[rolandr]

At first, I thought this was a good overlooked point, but after digging into it, there isn’t a net reduction.

According to [1], the gCO2e/kWh for the relevant energy sources are: Coal 850g Natural gas 385g Plastic incineration 512g

According to [2], in the US in 2023, 43.1% of electricity was from natural gas and 16.2% from coal. Based on that, the average fossil fuel kWh resulted in 512 gCO2e.

So, if you substitute the average fossil fuel with burning plastic, there is NO net improvement in CO2 emissions per kWh. Against just natural gas, burning plastic actually produces 33% more gCO2e.

I think the above approach is the correct way to evaluate this. Basically, to get your kWh from nonrenewable sources, you are still burning something and have to choose one thing or another to be burned. Choosing plastic allows you to defer burning your fossil fuel (or, in other words, gives you more total fuel to burn), but it doesn’t help climate change efforts.

[1] https://www.clientearth.org/media/1h2nalrh/greenhouse-gas-an... (page 29) [2] https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/electricity/electricity-...

[ars]

You are forgetting the energy cost in pulling the fuel out of the ground.

It's actually quite a high amount! With plastic you get that for free.

[rolandr]

I don’t know if that source ultimately took into account the CO2 costs in extraction and transportation.

However, plastic sure isn’t free in that regard! 8-10% of petroleum (which is pulled out of the ground, with increasing effort each year) is used to produce plastics. I’d put good odds on extraction and transportation CO2 costs for petroleum exceeding those for LNG - no good guess on coal. That also doesn’t account for your energy costs in moving the post-consumer plastic around.

Plus, natural gas has significantly lower emissions than plastic to begin with.

Obviously, which others touched on, it’s better to displace burning fossil fuels and plastics (arguably fossil fuel too) with renewables —- an effort that continues to accelerate.

[ars]

> plastic sure isn’t free in that regard!

The point is that it's free once it gets to the recycling stage. You could just dump the plastic in a landfill, or you can use it for energy.

Basically the efficiency comes from using the plastic twice, but paying for it only once.

> Plus, natural gas has significantly lower emissions than plastic to begin with.

Well the question is this then: Are we burning any oil at all for electricity? If zero oil in the entire US, then you can make this point. Until then, lets replace that oil with plastic.

As for your renewable comment, this is intended as something to do today, to at least help. Over time it won't be needed, and that's fine, but let's work on today.