alt Hacker NewsThe petrochemical industry is huge we've yet to find alternatives for it. Half the stuff around you was made with something derived from oil, and you can't replace that with wind or sunlight in the foreseeable future.
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A lot of what the petrochemical industry does took over from other stuff or isn't vital, there just hasn't been enough push back against it.
Stuff like medicine, sure, crucial and very hard to find replacements for.
But single use plastics can probably be replaced 95% (the environment would appreciate it if we banned them), dyes are mostly not vital, synthetic fibers can be replaced 95% with minor critical impact, just using natural fibers, etc.
The petrochemical industry is just the cheapest option in many cases in a world driven by conspicuous consumption of non vital items.
Very little oil is used to make plastic.
In Europe between 4–6% of oil and gas is used for producing plastics and globally around 6% of global oil is used. By contrast, 87% is used for transport, electricity and heating.
We should also note that wind turbines require huge amounts of petroleum derivatives to operate.
there are pathways to produce synthetic oil from coal or using carbon capture if you have cheap energy. I hope they will catch up if fossil oil prices skyrocket.