07-08-2015, 12:11 PM
0
It is possible to make the petroleum needed for plastics using modified bacteria, They already exist, all that is needed is an infrastructure shift, granted this is no small feat. America is in an excellent position to do this because the bacteria feed on waste plant matter, and this country has a huge fertile area for farms. They can be used to produce diesel as well. Their isn't even a need to refine the diesel, just filter it out of the bacteria vats.
Not so sound like a conspiracy nut job, but the middle east countries that produce a shit ton of the oil, along with the republicans in their wallets (irony here?), are stifling the transition.
It wont eliminate the emissions issues, but at least it'll remove the need for drilling, and especially the increasing trend in the US to drill in populated areas.
Also they are developing cellulose based plastics, indeed they have been around for decades now, they just cant get the funding to go into mass production.
Also I don't remember what material it is but one of the elements needed for efficient / safe hydrogen storage is classified as a nuclear weapons material even though it was just used for a insulator and has nothing to do with the actual explosive device.
Thus making it illegal to sell. But not to manufacture for some reason lol. I think it was lithium-3. I'll see if i can dig up more info.
Also TK you still get the vroom because you can just pipe it into a normal engine in place of gas. But it burns way cleaner, like all you get is some dirty water.
One if the even bigger issues is coal based power plants. If we can axe those and move to newer thorium based reactor tech things will be much cleaner, and safer as the thorium reactors do not require as much material as older models. They can also run off waste from other reactors if I remember correctly. They also very recently finally achieved a fusion reaction that produced more power than it took to generate, although this is still a long long way away from being a viable option.
We can also throw in wind, solar, wave, & geothermal power generation options in areas where such methods are viable.
Not so sound like a conspiracy nut job, but the middle east countries that produce a shit ton of the oil, along with the republicans in their wallets (irony here?), are stifling the transition.
It wont eliminate the emissions issues, but at least it'll remove the need for drilling, and especially the increasing trend in the US to drill in populated areas.
Also they are developing cellulose based plastics, indeed they have been around for decades now, they just cant get the funding to go into mass production.
Also I don't remember what material it is but one of the elements needed for efficient / safe hydrogen storage is classified as a nuclear weapons material even though it was just used for a insulator and has nothing to do with the actual explosive device.
Thus making it illegal to sell. But not to manufacture for some reason lol. I think it was lithium-3. I'll see if i can dig up more info.
Also TK you still get the vroom because you can just pipe it into a normal engine in place of gas. But it burns way cleaner, like all you get is some dirty water.
One if the even bigger issues is coal based power plants. If we can axe those and move to newer thorium based reactor tech things will be much cleaner, and safer as the thorium reactors do not require as much material as older models. They can also run off waste from other reactors if I remember correctly. They also very recently finally achieved a fusion reaction that produced more power than it took to generate, although this is still a long long way away from being a viable option.
We can also throw in wind, solar, wave, & geothermal power generation options in areas where such methods are viable.