Rising Tide Reveals Even Local weather Protesters Want Fossil Fuels – Are You Okay With That?
Essay by Eric Worrall
Last week, Rising Tide provided a powerful showcase for plastic fossil fuel products during their climate protest.
Arrests come as Rising Tide climate change protesters march on Newcastle port over coal exports
By Romy Stephens and Bridget Murphy
In summary:
Activist group Rising Tide said several people were arrested at an anti-fossil fuel demonstration in Newcastle.
Thousands attended the multi-day protest, where Midnight Oil frontman Peter Garrett gave a speech and performed.
What's next?
The demonstration is expected to last until Sunday evening.
Several people were arrested at a climate protest in Newcastle, where hundreds of activists traveled to the city's harbor in canoes and kayaks.
The demonstration, organized by activist group Rising Tide, was promoted as a “blockade” of the world's largest coal port.
A statement from Rising Tide said several people were arrested 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'll be hard-pressed to find anything that isn't made of plastic, except for the ship that transports the coal. Their life jackets are plastic, their oars are plastic, their kayaks are plastic, their t-shirts are mostly plastic, and if we could see them we would probably discover that what they were wearing on their feet, probably made of plastic is plastic.
If all the petroleum products the protesters were carrying and using suddenly disappeared, they would all find themselves swimming naked in the water.
China uses coal extensively for plastic synthesis. Mainland China has a lot of coal, but very little oil or gas. Therefore, the petrochemical industry is increasingly focused on using coal as a basis for plastic synthesis of hydrocarbons.
From black coal to white trash
February 13, 2020 By Richard Liu
Coal has long been China's “black gold,” providing more than half of the country's electricity. But as coal's energy share declines due to national measures to reduce air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, a new coal industry is emerging. In China's arid northwest, eight plants pulverize chunks of coal and “cook” coal powder into something more valuable than electricity – or perhaps even gold. These coal conversion plants, which will soon number more than 20, produce chemicals for the production of plastics.
In China's thirteenth five-year energy development plan, key policymakers set the goal of reducing the share of coal in China's energy mix. By reducing coal-fired power generation, China is on track to meet its 2015 Paris Agreement commitment to peak emissions by 2030. But China's investments in the coal transition now threaten to increase coal consumption. The risk of China deepening its coal dependence intensified at the 2019 UN climate summit when China's State Councilor Wang Yi made no new commitments to reduce coal.
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China's love affair with CTO
While most plastics are made from natural gas or crude oil, Chinese facilities convert coal into chemicals used to make plastics through direct coal-to-olefins conversion (CTO) or multi-stage coal-to-methanol conversion (from coal) and then in methanol olefins. China is the only country to adopt CTO on a large scale. From 2011 to 2015, China's CTO capacity grew from 1 million tons per year (MTA) to 7.2 MTA, accounting for 20 percent of China's plastics raw material capacity.
While methanol-to-olefins has become unprofitable in recent years due to uncompetitive methanol prices, CTO's profitability is attracting investment. According to Tian Yajun, a coal conversion expert at the National Institute of Clean and Low Carbon Energy, “CTO companies benefit from high oil prices. In recent years, CTO has achieved the best return of any coal conversion industry because demand is high and the central government has no control over 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 carbon-to-plastic chemistry.
I have a hard time seeing 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 have been let down by their teachers and the Australian education system. If they had even the slightest idea about science or the products of the machine age that they take for granted, they wouldn't be making such a fool of themselves.
What happens to the coal exported from Newcastle? You wear it and sit on it, Rising Tide.
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