The development explained at left may sound noteworthy, and I don’t discourage these people or anyone from doing whatever they can to slow the rate of environmental degradation. And yes, keeping plastic out of our waste-streams is a great cause.
But let’s look at this for a second.
Who, and at what expense, both financially and environmentally, is going to round up all these avocado pits and process them into utensils, then absorb the costs of product marketing and distribution? How viable will this enterprise be, especially at very low volume, compared to the $43 billion plastic industry?
I’m reminded of a would-be client, “Fertile Grounds,” who met me a few years ago and asked for my help. Their idea was to collect coffee grounds from Starbucks’ and process them into organic fertilizer. I asked how they planned to collect the coffee grounds, and they explained that they would have drivers of small truck with routes around the nation’s cities, who would drop off this feedstock to processing plants that would dry (over heat–where does the heat energy come from?), bag it, then sell it into the market of hardware stores and large home improvement centers.
Of the two, which idea is more inane? Hard to know.
I told the “Fertile Grounds” folks that I loved their name, but advised them to keep their money in their pockets and look for another business concept. I didn’t use the word “inane” at all in our conversation. That’s how to win friends and influence people. I should have written the book.
As we’ve noted in the past, the idea of capturing CO2 from the atmosphere is completely unfeasible, since 99.96% of the air around is something other than CO2 (mostly nitrogen). However, there are environments that change this equation radically, cement plants being one of them, where the concentration of CO2 emissions is as high as 30% (versus .04%).
Now, this brings the subject of synthetic fuels into the realm of possibility. Sure, if you want to make gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel, you’ll need two other things: hydrogen (which can come from electrolyzing water), and a considerable amount of energy, as these processes are heavily endothermic, meaning that energy must be supplied from external sources.
The good news is that we have enormous amounts of off-peak wind and nuclear that are wasted every day. Please see: Doty WindFuels.
With each passing day, there are fewer and fewer American voters who believe the bullshit at left.
Is Trump working hard to stay out of prison? Enrich himself and his family? Of course.
Could be possibly care less about anything else? Obviously not.
What’s the thought process of people in the rest of the developed world when it comes to visiting the U.S.?
Conversely, would you or I want to visit some country with a deeply corrupt regime that is systematically committing atrocities all around the globe, and whose leader is lining his pockets?
I’m glad I don’t own a resort in New England that counts on a flow of visitors from Canada. If I were a Canadian, I’d be thinking I’d rather visit hell.
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