I wonder how the economics of drilling will work as we hopefully get away from fossil fuels for energy/transport to curtail global warming. (If carbon capture at the source of the emissions worked it'd be less of a problem but that seems to not be easily feasible.)
Like, we'll need less of the products of fractional distillation that we currently burn, but will continue to need the rest not only for plastics, bitumen, paint and other chemicals, see e.g https://elements.visualcapitalist.com/visualizing-the-produc...
I wonder if the the parts of the distillation used for fuel can be reprocessed for the other applications somehow, and the overall amount of oil drilled then reduced..?
Most polymers are made from really simple monomers. Just snip the "poly" from common plastics' name, look up the molecule, and what can be used as feedstock to produce it.
Turning heavier carbon compounds into such lighter molecules (eg. through "cracking") is a staple of oil refineries & chemical industry.
So yeah, when gasoline goes out of fashion we'll still be able to use all of oil that's pumped up for those other uses like plastics. And thus less oil will be pumped.
But alternatives come online too. Bio-based plastics are a thing, many paints are water based these days (even for exterior woodwork), fossil based solvents are being replaced with more benign chemicals in many household products, etc.
That's good to know, on both fronts. I'm glad people are switching on to the issues with plastics alright, even if it's a bit later than it ought to be - slapping a recycling icon on everything and telling people to carry on was a bit of a cynical bait and switch from the plastic manufacturers, given that at most like 5% of it ever got recycled.
Of course plastic itself is a huge issue, and a gross misuse of an amazing technology IMO. On the one hand it's an amazing material that has been vital to technological progress by enabling electrification, plumbing and all sorts of advanced manufacturing.
On the other hand it's vastly overused in packaging and the amount of molded plastic created with zero consideration of end-of-life is staggering.
Everything from phones, keyboards, mice, monitors, speakers, webcams, microphones, joypads, printers (just looking around my desk here) to combs, toothbrushes, sneakers, clothes, kitchen appliances, TOYS/Lego etc., and that's just durables.
Then you have all the use-once-and-dump packaging - bottles, straws and plastic grocery bags kind of get most of the attention but when you start to look around you notice how much of is used for cosmetics, food containers etc.
If you really think that climate science is as robust as the knowledge of the fact that the earth is not flat, I suggest picking up a book and reading a little bit about it.
And contrary to all the propaganda, by being skeptic of all the doomsday prophecies, you'd be in the same camp with a joyful bunch of smart fellas: Freeman Dyson [1] (of Dyson sphere fame), John Clauser (2022 Nobel laureate in Physics) [2], Ivar Giaever (1973 Nobel laureate in Physics) [3], William Happer (Physics professor at Princeton) [4], Steve McIntyre [5], Alex Epstein [6], Peter Thiel [7], Bjorn Lomborg [8], John Christy [9]…
Nine contrarians, some of whom are funded by oil industry sponsored think tanks, others who have zero scientific qualifications (Peter Thiel B.A, Alex Epstein B.A, I mean, come on), don't stack up against the thousands of qualified climate scientists of the IPCC.
The science is pretty straightforward. CO2 absorbs infrared energy from the sun, raising its temperature (If you want to measure the amount of CO2 in an air sample, guess how we do that? Shine infrared light through it from one side and measure how much is missing on the other end). That heat is transmitted to the rest of the atmosphere through collisions with the other molecules, N2, O2 etc.
We use 100 million barrels of oil a day, approximately 70% of which is burned. About 22 million tonnes of coal and 11 million cubic meters of natural gas are also burned per day. Add in methane and you're looking at almost 140 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent entering the atmosphere every day. We've been building up to this level gradually over the last century or more. That CO2 that we're burning every day sits in the atmosphere anywhere between 20 to 200 years, absorbing heat from the sun every minute of every day.
Instant Pot pressure cooker - Great for stews, can do big batches of beans and lentils, brown rice, chickpeas for hummus etc. You can save a lot of money and packaging buying dried beans and soaking them.
Air fryer - Handy for french fries, roasting a couple of peppers, reheating food like pizza slices turns out better than the microwave.
Yeah, noise can have a detrimental effect on wellbeing. I've never tried active noise cancelling headphones but my 3M Peltor X5A headset earmuffs are a lifesaver.
They're big and not the best for very extended periods, but when you need some relief from a noisy environment for a while they really help.
Cool game, reminds me a bit of the research options in Stellaris.
One thing I found missing was anything to do with reducing plastic waste specifically - there's an "Expand recycling" infrastructure option but I don't think that captures the specific challenges related to plastic.
Given that only some 5% of plastic actually gets recycled and there are real hurdles to getting to meaningful levels of plastic recycling, I think a Policy option is needed to really enforce the search for alternatives.
There seem to be a couple of options that are sort of the inverse of that, the "Consumerist Curriculum" and "Gadgets, Fast Fashion and Endless TV", but I don't see the effects of those as being particularly accurate, e.g. there's no apparent negative effect (to e.g. biodiversity, health) to choking up the planet with even more molded plastic than we already are.
Like, we'll need less of the products of fractional distillation that we currently burn, but will continue to need the rest not only for plastics, bitumen, paint and other chemicals, see e.g https://elements.visualcapitalist.com/visualizing-the-produc...
I wonder if the the parts of the distillation used for fuel can be reprocessed for the other applications somehow, and the overall amount of oil drilled then reduced..?