Safflower oil hailed by scientists as possible recyclable, biodegradable replacement for petroleum

[Judi Lynn]

Landline / By Tim Lee
Posted Yesterday



Safflower is one of humanity's oldest crops and has been used to dye fabrics for thousands of years.(ABC Landline: Tim Lee)

Australian scientists may have achieved a decades-long quest to find a plant-based alternative to petroleum-based engine oils, one that can be recycled, reused and breaks down in the environment.

The answer, they say, lies in a field of brown prickly thistles called safflowers.

The first commercial field trials have now been harvested at a range of sites, from northern New South Wales to southern Victoria.

Initial studies show safflower oil to be a superior lubricant that has lower emissions than conventional petroleum-based products, and reduces friction and wear on engine components.

More:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-06-07/safflower-oil-new-biofuel-to-replace-petroleum/12321028

[NNadir]

1. The use of terrestrial monoculture plants to sustain the car culture is destructive and unnecessary.

All of the components of petroleum can be replaced by controlling the use of syn gas. Syn gas is readily available from any carbon source, including carbon dioxide, algae and any plant matter.

Any effort to industrialize this particular plant as a means to provide lubricating oils would be every bit as damaging to the environment as the attempt to replace petroleum fuels with corn based ethanol. The seas around the Mississippi delta are dead, and the world has about 50 years of phosphorous available for mining left.

It would be wise to cut off this particular safflower tragedy before it happens.

[Warpy]

2. It looks like they're thinking more along the line of lucrication and plastics than fuel

Back in the day, we found coconut oil more useful as a lubricant, safflower tended to evaporate too quickly.

Car culture of some type will persist because people will need to get from here to there and bicycles aren't always practical. Going back to animal power is also a poor solution. While people did get used to the reek of excrement and ammonia, likely they did little to promote health or longevity, especially when Europe found out how to turn it into gunpowder.

I agree that squandering limited phosphorous on non food crops on a crowded planet is a non starter.

[NNadir]

3. I know. Lubricants from monoculture plants are also unsustainable and unnecessary.

I've had this argument about what "people need" or think they need many times. It's pretty amazing, when you consider it, since people lived perfectly useful lives 90 years ago, that people think that the car CULTure is more necessary than having air, water, and food.

The car CULTure is not sustainable, has never been sustainable, and never will be sustainable, and the bandaids of denial - electric cars, biofuels, hydrogen fuel cell cars - are just silly and delusional.

Here's my opinion of this "need:" It is yet another way that the people of my generation have chosen to destroy all opportunity for all following generations by lacking compassion, decency, and a modicum of altruism.

Our "needs" will look rather absurd to all future generations, given the conditions of the condign future we have left for them because of our Trumpian self-absorption.

There are two billion people on this planet who lack even primitive sanitation, right now. It's interesting that we need to get from here to there, where "there" clear does not include any place where we have to look at or think about these people. What do you think these people "need" more, a car or a toilet?

History will not forgive us, nor should it.