Read the Mutant 59
Plastic-eating enzyme could eliminate billions of tons of landfill waste
121–130 of 294 posts
Re: Plastic-eating enzyme could eliminate billions of tons of landfill waste
#122Earlier quoted context omitted.
The only part that is true is that burning is the most common method, with recycling being a close third. > which is costly Burning is not costly it is cheaper than all other methods. It's so cheap it's actually profitable. > energy intensive It actually provides extra energy, and reduces energy waste (because now we have to pump less oil.) > and spews noxious gas into the air. It spews nothing except water and CO2.
I wouldn't exactly call it noxious, but C02 isn't exactly something we want to be spewing more of. Isn't a landfill full of plastic pretty much just a big pile of captured carbon?
It's captured oil basically, not captured CO2. (Don't say "captured carbon", when you mean "captured co2", because it leads to confusion - do you mean burned or unburned carbon?)
And since we are still pumping oil of the ground, leaving a different form of oil (plastic) in the ground doesn't accomplish anything useful.
Re: Plastic-eating enzyme could eliminate billions of tons of landfill waste
#123No post body was provided.
Re: Plastic-eating enzyme could eliminate billions of tons of landfill waste
#124I've been hearing this for 20 years. I assume nothing will happen while this "news" will be used by fossil fuel companies to virtue signal "technological progress" in the plastic problem.
Yes, I came across this recently and almost submitted, but it seemed like a minor development by the same team on news (discussed here) a couple of years ago, and searching around there was similarly titled stuff from mainstream news going back years.
Seems to be one of those things where, if you're not in the field, all the news is the same and sounds like a breakthrough, but it'll be 20y out from actual adoption for a while.
Re: Plastic-eating enzyme could eliminate billions of tons of landfill waste
#125Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because then we can avoid pumping oil out of the ground and burning that. The hydrocarbons are going to get burned one way or another, you can just trade one type for another types.
> you can just trade one type for another types You cannot replace most oil-based fuel with incinerators. So I'll disagree there. The utility of oil-based fuels is the energy density in combustion. Burning plastic doesn't come close to the same exchange.
> The utility of oil-based fuels is the energy density in combustion. Burning plastic doesn't come close to the same exchange.
The energy density of plastic (by weight, not volume) is virtually identical to that of oil.
Yes, the machine used to burn oil vs plastic looks different, but coal plants can burn plastic without much modification - and they would be much much cleaner than coal when they do so.
Re: Plastic-eating enzyme could eliminate billions of tons of landfill waste
#126Earlier quoted context omitted.
Quoted post unavailable.
Nuclear fuel must first be mined, correct? That's not renewable and could offset the benefits somewhat. That said I imagine it may be better as a base load than dirty coal.
Breeder reactors produce more fuel than they consume.
Re: Plastic-eating enzyme could eliminate billions of tons of landfill waste
#127I've been hearing this for 20 years. I assume nothing will happen while this "news" will be used by fossil fuel companies to virtue signal "technological progress" in the plastic problem.
Agreed. I generally assume that any headline with the structure "X new thing could solve Y," where Y is a massive problem that everyone wants a silver bullet for, is clickbait. I've seen too many of them at this point.
Everyone wants a quick fix for climate change and pollution because it will absolve us of doing the hard work that the problem really requires. By all means, we should pursue such moonshot ideas - but like you said, it will be used to virtue signal some false idea of "progress" while the problem gets worse.
Re: Plastic-eating enzyme could eliminate billions of tons of landfill waste
#128I've been hearing this for 20 years. I assume nothing will happen while this "news" will be used by fossil fuel companies to virtue signal "technological progress" in the plastic problem.
Agreed. I generally assume that any headline with the structure "X new thing could solve Y," where Y is a massive problem that everyone wants a silver bullet for, is clickbait. I've seen too many of them at this point. Everyone wants a quick fix for climate change and pollution because it will absolve us of doing the hard work that the problem really requires. By all means, we should pursue such moonshot ideas - but…
This is a bit of a cynical take, if a solution is 1% likely it seems natural that 99% of the time the solutions aren't viable. Implies the 1% is still possible.
Re: Plastic-eating enzyme could eliminate billions of tons of landfill waste
#129Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nuclear fuel must first be mined, correct? That's not renewable and could offset the benefits somewhat. That said I imagine it may be better as a base load than dirty coal.
Breeder reactors produce more fuel than they consume.
Wouldn't that violate the second law of thermodynamics?
Re: Plastic-eating enzyme could eliminate billions of tons of landfill waste
#130Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why do we want to put the plastic's carbon into the atmosphere instead of back into the ground where it came from?
Because then we can avoid pumping oil out of the ground and burning that. The hydrocarbons are going to get burned one way or another, you can just trade one type for another types.
You do have significant differences between noxious fumes and clean burning between burning plastic vs burning fossil fuels. The energy captured from the burn is obviously not the same - same reason you can't just set fire to a "bowl" of plastic.