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Comment by bushbaba | Hacker News Reader

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bushbaba·

We could also burn the plastic for peaker plant electricity. Good short term solution considering all the factors.

Why we don’t I have no idea. The fuel is basically free. And the co2 impact is much less than building energy storage.

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As a petroleum product, wouldn't the co2 impact be very similar to something like coal or gasoline?

Probably closer to coal than gasoline. Plus You have to factor in the fact that coal plants are designed to be most efficient with the kind of coal they are built to burn and with burning plastic waste it's usually some kind of a mix, so there's a good chance the CO2 emissions from burning plastic waste would be even higher per watt than with coal, which is already super bad.

Well.. i mean, it's not as if we'll stop using plastic soon, and since the whole world has issues with it now (since china doesn't but it anymore), investing in such redesigned burners would be a good investment now.

Per lb of fuel? Yes. But the idea is that this would offset other oil consumption. It’s marginally better to turn plastic products into energy than it is to throw plastic away and burn more oil for power.

Ideally, we would think of this as getting a second use for your heating fuel. Between being mined and being burned, it's temporarily used to let you cary milk home from the store.

That's an excellent point, thanks.

I think it’s optics that prevent the US from doing this. Too many people are convinced that plastic is highly recyclable and burning it would be wasteful.

I think people too often Go for the recycle (get it out of my sight) instead of the reuse and reduce angles of the conservation triangle.

Wouldn't it pollute the atmosphere? Is there a "clean" (modulo CO2) way to burn it?

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