Japanese Invent Machine To Turn Plastic Back Into Oil

[madviking]

Link to video.

Global climate change = solved, amiright?

 

[Birdjaguar]

That's very cool. I would love to fuel my car with my plastic waste.

 

[NKVD]

wow....i'm impressed...

 

[warpus]

This is impressive and all, but.. you guys know what's coming next, right?

They will invent a machine that turns oil into dinosaurs

This will not end well for Japan

 

[Hakim]

Link to video.

Global climate change = solved, amiright?

I'm not so sure. How long would it take for that plastic to decompose into CO2 if left in the landfill? According to wiki plastic may persist for "hundreds or even thousands of years". That essentially makes it a good "carbon sink" long enough for the global warming issue to be solved or overplayed. Turning all of it into CO2 right now doesn't sound like a good idea from a global warming perspective.

Of course oil scarcity may turn out to be an even worse (or more immediate - especially for Japan which is isolated) problem and then this technology can mitigate somewhat. Besides, waste is often burned for heating anyway so might as well make oil of it.

 

[GoodGame]

How efficient though? Oil into Kaiju would not end well for Tokyo.



Edit: all-in-all plastic is more useful as plastic than oil.

 

[Luckymoose]

I'd like one of these. I can just go to the landfill and dig up my next tank of gas.

 

[Perfection]

But if we get rid of the plastic what will we make our ecocars out of?

 

[Ramius75]

how much energy used to convert that ??

The problem with human is, we are impatient.

 

[GoodGame]

Finally watched the video, and while it makes some sense given limited living space in Japan, I wonder if exporting the waste plastic for incorporation into products wouldn't be more cost effective as well.