Plastics are, fundamentally, long carbon-based molecules. You can make them from chemicals derived from living sources. Or even from living sources, such as what we call "paper".

We typically use oil to make plastics today because it's cheaper and easier. There is nothing in chemistry that requires us to continue to do so. It will just cost more.

As for reducing carbon footprint in manufacturing, that's also quite doable. In virtually all cases, we are only getting heat from fossil-fuel sources when we use it in manufacturing. We know many renewable ways to produce heat, they just cost more than fossil fuels currently do.

There are a few applications where combustion products are involved in making the final product. But those are 1) rare, and 2) the combustion product could be produced from a carbon-neutral source. For example, if you need a little CO2, you could burn charcoal or wood to get it. Or just extract it from the atmosphere directly. Again, the other options are just more costly at the moment.

To give an illustration, we forged iron and steel for centuries because we could make a really damn hot fire to melt it. The fire was fueled by coal for a very long time. But we couldn't make anything out of aluminum because heat alone won't turn bauxite into aluminum.

Instead, we need the combination of heat and electricity to turn the bauxite into aluminum. So we use an enormous version of an electric heater to simultaneously melt the bauxite and drive off the oxygen from the bauxite to produce aluminum.

Last edited Tue Jun 16, 2015, 04:22 PM - Edit history (1)

I am wondering if there are any carbon neutral biofuels that will at some point become cost-competitive.

bamboo, kenauf,corn, lots of plants:

lots of biodegradable products. https://www.google.com/search?q=compostable+bottles&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US fficial&client=firefox-a&channel=fflb

This example uses methane:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/112785032

However similar methods use CO₂

by using a different raw material, Plants instead of million year old dinosaurs, they can make them, in the US too! so they decompose and don't travel from China. And believe me, a lot of energy goes into after the fact of plastic.

Here's a cool company bottling water in a bio bottle: http://www.biotaspringwater.com/

Furfural is made from agricultural waste, and converted to various other products, including the solvents THF, MeTHF (also used in fuels) and THP.

Acetone was once made primarily by fermentation, until the market was undercut by acetone produced from propene, a major petrochemical feedstock.

1-Butanol can be made by fermentation, and can be burned in unmodified IC engines.

Unfortunately, there is no *general* approach to replacing all petrochemicals by agwaste. Each case must be worked out, just as the current methods of petro-based manufacture were worked out. But some of the methods developed for petro can be adapted to bio-based feedstocks as well.

It hardly needs to be said that ethanol and acetic acid (from vinegar) have long been produced by fermentation. Most acetic acid today is produced from coal/syngas or ethylene, but fermentation is still done on a large scale.

I've wondered about plastics myself. So good to know its possible without fossil fuel oil.

It is good to know that we have options. Maybe at some point down the line we will be willing to take them--hopefully before it is too late.