Does anyone know if it is potentially possible to increase the yield of naphtha if there is no (or low) need for fossil fuels?
Residual products from oil are a convenient feedstock for plastic but it can be made from other sources. Corn is a good example.
If we stopped using gas/diesel/jet fuel and stopped refining oil completely the biggest tertiary products the world would miss out on are vaseline and petroleum based fishing lures
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluid_catalytic_cracking
https://www.britannica.com/technology/petroleum-refining/Vis...
https://mechanics.stackexchange.com/a/23916/922
The gist is that if we decide that we need any fixed amount of any of the oil products, that product becomes expensive and the remaining products become inexpensive byproducts of its production.
Europe and US has record low harvests this year. Grain stores are at a lowest point they've been in decades.
It will cost trillions to build enough reservours, water canals and greenhouses to feed the remaining population.
Yield of wheat is reduced in high temperature even if there is enough water.
You will have to eat casava.
Certainly some but not that many.
Climate change? Of course! Hiw big is the man made part and how sensitive does it react to change? No answers as of yet.
What is the basis for this extraordinary assertion?
Without adaptation, climate change could depress growth in global agriculture yields up to 30 percent by 2050. That's 2 billion dead. By 2100 it could be more.
With some really clever policy it could be less, but there is no evidence of clever policy from anyone.
You propose no solutions, only mudding the water.
What is the basis for this extraordinary assertion?
Sources? Even then your lineage of argumentation is non-conclusive as 30% change doesn't equate 2 billion death.
World's population is expected to reach 9.7 billion by 2050. We grow enough food for 10 billion. Climate models say there will be 30% less food, so only enough to feed 7 billion.
These numbers are common knowledge, none of them are disputed. [1] Put 2 and 2 together.
What will happen to the 3 billion people that have nothing to eat?
The people is the impoverished global south can feed extra 1 billion by getting rid of animals, but then what?
Are the other 2 billion going to learn photosynthesis? Is the developed world going to give up food?
Put forward an actual counter argument, provide numbers, back them up with expert opinions.
https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/adapting-to-4c-of-glo...
The only place fossil fuels win is power density, but that's not a deal breaker compared to the downsides.
Otherwise the oil industry would have to deal with plastics as a waste product.
Plastics are made chaining small molecules into long chains. The property of the plastic deepens on the initial small molecule, how many of them you chain and other stuff.
Also, if the initial molecule has only two "sticky" points and form a linear chain, or has three or more "sticky" points and then form a net of interlocked chains. Or something in between.
Also depending on what is in the initial molecule, the chain may be like a single smooth rope, or have some dangling parts like a Christmas light line.
And you can also mix two or more initial molecules, and there are a few methods to make them "sticky", and ...
In particular, the size and shape of the initial molecule is very important. You want a very specific one to get the properties of each plastic, not a mix random chemical stuff.
Back to oil... Oil has a mix of hydrocarbons of very different sizes and shapes. Some are linear, some have side chains, some have cycles. (This differences are also important if you want to use them as fuel or lubricant.)
To make plastic you must add two "sticky" points to the hydrocarbons, changing some part of them, for example adding oxygen or nitrogen. But before that, you must select the correct length and shape of the hydrocarbon.
To select the length and shape of the hydrocarbon, the fist step is to boil it, and let the vapor condensate at different temperatures. The short hydrocarbons have a low boiling point and the long hydrocarbons have a high boiling point. Then each part is further proceed and used as a different kind of fuel or for different chemical reactions (to make plastic and other stuff).