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Joined 6 months ago
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Cake day: June 22nd, 2024

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  • I mainly agree, but it could be substituted. Various biomolecules are being investigated as a replacement substrate for established (petro)chemical processes. Part of the issue is, that you need to defunctionalise the chemicals which is the opposite of what petrochemistry currently does (which is adding functional groups as needed, not removing them).

    This research, however, is stifled by the cheap Price of oil. I know an anecdote of Nivea pulling their funding into a similar project because the price ber barrel recently fell. The project was supposed to last around 5 years.




  • Still leagues ahead of biomass. Don’t get me wrong, this is an issue that can be solved. Biomass can be converted to biogas which can be purified to produce methane (or you just burn biogas directly) which then in turn can be used for heat (or other purposes) - the problem here is the sheer amount of energy this requires. Yes, significant portions of the steel industry can be “decarbonised” (or at least I think so) but the effort is immense. Doable, necessary, but it will be a huge piece of work.