Environment & Energy

I personally believe that the only real viable option is steam reforming, about which I have collected a lot of information over the years.

Steam reforming, with clean thermal energy, which is decidedly not accessible by any form of combustion, but is accessible with nuclear energy, preferably in a process intensification setting, yields syn gas, a mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen that can be catalytically be used to synthesize methanol. There is an industrial process known as MTO - methanol to olefins - that can, again in theory, be used to produce new polymers.

It is, in theory at least, to close the carbon cycle with polymers.

A polymer is carbon sequestered in use. This may or may not sound, or even be, glib but from my perspective is worthy of consideration, particularly where polymers are utilized in long use structural and other similarly used materials.

None of this is claimed to be cheap or easy to do. It is only feasible, which is a different thing than likely to be practiced.

The science and engineering are well known.

I note that heating natural waters, including but not limited to seawater, as well as waste water to supercritical temperature and pressures will effectively destroy micro and nano plastics therein. This conceivably could have the effective result of actually removing and cleaning pollution.