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The best of EcoWatch, right in your inbox. Sign up for our email newsletter! Enter Email Sign Up. The report breaks down the projections of two widely respected sources of energy data and analysis, BP and the IEA. From to , BP expects plastics to represent 95 percent of the net growth in demand for oil.
In the IEA projections, plastics are the biggest single source of demand growth, representing 45 percent of the total. Oil majors are more bullish. They claim the plastics industry will maintain the rate of growth it has shown since , i.
For instance, Exxon touted 4 percent at its May investor day. Global and national oil companies are shifting investment into petrochemicals, from Saudi Arabia to China. Industry projections of growth in plastics take place in a bit of a dreamworld, ignoring several recent trends and changes. The report identifies four. Rising carbon emissions are not cool in the age of the Paris agreement.
If plastic demand were to grow as projected, annual emissions associated with plastic would double by mid-century, to around 3. And if it did that, SYSTEMIQ a company that researches and pushes for changes in materials use, which provided input to the report calculates that it would use 19 percent of the entire remaining global carbon budget.
Plastic produces external costs that are almost equal to its total market value. With these costs in mind, the report looks at the subsidies and taxes facing the industry, to find out if any of these costs are incorporated. Long story short: they are not. Imposing costs on poor people so that wealthy plastics companies can profit is a human rights abuse. First, the best research indicates that about 36 percent of all plastic produced is for single-use applications.
Third, recycling rates in the industry are abysmally low; 20 percent of plastics are sent for recycling, but only about 5 percent actually end up substituting for virgin plastic. Compare that to percent recycling rates in steel, aluminum, and paper. And fourth, there have been virtually no guidelines or regulations on the design of plastic products, so just about anything goes.
The result has been a tide of disposable, nonrecyclable plastic junk. However, there are other means, such as using gas. Figure 1. Pictorial representation of how plastics are made Figure is adapted from ref. Polymerisation is a process in the petroleum industry where light olefin gases gasoline such as ethylene, propylene, butylene i. This happens when monomers are chemically bonded into chains. There are two different mechanisms for polymerisation:. The addition polymerisation reaction is when one monomer connects to the next one dimer and dimer to the next one trimer and so on.
This is achieved by introducing a catalyst, typically a peroxide. This process is known as chain growth polymers — as it adds one monomer unit at a time. Common examples of addition polymers are polyethylene, polystyrene and polyvinyl chloride. Condensation polymerisation includes joining two or more different monomers, by the removal of small molecules such as water. It also requires a catalyst for the reaction to occur between adjacent monomers. This is known as step growth, because you may for example add an existing chain to another chain.
Common examples of condensation polymers are polyester and nylon. In compounding, various blends of materials are melt blended mixed by melting to make formulations for plastics.
Generally, an extruder of some type is used for this purpose which is followed by pelletising the mixture. Extrusion or a different moulding process then transforms these pellets into a finished or semi-finished product. Compounding often occurs on a twin-screw extruder where the pellets are then processed into plastic objects of unique design, various size, shape, colour with accurate properties according to the predetermined conditions set in the processing machine.
This literally means a polymer is made from many monomer-repeating units. Polymers are larger molecules formed by covalently joining many monomer-units together in the form of chains like pearls on a string of pearls. When we say plastics, we are referring to organic polymers synthetic or natural of high molecular weight which are mixed with other substances. Plastics are high molecular weight organic polymers composed of various elements such as carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, sulphur and chlorine.
They can also be produced from silicon atom known as silicone along with carbon; a common example is silicone breast implants or silicone hydrogel for optical lenses. Plastics are made up of polymeric resin often mixed with other substances called additives.
Plasticity describes whether a polymer would survive the temperature and pressure during the moulding process. Chemistry allows us to vary different parameters to tune the properties of polymers.
This allows plastics to be designed to have right properties for a specific application. Most plastic in use today comes from hydrocarbons derived from crude oil, natural gas and coal — fossil fuels.
Hydrocarbons are organic compounds can be aliphatic or aromatic made up of carbon and hydrogen. Aliphatic hydrocarbons have no cyclic benzene rings while the aromatics have benzene rings. It is able to pair up with four other electrons from any element of the periodic table to make up chemical bonds for hydrocarbon, it will pair up with hydrogen.
CH 4 molecule is called methane, which is the simplest hydrocarbon and the first member of the Alkane family. Similarly, if two C-atoms would bond together they can link with up to six H-atoms with three being on each C-atom to give a chemical formula of CH 3 -CH 3 or C 2 H 6 known as ethane and the series goes on as follows. Note that the 1-butylene and 2-butylene are isomers of butylene. Fossil fuels are mainly crude oil, natural gas and coal that are made up of carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, sulphur, oxygen elements and other minerals Figure 1, ref.
The generally accepted theory is that these hydrocarbons are formed from the remains of living-organisms called planktons tiny plants and animals that existed during the Jurassic era. Dead organisms decomposed without oxygen, which transformed them into tiny pockets of oil and gas. Crude oil and gas then penetrate in the rocks that ultimately accumulate in reservoirs. The oil and natural gas wells are found at the bottom of our oceans and beneath. Coal mainly originated from dead plants ref.
Figure 2. Elemental composition of fossil fuels ref. Scientists have also questioned this theory. A recent study in Nature Geoscience from Carnegie Institution in collaboration with Russian and Swedish colleagues revealed that the organic matter may not be the source of heavy hydrocarbon and that they could be existing already deep down in the Earth.
Does EIA have data on the type or quality of crude oil? Does EIA have data on the movement transport of crude oil, petroleum products, fuel ethanol, and biodiesel by rail?
Does EIA have data on U. How much coal, natural gas, or petroleum is used to generate a kilowatthour of electricity? What countries are the top producers and consumers of oil? How much petroleum does the United States import and export? What types and amounts of energy are produced in each state? Does EIA have county-level energy production data? How much shale tight oil is produced in the United States?
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