Critical attention is being focused on single-use plastic as a global waste disposal problem—one that dramatically affects our oceans, uses up landfill space, and befuddles recycling programs desperate to find legitimate recycling facilities instead of developing country dumping grounds. (Our own greenandblue has written extensively on the subject, as recently as last weekend's open thread, www.dailykos.com/...). Those of us who live near plastics and associated petrochemicals manufacturing facilities, which are notorious for environmental injustice against persons of color and the poor, may focus more on the carcinogens and other hazardous air emissions weakly regulated by the EPA (www3.epa.gov/...). Others correctly point out that the amount of fossil fuels used in plastics manufacturing is enormous, growing, and itself contributing to climate change (www.earthisland.org/...)
As critical as these concerns are in and of themselves, not nearly enough attention is being focused on the choke point that plastics and associated petrochemicals manufacturing represents to the oil and gas industry. We have a critical opportunity to address the problem of global climate change more broadly while at the same time addressing the very real environmental justice, waste disposal, energy usage, and carbon emissions concerns associated with plastics as such.
What do we mean by this rather coarse "choke point" terminology? We're not talking about violence but, to expand on Senator Sanders' phrase, about the need for a democratic revolution that is by necessity strategically efficient. We're not talking about choking anyone, including any company executive, but rather the necessary and proper choking of an industry dependent upon plastics and associated petrochemicals profit, an industry that is choking our atmosphere and ruining our planet in the process. This is the green democratic socialist analogy to the Grover Norquist prescription for government:
To Norquist, who loves being called a revolutionary, hardly an agency of government is not worth abolishing, from the Internal Revenue Service and the Food and Drug Administration to the Education Department and the National Endowment for the Arts. "My goal is to cut government in half in twenty-five years," he says, "to get it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub."
(www.thenation.com/...)
As discussed below the break, democracy is being undermined by fossil fuel companies on a national level particularly in relation to plastics and associated petrochemicals. It does not exist at all on a global level in relation to any issues. The people of the world have been disenfranchised, and companies, often but not always transnational, have the only numbers that count under global capitalism—the short-sighted plastics and associated petrochemicals profit unjustly taken from us and all generations to follow, the desperate and indebted, present and future, and then used to make sure democracy remains undermined even though this means literally destroying our world.
The people now have no choice but to desperately devise (a) new means to unite, with a focus on social solidarity, and (b) an urgent choke point offensive strategy against the fossil fuel companies which are literally destroying our planet for profit. We must build a "future where the economic inequality, racism and colonialism that made decades of inaction on climate change possible has been acknowledged and is being addressed" (www.nytimes.com/...), and we also must focus on choke points.
In military strategy, a choke point (or chokepoint) is a geographical feature on land such as a valley, defile or a bridge or at sea such as a strait, which an armed force is forced to pass, sometimes on a substantially narrower front and therefore greatly decreasing its combat power, to reach its objective. A choke point can allow a numerically inferior defending force to thwart a larger opponent if the attacker cannot bring superior numbers to bear.
(en.m.wikipedia.org/...)
Whether we admit it or not, we are in an eco war, with Australia as merely the latest bombed-out civilian area. In this war, on a global battlefield, the choke points are generally not geographic but economic. The Green New Deal is necessary logistical social solidarity preparation for winning the eco war, but choke points also must be urgently identified and targeted in the economic terrain.
Immediately banning coal-burning power generation is an obvious necessity for saving the planet, but beyond that humanity is in search of choke points for forcing change on the oil and gas industry. Aside from stopping new pipelines, one "midstream" idea for identifying and targeting a choke point is to nationalize through eminent domain the first quarter mile of existing pipelines (www.dailykos.com/...). But that will not be nearly enough of a force multiplier for the people over the oil and gas industry.
As discussed below, the plastics material and resin manufacturing (NAISC 325211) and the petrochemical manufacturing (NAISC 325110) sectors are the components of the broader oil and gas industry where its profits largely come from. This trend is expected to get bigger over time. Plastics and associated petrochemicals are value added products. Moreover, they provide use for vast quantities of petroleum naphtha and other oils refined from crude oil as well as hydrocarbon gas liquids. It will be much tougher economically to bring the stuff out of the earth's crust to begin with if there is significantly less of a market for plastics and associated petrochemicals.
How much oil is used to make plastic?
Although crude oil is a source of raw material (feedstock) for making plastics, it is not the major source of feedstock for plastics production in the United States. Plastics are produced from natural gas, feedstocks derived from natural gas processing, and feedstocks derived from crude oil refining. The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) is unable to determine the specific amounts or origin of the feedstocks that are actually used to manufacture plastics in the United States.
Petrochemical feedstock naphtha and other oils refined from crude oil are used as feedstocks for petrochemical crackers that produce the basic building blocks for making plastics. EIA data can only identify those oil-derived feedstocks specifically designated as petrochemical feedstock by petroleum refineries in EIA’s refining surveys, which break out into Naphtha For Petrochemical Feedstock Use and Other Oils For Petrochemical Feedstock Use. However, the petrochemical industry also consumes large quantities of hydrocarbon gas liquids (HGL).
The majority of HGL produced in the United States are byproducts of natural gas processing, and the rest are produced at crude oil/petroleum refineries. The HGL produced by U.S. petroleum refineries contain both alkanes and olefins. Alkanes can be used as feedstock for petrochemical crackers, whereas refinery olefins, primarily propylene, but also minor quantities of ethylene and butylenes, can be used as direct inputs into plastics manufacturing. Because the petrochemical industry has a high degree of flexibility in the feedstock it consumes and because EIA does not collect detailed data on this aspect of industrial consumption, it is not possible for EIA to identify the actual amounts and origin of the materials used as inputs by industry to manufacture plastics.
(www.eia.gov/...)
If humanity is to survive, plastics and associated petrochemicals manufacturing must be the choke point of the broader oil and gas industry. Take the surplus value from plastics and associated petrochemicals and the oil and gas companies dependent on this stolen profit will be weakened to the point where they can be "drowned in the bathtub." This is not an exaggeration. The companies themselves and the business press are saying and showing this, but so far we are not collectively hearing, seeing, and seizing the moral ground around the choke point.
Examples abound.
Plastics and chemicals are seen as increasingly vital to Big Oil’s future given uncertainty over crude demand and the push toward electric vehicles and cleaner energy sources. But some of the world’s most-advanced economies are increasingly clamping down on single-use plastics such as shopping bags and straws.
That hasn’t scared off Exxon. This year alone, the oil giant
approved major expansions to its giant Baytown petrochemical complex and Beaumont refinery in Texas as well as a plastics unit in Louisiana. CEO Woods, former head of the company’s downstream division, sees the plants as essential to making money all the way from the wellhead to the final products. The business also acts as a natural hedge against commodity-price swings.
For Sabic, 70%-owned by the Saudi Arabian government, it’s the first joint venture with Exxon outside its home country and first big project along the Gulf Coast. Other companies such as Sasol Ltd. and Cheniere Energy Inc. are taking advantage of booming production from the Permian and nearby Eagle Ford shale, building chemical and gas-export plants, respectively.
This is a global trend, says the IEA.
LONDON (Reuters) - Plastics and other petrochemical products will drive global oil demand to 2050, offsetting slower consumption of motor fuel, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said on Friday.
...
Oil demand for transport is expected to slow by 2050 due to the rise of electric vehicles and more-efficient combustion engines, but that would be offset by rising demand for petrochemicals, the IEA said in a report.
“The petrochemical sector is one of the blind spots of the global energy debate and there is no question that it will be the key driver of oil demand growth for many years to come,” IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol told Reuters.
(www.reuters.com/...)
See also www.plasticsnews.com/...; www.bloomberg.com/.…
This trend also involves using control of state legislatures to preempt local bans on single-use plastics. For example:
A battle over plastic—a material so prolific the UN calls the 90 percent of it that ends up as trash a pollution crisis—is under way in Florida.
Coral Gables, a small city of 51,000 people just south of Miami, wants to ban polystyrene from restaurants and grocery stores. The Florida Retail Federation does not, and an appeals court ruling delivered yesterday says they can keep the plastic product, in part thanks to a 2016 state rule that prevents cities from regulating how polystyrene is used.
The court battle demonstrates how cities and states are increasingly clashing over whether it’s legal to ban plastic.
(www.nationalgeographic.com/...)
See also www.theguardian.com/...; www.wastedive.com/.…
We need to not give up these fights.
As the world strives to wean itself off fossil fuels, oil companies have been turning to plastic as the key to their future. Now even that’s looking overly optimistic.
The global crackdown on plastic trash threatens to take a big chunk out of demand growth just as oil companies like Saudi Aramco sink billions into plastic and chemicals assets. Royal Dutch Shell Plc, BP Plc, Total SA and Exxon Mobil Corp. are all ramping up investments in the sector.
Renewed emphasis on recycling and the spread of local bans on some kinds of plastic products could cut petrochemical demand growth to one-third of its historical pace, to about 1.5% a year, said Paul Bjacek, a principal director at consulting firm Accenture Plc.
(www.bloomberg.com/...)
As greenandblue has discussed, even recycling can be used to divert attention from the need to manufacture much less plastic to begin with. School children are treated by industry as merely a demographic for greenwashing. (theintercept.com/...; see also blogs.scientificamerican.com/....)
Through bans, boycotts, and high taxation of plastics and associated petrochemicals manufacturing, the politically and environmentally dirty oil and gas industry can be severely weakened. The tax revenues can be channelled back into clean energy and transportation. Perhaps most importantly, the people can control the choke point. If necessary the people can effectively force the companies into bankruptcy and democratic takeover in the likely event that being forced into the bathtub at the choke point will not suffice.