Give up

01/16/2025

So Musk says “recycling [plastics] is pointless”.

And he is right, mostly.

Chemically, polymers aren’t conducive to being recycled, whichever way you look at it.

The energy used and CO2 emitted is often more than making virgin material from oil.

The material properties of recycled plastics are almost always much worse than the original material, so the recycled product often can’t be used in the same application, or any application of value.

There are exceptions of course, but they don’t have enough volume to shift the needle (except the bullshit needle).

Which brings up another issue; when do you give up on a technology idea and move on?

If we stopped investing silly money into trying to recycle plastics, then we might invest in figuring out how to stop the Asians from dumping their plastic waste into the oceans.

Or we might pull the plug on green hydrogen right now.

But that’s a hard call. If the Chinese can get the electrolysis capex down by 100x, and they probably could eventually, then by that time solar energy will be almost free, and the hydrogen will be cheap, green and useful.

It’s a great fuel for stationary electricity generation. And there’s always a market for that.

And the zealots are working very hard to use it as a mobile fuel or co-fuel where batteries just can’t work for weight reasons.

Summary;