demand by using reusable containers for things like groceries.

Re: Peak plastic

#15

Post by Roboprog »

Wow. Sounds like a slightly less dire discussion of the sort of things that James Kunstler is always discussing on his site.

http://www.kunstler.com/index.php

I think Kunstler's site is a bit over the top, but it's an interesting "ha ha, only serious" view of peak oil.

Things like this peak plastic article remind me that we better get to work on crazy stuff like fusion or orbiting solar powered microwave transmitters (to run Google's asteroid mining data center, of course) if we want to avoid a long slow decline into another dark age.

Re: Peak plastic

#16

Post by lightweb »

Convenient how you completely sidestep the issue of endocrine disruption, BPA, massive toxicity in the environment, or how plastics affects the human physiology.

Toxic, oil-based plastics can not go away fast enough. You chemists have been poisoning humanity for far too long and now you seriously want to advocate using them more instead of looking for alternative solutions?

You are a part of the problem.

Re: Peak plastic

#17

Post by simcop2387 »

kijin wrote: post #6

Well, we'll probably find out a way to synthesize plastic out of other materials rich in hydrocarbons, like algae. It's going to be pretty expensive at first, but I can see biofuels occupying their own niche even in an economy that is dominated by hydrogen or some other "clean" resource.

Actually there is at least one plastic that does fairly well cost-wise vs other plastics and is made out of typically corn in the US, PLA [1]. The main reason that it doesn't get used more is that it's properties don't make it ideal for a number of other cases where you need better impact resistance or heat resistance. A number of the plastic cups out there these days are made of the stuff.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polylactic_acid

Re: Peak plastic

#18

Post by _delirium »

dkastner wrote: post #14
kijin wrote: post #6

Well, we'll probably find out a way to synthesize plastic out of other materials rich in hydrocarbons, like algae. It's going to be pretty expensive at first, but I can see biofuels occupying their own niche even in an economy that is dominated by hydrogen or some other "clean" resource.

While it's true there are more sources of plastic other than fossil fuels, the big disadvantage is the extra amount of energy and water needed. I doubt we'll be able to scale alternative plastics to match the levels produced from fossil fuels. But I do think we can get a lot of plastic from simply recycling it (maybe dig it back up from landfills). We can also reduce a lot of plastic demand by using reusable containe…

Automated sorting tech is becoming practical in more scenarios now as well, which should improve yields on recycled plastic. Traditional human-based sorting into bins by type of plastic often produces poor-quality output that has to be "downcycled" (e.g. into park benches, not a new coke bottle), because the percentage of mis-sorted impurities is too high.

Re: Peak plastic

#19

Post by tjic »

tdr wrote: post #2

The bigger problem is the medication sector which is based on the petrochemical industry (eg. aspirin). I'd rather eat on wooden plates than stay with a head-ache. probably even more life-indispensable drugs are made of petroleum. http://www.google.com/search?q=Pharmaceutical+drugs+made+fro... Plastic is easily replaceable with cleaner and healthier materials (glass, wood, ...) Not everywhere, but on the basic necess…

> I'd rather eat on wooden plates than stay with a head-ache

As a hobbyist wood turner who makes my own wooden plates and bowls, I suggest that eating off of wooden plates (or "treen" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treen_(wooden) as it was called) is actually kind of nice. It takes no more time to wash, the texture is earthy and solid, it's hygenic, and it makes you feel in touch with your environment.

(NOTE: I'm not a crazy hippy. I write Ruby, build CNC machines, and look forward to living in the asteroid belt some day...but it's still aesthetically nice to use stuff that has a personal imprint and local texture to it)

Re: Peak plastic

#20

Post by tjic »

obtu wrote: post #3
tdr wrote: post #2

The bigger problem is the medication sector which is based on the petrochemical industry (eg. aspirin). I'd rather eat on wooden plates than stay with a head-ache. probably even more life-indispensable drugs are made of petroleum. http://www.google.com/search?q=Pharmaceutical+drugs+made+fro... Plastic is easily replaceable with cleaner and healthier materials (glass, wood, ...) Not everywhere, but on the basic necess…

Using petrol on personal transportation is such a waste. I'd like to see a heavy carbon tax so that this fantastic, but finite, resource would be directed to things where it really adds value. The US subsidising wars to get more of it makes selfish sense, but to burn it immediately instead of building infrastructure is shameful.

> Using petrol on personal transportation is such a waste. I'd like to see a heavy carbon tax so that this fantastic, but finite, resource would be directed to things where it really adds value.

Forgive me if I respect the decentralized distributed thinking of 6 billion people, including millions of economists, engineers, materials scientists, etc., over one random commenter on HN, but I personally have no reason what-so-ever to believe that your judgement that the ROI on oil is higher in plastics mfgr than in transport.

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