> CO2 per unit energy burning plastic is much worse than burning natural gas
That is simply not true. Polyethylene (the most common plastic) is C2H4, while natural gas is a mix ranging from CH4 to C3H8. i.e. almost identical in terms of CO2.
Plastic is actually better in some ways since you don't need to spend energy a second time to extract even more oil from the ground, you can just burn what you already have.
Plus the world does not burn exclusively natural gas, not even close.
> when it's possible not to.
As should be pretty obvious the idea is you don't burn some other oil, and instead burn plastic. When we are 100% off of oil/coal/etc we can stop burning plastic, but right now, today, burning plastic is the best option.
Burning plastic is not going to magically cause extra CO2 emissions, it would simply substitute one for another, with total amount unchanged.
Yes, correct. My method was just a shortcut which yields basically the same number because it all atoms of hydrogen, carbon, etc that are burned release the same amount of energy (but you do need to account for the binding energy of the molecule, which my method does not do).
I used it because I didn't immediately find data on the enthalpy of burning plastic in combination with CO2 released.
Plastic is also a hydrocarbon, so the binding energy will be quite similar to natural gas, so my method is sufficiently accurate.
That is simply not true. Polyethylene (the most common plastic) is C2H4, while natural gas is a mix ranging from CH4 to C3H8. i.e. almost identical in terms of CO2.
Plastic is actually better in some ways since you don't need to spend energy a second time to extract even more oil from the ground, you can just burn what you already have.
Plus the world does not burn exclusively natural gas, not even close.
> when it's possible not to.
As should be pretty obvious the idea is you don't burn some other oil, and instead burn plastic. When we are 100% off of oil/coal/etc we can stop burning plastic, but right now, today, burning plastic is the best option.
Burning plastic is not going to magically cause extra CO2 emissions, it would simply substitute one for another, with total amount unchanged.