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Replacement of petroleum based products with plant-based materials (2025)

77 points · 39 comments · thelastgallon

  1. wewewedxfgdf · · focus · HN ↗
    I vaguely recall reading that biofuels have been debunked as being insanely inefficient as a fuel source and consume land that would be better used to grow food.
    1. Lutger · · focus · HN ↗
      The main focus of the article is not biofuels, but plant based plastics. We can replace most of the need for fuel with EV (or hydrogen fuels), but plastic is a harder problem. Micro and nanoplastics are also a problem that urgently needs to be addressed.
      1. pbmonster · · focus · HN ↗
        > Micro and nanoplastics are also a problem that urgently needs to be addressed.

        Bio-plastics won't do this automatically. You can make today's polymers from biomass feedstock. Those will have the exact same micro/nano plastic problems.

        You can also make polymeres, that are much more bio-degradable, with the associated particulate matter decaying instead of accumulating forever - but you could make those from crude oil just as well, and those degradable polymeres bring an entirely different zoo of problems with them.

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