Energy Considerations in Resin Manufacture

In the United States, liquid petroleum gases (LPG), natural gas liquids (NGL), and natural gas are used to produce plastics. In 2010, the US plastic production accounted for only about 2.1% of the total petroleum and 1.7% of the natural gas consumed. The electricity used was estimated at a further 1% of the consumption. Then estimating conservatively, only about 5.4% of petroleum resources were devoted to manufacturing plastics (US Energy Information Administration, 2013). The operational or process energy may add another approximately 3 % to this, bringing the total fossil fuel investment in plastics to about 8.6%. 

Embodied energy in plastic material can be compared to that for other materials as shown in Table 4.6. Plastics are more energy intensive to produce than most materials of construction in the table except for aluminum. Like aluminum, plastics also have to be removed from a finite in-ground resource pool and have to be refined before use both can be recycled as well. 

FIGURE 4.9 Embodied energy for selected classes of plastic resin. The top part of each bar is for mannfactnring energy (inclnding recovered energy), and the bottom part is for material energy. Source Based on data from Franklin Associates (2010). 

Comparison of EE Values and Carbon Emissions for Different Builfling 

Material Embodied energy (MJ/kg) Carbon emission (kg of COj/kg) Density (kg/m ) 

---