Essay by Eric Worrall
Last week Rising tide provided an impressive showcase for plastic fossil fuel products during their climate protest.
Arrests made as Rising Tide climate change protesters take to Newcastle Harbour over coal exports
By Romy Stephens and Bridget Murphy
In short:
Activism group Rising Tide says multiple people have been arrested at an anti-fossil fuels demonstration in Newcastle.
Thousands have attended the multi-day protest, where Midnight Oil front man Peter Garrett delivered a speech and performed.
What’s next?
The demonstration is expected to continue until Sunday evening.
Several people have been arrested at a climate protest in Newcastle that involved hundreds of activists taking to the city’s harbour in canoes and kayaks.
The demonstration, organised by activism group Rising Tide, was advertised as a “blockade” of the world’s largest coal port.
A Rising Tide statement said multiple people were arrested on Saturday afternoon, most of whom were released without charge.
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Read more: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-11-23/police-arrests-climate-change-protest-rising-tide-newcastle/104620058
If you look closely at the picture above, you would struggle to find one thing which is not made of plastic, other than the ship carrying the coal. Their life jackets are plastic, their oars are made of plastic, their kayaks are made of plastic, their T-shirts are mostly plastic, and if we could see them, we would likely discover whatever they were wearing on their feet is likely made of plastic.
If all the petroleum products carried by and being used by the protestors were to suddenly disappear, they would all find themselves naked and swimming in the water.
China makes extensive use of coal in plastics synthesis. Mainland China has lots of coal but very little oil or gas, so their petrochemical industry is increasingly geared to use coal as its base plastic synthesis hydrocarbon.
Black Coal to White Trash
February 13, 2020 By Richard Liu
Coal has long been China’s “black gold,” supplying over half of the nation’s electricity. Yet as coal’s energy share decreases due to domestic action to reduce air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, a new coal industry is emerging. In China’s arid northwest, eight plants are pulverizing coal chunks and “cooking” coal powder into something more valuable than power—or maybe even gold. These coal conversion plants, soon numbering over 20, churn out chemicals to produce plastic.
In China’s Thirteenth Five-Year Energy Development Plan, central policymakers set a target to decrease coal’s share in China’s energy mix. Reducing coal power puts China on track to meet its 2015 Paris Agreement commitment to peak emissions by 2030. But China’s investments in coal conversion now threaten to increase coal consumption. The risk of China deepening its coal dependency intensified at the 2019 United Nations Climate Summit, when China’s State Councilor Wang Yi made no new commitments to cut coal.
…
China’s love affair with CTO
While most plastics are produced from natural gas or crude oil, Chinese plants are converting coal into chemicals used to produce plastics through direct coal-to-olefins (CTO) or the multistep coal-to-methanol (from coal) and then methanol-to-olefins. China is the only country to implement CTO at scale. From 2011 to 2015, China’s CTO capacity grew from 1 million tons annually (MTA) to 7.2 MTA, equivalent to 20 percent of China’s plastic feedstock capacity.
While methanol-to-olefins has become unviable in recent years due to uncompetitive methanol pricing, the profitability of CTO draws investment. According to Tian Yajun, a coal conversion expert from the National Institute of Clean and Low Carbon Energy, “CTO companies profit from high oil prices. In recent years, CTO has the best return out of all coal conversion industries because demand is high and the central government doesn’t control olefins or plastic prices.”
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Read more: https://www.newsecuritybeat.org/2020/02/black-coal-white-trash/
Most Kayaks today are made from polyethylene resins – a direct product of China’s growing coal to plastic chemistry.
I find it difficult to see this ridiculous plastic Rising Tide “climate protest” as a legitimate protest. I see it more as an unconscious cry for help from young adults who were failed by their teachers and the Aussie education system. If they had the faintest clue about science or the machine age products they take for granted, they wouldn’t be out there making such fools of themselves.
What happens to the coal which is exported from Newcastle? You are wearing it and sitting on it, Rising Tide.
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