@Vaermina, Casein Plastic is an option if you must have one (milk protein), chicken feathers plus another substance can be turned into fully biodegradable plastic, then there's "liquid wood" a biopolymer made from lignin (which all paper plants produce), feed sugar to certain types of bacteria and you get plastic... PLA comes from corn...
Honestly there are tons of ways to make plastic and never involve oil - but there's also tons of technology that make oil much safer for the planet as well; we just don't have someone with a Power Ring around to update our technology base to allow us to make these world changing products CHEAP and Efficient.
@Empiricist2, The problem with pure Electric Vehicles is they simply do not have the power (torque / horsepower) to replace many common on the road vehicles; I test drove one and it had less power than the most anemic four cylinder car I'd ridden in. I guess it might be great for a big city with manicured roads (and no hills) but current generation electric vehicles just aren't practical for anything other than a city commuter vehicle (those that are remotely affordable anyway). Unless Paul pulls samples from the Ring Database I don't think they'll replace cars with electric ones any time soon even in the WTR universe.
Making the batteries affordable would also be a problem. (Consider the hidden cost of any electric car; a battery that costs roughly 20 thousand dollars to make (it's a huge Lithium Ion job) that is NOT covered under your warranty. At least it's not on any of them I've ever seen). The batteries are the biggest expense of the electric vehicle.
Honestly there are tons of ways to make plastic and never involve oil - but there's also tons of technology that make oil much safer for the planet as well; we just don't have someone with a Power Ring around to update our technology base to allow us to make these world changing products CHEAP and Efficient.
@Empiricist2, The problem with pure Electric Vehicles is they simply do not have the power (torque / horsepower) to replace many common on the road vehicles; I test drove one and it had less power than the most anemic four cylinder car I'd ridden in. I guess it might be great for a big city with manicured roads (and no hills) but current generation electric vehicles just aren't practical for anything other than a city commuter vehicle (those that are remotely affordable anyway). Unless Paul pulls samples from the Ring Database I don't think they'll replace cars with electric ones any time soon even in the WTR universe.
Making the batteries affordable would also be a problem. (Consider the hidden cost of any electric car; a battery that costs roughly 20 thousand dollars to make (it's a huge Lithium Ion job) that is NOT covered under your warranty. At least it's not on any of them I've ever seen). The batteries are the biggest expense of the electric vehicle.
