Stuff: Sankey diagrams of Material Flows for Polyurethane in the United States.

[NNadir]

I don't have a lot of time to discuss this paper, but the graphics in it say something about mass transfer and the handwaving belief we're "just going to recycle" our stuff. The paper is here: Material Flows of Polyurethane in the United States
(Chao Liang, Ulises R. Gracida-Alvarez, Ethan T. Gallant, Paul A. Gillis, Yuri A. Marques, Graham P. Abramo, Troy R. Hawkins, and Jennifer B. Dunn Environmental Science & Technology 2021 55 (20), 14215-14224).

The graphics in question, material flows for polyurethane.



The caption:

Figure 1. Reconciled U.S. flow of polyurethane in 2016 (thousand tonnes). Drawn using E!Sankey software. TDI, toluene diisocyanate; MDI, methylene diphenyl diisocyanate; PTMEG, polytetramethylene ether glycol; EEE, electrical and electronic equipment; and CASE, coatings, adhesives, sealants, binders, and elastomers. Note: the data for primary energy was not reconciled. All of the numbers displayed were rounded to one or two significant digits.

The caption:

Figure 2. Reconciled U.S. flow of polyurethane in 2016 (thousand tonnes) highlighting polyurethane material types. Drawn using E!Sankey software. TDI, toluene diisocyanate; MDI, methylene diphenyl diisocyanate; PTMEG, polytetramethylene ether glycol; and EEE, electrical and electronic equipment. Note: the data for primary energy was not reconciled. All of the numbers displayed were rounded to one or two significant digits.

We are accumulating "stuff" at a massive rate, much of derived from dangerous fossil fuels.

The decades long fantasy that we will recycle all our plastics has proved to be a fantasy, because mass intensity matters. It isn't working: Bodies of water, not limited to the oceans, and - if you look - even the air is becoming filled with microplastics.

Over in the E&E forum, where I don't write much anymore, I sometimes hear about the "stuff" that's accumulating at a massive rate associated with so called "renewable energy," which is highly mass intensive and which has failed, after decades of cheering, to address climate change, that we'll "just recycle" this accumulating junk.

The problem is that recycling anything is energy intensive.

Closed material cycles are a much discussed goal of sustainability, but it is only possible with massive energy, and the energy itself must be mass efficient. The only form of energy that is more mass efficient than dangerous fossil fuels - which are rapidly killing the planet - is nuclear energy. Despite 50 years of caterwauling about so called "nuclear waste" by people who don't give a shit about billions of tons of dangerous fossil fuel waste and the other products of dangerous fossil fuels - polymers being among them, but being only a part of the problem - used nuclear fuel has not, after decades, amounted to 100,000 tons. Moreover, used nuclear fuels are filled with valuable materials, consisting mostly of usable uranium, valuable plutonium, and among other things, precious metal fission products.

If we cared, we would pay attention to things that matter as opposed to irrationally fearing things that don't matter.

It is notable in the Sankey diagrams above, however, that some of the polyurethane is actually not single use. Were this polyurethane produced from carbon dioxide and hydrogen, rather than dangerous fossil fuels, it would represent sequestered carbon. Of course, the hydrogenation of carbon dioxide requires energy; the reduction of carbon dioxide requires the input of more energy than went into creating it, if it was created by the combustion of a dangerous fossil fuel. If the energy comes from dangerous fossil fuels, then we are talking about a perpetual motion machine, one which violates the law of thermodynamics, which cannot be repealed by either the legislature of Texas, or for that matter, New Jersey, or by Congress.

No, solar and wind won't cut it. Sorry, but that's a fact.

Facts matter.

If the energy by contrast is clean and sustainable - there is only one form of energy that qualifies, nuclear energy - the matter is quite different.

It would really seem to be time to wake up; but that doesn't seem to be happening at any appreciable rate that will matter.

Have a happy Friday.