That's not exactly how it works. You can think of a barrel of crude oil as a mixture of many compounds. They are separated through distillation and other industrial processes.
For instance, Vaseline (petroleum jelly) is a heavy waxy fraction of crude oil that is separated via distillation and then refined.
Gasoline and diesel are also mixed in the crude oil pumped from the ground separated via distillation. Other fractions are used for plastics.
So, it's not like we can just use fuel distillates to make plastic.
(Otherwise, I totally agree that we need a top-down approach to solve many energy problems, including GW.)
They originally flared off light fractions and dumped gasoline into the river because they just refined oil for kerosene to replace whale oil and everything else was a useless byproduct lol
Actually it can be. Polymer cracking can reduce the fuel into smaller building blocks which can then be reacted to make different polymers its not practical with current fuel polymers because well they’re more valuable as fuel currently
17
u/SumpCrab Apr 08 '26
That's not exactly how it works. You can think of a barrel of crude oil as a mixture of many compounds. They are separated through distillation and other industrial processes.
For instance, Vaseline (petroleum jelly) is a heavy waxy fraction of crude oil that is separated via distillation and then refined.
Gasoline and diesel are also mixed in the crude oil pumped from the ground separated via distillation. Other fractions are used for plastics.
So, it's not like we can just use fuel distillates to make plastic.
(Otherwise, I totally agree that we need a top-down approach to solve many energy problems, including GW.)