I vaguely recall reading that biofuels have been debunked as being insanely inefficient as a fuel source and consume land that would be better used to grow food.
I'm not familiar with how much feedstock is required to produce bioplastics, but it looks like plastics production globally is, I believe, around 500 million (metric) tons -- ie 500 billion kilograms, vs roughly 120 billion liters of biofuel. Napkin math at 1 kg/L (the density of ethanol is about 0.8 kg/l, so that's close), and that's about 4x more required, assuming no wastage by mass.
In other words, you're right to be skeptical; I don't think the math works.
Methanol and methane produced via DAC has been proposed as an alternative, but will only be feasible economically with extremely low energy costs. Possible with high solar penetration (see Australia), but far from a settled political question.
https://www.wri.org/insights/increased-biofuel-production-im...
https://ourworldindata.org/biofuel-land-solar-electric-vehic...
https://agrivoltaics.rutgers.edu/image-gallery-of-agrivoltai...
However ethanol simply can't be used for heavy duty trucks and ships (which, you know, is 95% or more of goods transports in Brazil since there is almost no rail) which defeats much of the point.
At least the general population can shift to ethanol when supply market gets crazy which helps amortize the whole supply chain, but it still ends up affecting everyone just to a slightly lesser degree.
Buy yeah, corn or soy based ethanol is just insane to do at all. Sugar-based only makes sense in an increasingly unstable global order.
What do you mean? Brazil's an oil exporter. The sugar-based stuff's only economically feasible because of EU subsidies flowing into Brazil.
The obvious question here seems to me to be, what if they just burned their own biofuel? How much would that increase the cost/price?
At least some of these operations have to be running at some kind of net gain. It's really about price in the end. I've heard breaking down switchgrass in giant vats with microbes is going pretty well.
Eventually at some future point, we will need large scale biofuels at least for jet fuel. Because however long we might draw it out, we will run out of oil (better yet, we choose to stop using it, but, you know). The market will pay whatever it takes. The problem right now is that this seems so far off in the future and so impossible to 'time' that markets don't care yet.
This article deliberately confuses things by conflating it with the discussion around bio fuels. Which, as you point out is largely redundant given that we now have decent EVs for literally anything with wheels commercially available. Anything from the tiniest scooters to the largest vehicles operated in the mining industry. And everything in between.
The fallacy with this debate is the focus on disproportionately small parts of the challenge of de-carbonization. If we manage to electrify most road and rail transport, heating (industrial and domestic), some shipping and aviation, etc. that would make an enormous dent in fossil fuel usage. After that we might focus on harder things like plastics. I'm not against people focusing on that now. More power to these people. But put it in perspective: it's relatively small part of the problem. And we have alternatives.
This fallacy is a recurring theme in fossil fuel lobbying materials. By spreading fear, uncertainty, and doubt, they hope to slow down the accelerating implosion of their primary revenue maker: fuel sales. So, they talk up hydrogen and bio fuels. Sponsor studies on the impact of windmills on wild life. Etc. I can't help but look at this article and wonder who payed for it.
Bio-plastics won't do this automatically. You can make today's polymers from biomass feedstock. Those will have the exact same micro/nano plastic problems.
You can also make polymeres, that are much more bio-degradable, with the associated particulate matter decaying instead of accumulating forever - but you could make those from crude oil just as well, and those degradable polymeres bring an entirely different zoo of problems with them.
It's much stronger, and in the long term biodegradable.
I guess we're just no there yet...
How?
Microplastics are nothing compared to nanoplastics. Microplastics don't really breakdown in your body and don't get into your cells. Nano plastics do get into your cells and breakdown by abrasion or UV exposure, so basically not in your body. It gets into your body by breathing.
So, how can we go from ~95% plastic items, to 0% so that we don't get any exposure via airways?
It's a bit like avoiding teflon cookware and clothing when it's literally in most drinking water sources. Or sunscreen because trace amount of benzene, but breathing car exhaust every day.
If you only look at biofuels for the fuel value they still produce more energy than growing consumes (even the oil shrills admit this, but they do it in such a a way as to confuse people into thinking it isn't true). Though the amount of added energy is not great, it is more efficient than burning oil directly.
Is the marginal energy production worth the intense financial subsidy, though? That's really the important question. Would our dollars be better spent on direct electrification instead?
We KNOW it is inefficient. It's why anywhere someone who has the capital and has a brain, is swapping out cornfields for solar panels to make more money. Problem is the first setup of a corn field when you don't have that capital is cheaper due to subsidies.
America does those subsidies too. You guys voted for it, of course!