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.
