A new memory technology promises to store more data at less cost than the expensive-to-build silicon chips used by popular consumer gadgets including digital cameras, cell phones and portable music players. The magical ingredient isn’t smaller transistors or an exotic material cooked up by the semiconductor industry.It’s a plastic.

Read more: MSNBC.

how does that work with plastic?!

Yes, because we always need MORE things that rely on Petroleum...

thats actually a good thing Wicka, since plastic is a waste product created when making gasoline.
Finding more uses for plastics reduces the waste materials that would be created anyway, since gasoline is produced in quite large quanities anyway.

It's a waste product? Hm, I didn't know that. I guess I learned something today. Anyway, what happened to the whole "metal replacing silicon" thing. I read about it awhile ago.

Yeah its a waste product, a more formal term will be a byproduct. Petroleum is pretty useful besides providing energy, most of the byproducts created includes asphalt and tar.

Sorry about this sidetracking but

Tar, n.

A dark, oily, viscous material, consisting mainly of hydrocarbons, produced by the destructive distillation of organic substances such as wood, coal, or peat.

Doesn't look like a petroleum byproduct to me.

I understamd your point Mict. Believe or not Propane also a component found in gas is found in oil in a dissolved form. Its still considered a byproduct although it can be used as a fuel. Back from where i come from (Brunei), we have our propane burnt off. If you happen to be near the oil town, you can see any incinerator located in a refinery with a flame on top of it. Thats the propane burnimg off.

byproduct and waste material are not always interchangeable terms.