cleanengineer

Actually PLA uses less than half the energy required to make similar fossil plastics with current technology. I'm not sure if the study you reference is so different due to technological advancements over 7 years or if the study neglected to include the energy content of the actual molecules (natural gas components)that make up the fossil based plastic. If it were the latter I would expect the study was funded by the American Petroleum Institute--although the study which says PLA requires half the energy was certainly funded by Cargill/Dow but it is supposed to included inputs from farm to production... who knows? The study can be found in a 2007 edition of Industrial Biotechnology. By the way-Cargill bought Dow out of the partnership in 2005, Teijin bought into the partnership in 2007 and provided mostly marketing and sales. Teijin however need to raise cash this summer due to the recession and sold their stake back to Cargill in July... so Cargill is the sole owner/operator of Natureworks