Skyrora vs Ecosene! 45% less CO2

[TommyJo]

The other day I learned something new (for me) about rocket fuel. It turns out there is a company that has developed a rocket engine that runs on more environmentally friendly fuel (sort of). The fuel is made from recycled plastic. According to them, it produces 45 percent fewer emissions.
The fuel used in the rocket is called Ecosene. The company claims that the engine can draw 600 kg of the required kerosene from 1000 kg of certain plastic waste in 24 hours. Skyrora says the process produces 45% fewer greenhouse gases than conventional RP-1 kerosene rocket fuel. What do you think of it?

[Palanan]

Not sure if burning plastic is really an environmentally friendly option. The Ecosene fuel may involve fewer emissions with respect to climate, but there may be many other byproducts which have no effect on climate per se, but which may be toxic or carcinogenic to individual organisms and which we wouldn't want building up in the biosphere.

[Jimorian]

Sounds like it's just acquiring the standard kerosene for rocket fuel from recycled resources, in this case plastic, rather than just refining it directly from crude oil. So first off the CO2 savings is in processing the fuel, NOT in burning it. 2nd, there's no reason it has to be used as rocket fuel, but just put into the regular kerosene supply as a replacement, since that occupies a part of the overall emissions problem that is many orders of magnitude bigger than kerosene as rocket fuel.

The use of multiple keyword tags related to the trade name to probably boost this in search engines also leads me to believe there's ulterior motives for the OP.

[factotum]

Sounds like it's just acquiring the standard kerosene for rocket fuel from recycled resources, in this case plastic, rather than just refining it directly from crude oil. So first off the CO2 savings is in processing the fuel, NOT in burning it.

And this is assuming your rocket is using RP-1. NASA's current plans for their next generation heavy launch vehicle are based, I believe, around a development of the SSME (Space Shuttle Main Engines), and those are LHOX fuelled--which means the only emissions from actually firing those engines is superheated steam!

[Lord Torath]

The use of multiple keyword tags related to the trade name to probably boost this in search engines also leads me to believe there's ulterior motives for the OP.

I was suspicious about that, too. I debated about whether to report it as Spam.

There is a company near me that has figured out how to turn normally-non-recyclable plastics into methane (I think). Assuming the methane gets burnt (and not released into the atmosphere) it's a good bit better than just throwing the plastics away to slowly break down and get into everything (and everyone).