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by sushibowl16 hours ago |
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upvoteby deepsun16 hours ago|
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That's why plastic bags are so cheap -- ethanol is a byproduct, but you earn more if you discard it and sell only oil.

But the burned up ethanol would be perfectly suitable for products.

Nowadays there are some regulations to prevent that, so they may sell up ethanol at negative prices sometimes.

UPDATE: Ethene, not ethanol.

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upvoteby nayuki16 hours ago|
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You wrote ethanol (C₂H₆O), but do you mean ethylene/ethene (C₂H₄)? Polyethylene (PE) is a very common plastic, such as HDPE, LDPE, PET.
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upvoteby deepsun15 hours ago|
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You're right, sorry, I thought of ethene.

Like here is a good review https://youtu.be/325HdQe4WM4

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upvoteby beerandt16 hours ago|
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Yea while $ viability is true, it's better to think of as

1) using some potentially useful products as fuel to burning off things you don't want and

2) the buffer to keep non-steady inflows in a suitable ready condition for steady-state processing. (When real world steady-state is less than ideal.)

Number 2 is really what dominates the equation, as shutting in gas sources or even just turning off pipelines is incredibly more complicated than just an 'off' switch.

And turning back on is even more complicated. In the case of wells, once you shut in, turning back on may never result in the same level of production as before.

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