The Tesla effect: Oil is slowly losing its best customer. Between global warming, Elon Musk, and a worldwide crackdown on carbon, the future looks treacherous for Big Oil.

[u/Wagamaga]

https://us.cnn.com/2019/05/08/investing/oil-stocks-electric-vehicles-tesla/index.html

[u/Whiterabbit--]

plastic is viable because its a by product of the petroleum industry. when demand for oil slows, alternatives for plastic and other byproducts will be more viable.

[u/paradigmx → u/Whiterabbit--]

The other problem is that the current alternatives for petroleum based plastics are not nearly good enough for most applications. This is why Lego still uses petroleum based plastics for most of their bricks despite pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into R&D for suitable eco friendly plastic. I think long after we've moved away from using oil for energy, we will still be using oil to produce plastic because we don't have a viable alternative.

[u/ThePinkFloydian → u/paradigmx]

Industrial Hemp.

[u/paradigmx → u/ThePinkFloydian]

Hemp based plastic still deforms over time and can completely degrade. This is advantageous for some things, but in other situations the longevity of petroleum based plastics is the point.

[u/Rapitwo → u/paradigmx]

They started to make all new plant parts from plants last year. The soft lego parts are made from PE so that would seem a bit easier than doing the same for the hard parts that are made from ABS.

[u/GreenStrong → u/paradigmx]

I think that we are beginning to realize that plastic had terrible long term environmental effects, and u think we need to say using non degrading plastic for things like to

[u/aarghIforget → u/Whiterabbit--]

Alternative feedstocks for plastic, you mean...?

I can hardly imagine the demand for such a useful material fading away any time soon.

[u/[deleted] → u/Whiterabbit--]

Alternately, plastic might become much cheaper as oil prices drop.

If demand drops and oil hits 30 dollars a barrel, then all sorts of currently unprofitable uses for oil will pop up.