That it is used does not mean it is required. Plastics can be manufactured directly from plants.
How about the machine that makes the plant plastic? You can't just will a plant to become plastic. You need oil in the operation of that machine. Just because the final product doesn't require oil doesn't mean you don't need oil to make it. But we're getting into the weeds. My entire point is most folks have no idea just how much of their daily lives absolutely depends on oil in some fashion.
My entire point is most folks have no idea just how much of their daily lives absolutely depends on oil in some fashion
And my point is you greatly over estimate how reliant we are on oil. Probably because you ate up a bunch of big oil sponsored propaganda. Try not to get defensive over that comment and actually think about it. WHY do you think everything requires oil when the world ran fine for thousands of years without it? Machines existed before oil was used. Lubricants can be made without oil. Plastics can be made without oil.
The claim that we need to use oil because that is what we use is propaganda.
Even trucks and tractors can run on alternative fuels like natural gas.
Even trucks and tractors can run on alternative fuels like natural gas.
There are some very specific grades of machine lubricant, for which a large swath of industrial manufacturing abroad and domestically, utterly rely on--as in "cant be adjusted. cant be ported to alternatives. can't be rebuilt. would have to be gutted, scrapped, and completely replaced."
Its not that there isn't alternatives, it's that the tolerances and processes these machines depend on, are really tight. Like sub-hairs-width.
reference: worked in a machine shop making tooling for the oil industry.
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