I wrote:
> The non-energy use of oil used to be about 10% of total production, > including about 2% for plastic feedstock. Some natural gas is also used in > nonenergy applications. > Correction: it was 17% in 2000. It was 6.4 quads out of 38.8 for petroleum. See the last page here: http://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/NRELenergyover.pdf Chris Zell <chrisz...@wetmtv.com> wrote: Thermal depolymerization will require refineries, of a sort – together with > the attendant cancer-causing leaks/byproducts. > These can be small refineries. I have seen photos of some the size of houses. They can probably be made fully automatic and the size of automobiles for local production of plastic feedstock out of coal and water. Possibly the size of coffee makers. They can be made as leakproof as any other industrial machine. Organic materials are not usually cancer-causing. We have machines that safely handle things like battery acid which is probably more dangerous. > Something is wrong with depolymerization, perhaps politically because we > don’t have it en masse today. > The problems have been that it is still too expensive. It cannot compete with naturally produced oil. Also some of the plants made a bad smell. Problems like that can be fixed. Here is a company that tried but went out of business: https://gigaom.com/2009/03/05/biofuel-maker-changing-world-files-for-bankruptcy/ - Jed
