But China has upped its game. In Pingdingshan, a once-struggling coal city in the central province of Henan, coal is no longer just mined and burned – it’s being chemically transformed into nylon, one of the most important and widely used synthetic polymers in the world.
Would be interesting to know what emissions this causes compared to using it for energy.
All the carbon in the coal is going into fiber instead of the atmosphere so that’s a win, but it’s a big entropy reversal so it will take a fair bit of energy, so it’s a question of where the energy comes from.
The article implies that the main energy source for this is natural gas.
Or what I’m breathing and absorbing through my skin.