I previously theorized that we should stop using petroleum for fuel so that our planet's limited petroleum reserves will be available for plastic. After all, lots of important things (computers, sterile medical equipment, hygienic food packaging) are made of plastic.
Someone should study and quantify this. Which things that are made of plastics and other petroleum derivatives most need to be made of these non-renewable materials? Do we even have a way to manufacture computers or keep syringes sterile without plastic? Is it possible but unwieldly? Is it possible and reasonably user-friendly but expensive? Or are there whole functionalities that we'd lose out on without plastic?
Now that I think about it, they could do this with fuel too. Electric cars are possible, renewable power generation is possible, but do we even have a renewable option for jet fuel? If so, how feasible is it?
Once they've done all the research and quantified everything, they can put it all in order of the importance of petroleum to the product and the importance of the product to society, and we'll have a better idea of whether we're really making the best use of our non-renewable resources. They could also use this information to target research into finding renewable replacement for petroleum derivatives. If, for example, there's some key medical application for which we don't yet have any alternative, maybe they should work on that first.
2 comments:
Apparently the future of aviation will be powered by mustard.
That's cool! And I'm glad they're using land that isn't already being used for food crops. It would be even cooler if they could figure out how to make biofuel from the parts of plants that we throw away anyway, like cornhusks and such.
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