I frequently see debates about how oil shortages would affect energy and transportation, but how would oil shortages affect manufacturing?
Just about all modern products are wholly or partially composed of plastic. Are there any renewable alternatives to plastic that are not dependent on oil?
If recycling plastics is a good solution, is there any limitation on the recycling of plastics, or could they theoretically be recycled indefinitely using energy from, say, fision power plants?
Given abundant energy, you’d be hard pressed to find a plastic that couldn’t be synthesized from non-petrochemical sources. The relevant phrase in organic chemistry is “using benzene, toluene, and alcohols of four carbons or fewer, and any necessary inorganic reagents synthesize the following compounds.” Any organic chemical can be built this way, at varying degrees of efficiency.
The disadvantage to this is cost. These synthesis reactions will cost more than using the petrochemicals, at least for the immediate future.
There is more petroleum to be extracted in North America than your great-great-great grandchildren will just be beginning to eat into when they die. It is just a matter of cost effectiveness and those oil sources will come on line as soon as it is economically feasible. This is already happening with the tar sands in Alberta, Canada.. Some estimates say that good extraction techniques in Alberta could surpass the entire Middle-Eastern output - ever. If you want to disregard that for a moment, the U.S. and Canada each have so much coal available that you might as well call it infinite (estimates say it could last for 500 - 1000 years with known reserves and ever-increasing production). Coal can be used directly to produce electricity but the processes to turn it into gasoline or plastic are mature technologies and scale up well.
In other words, there isn’t a supply problem and there will not be in your lifetime or your kid’s lifetime. It may be a matter of more expensive prices that are required before we tap into them fully but we are almost already there. The real risk lies in economic bumps as production gets ramped up in one area as fast as possible and there are periods of uneven supply that cause price shocks.
There are some plastics that use corn as a source (more precisely, polymer-grade lactic acid based, with the PGLA made from sugars made from corn starch). It is currently considerably more expensive than petroleum-based plastics, even with record dollars-per-barrel oil.
Oil shortages or (in the absense of price controls/rationing) high oil prices will affect different types of manufacturing differently. Plastics-based manufacturing will see higher materials costs, but higher prices for finished goods resulting in lower production. Industries will see higher transporation costs which will affect materials costs and distribution costs; this will hurt some manufacturing more than others.
Some manufacturing is energy intensive, and high oil costs will have some effect on that. Electricity is almost oil-independent, and industrial heat is typically natural gas or coal. I suspect that there is some overlap that causes other energy prices to fluctuate as a fraction of the change in oil prices. Una persson usually chimes in with oil/gas questions. Maybe she knows if there’s a relationship.
Thanks! I didn’t realize that plastics could be made out of coal. It sounds like besides economic shock, the major consequence of low oil supply is reduced efficiency, but we will still have all the same capabilities with or without oil.
Don’t limit yourself to just products manufactured out of petrochemicals. Engergy is required to procure raw matertials for manufacturing, not to mention transportation of raw materials to manufacturing sites, the manufacturing process itself, storage of products, transportation of products to markets, etc.
The simplest energy used comes from oil. Yes, coal and natural gas may fuel basic energy requirements. But until coal production and coal conversion facilities come online to fill gaps created by the absence of oil, what is the stopgap?
Of course, there will be a ramp up of coal production and conversion facilties as the price of oil climbs, but doesn’t that assume a gradual transformation? What about a significant and abrupt disruption to the oil supply before conversion facilities are operating? What if terrorists actually acquire a nuclear device and take out major oil producing facilties in the Middle East? Yes, there will be government intervention in getting these conversion facilities up and running. But will the disruption be significant enough the very fabric of the country is scarred for a considerable time? How much damage could be considered irreversible while segments of society must wait while priority areas slowly come back online being supplied with a new energy source?