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Oil is great for energy storage and we have over a hundred years of infrastructure built for it. And that oil technology is still being refined and advanced.

Oil is great for energy storage and we have over a hundred years of infrastructure built for it. And that oil technology is still being refined and advanced. The big issues with oil are due to the source, not the technology itself. Right now the source is underground carbon sinks (fossil fuels). But what if we produced synthetic oil using excess solar energy during daytime? It would pull carbon from the air. And would burn cleaner than any fossil fuel source. It seems many dream of a battery future. But is it really better to produce millions of batteries instead of just finding better ways to make oil? It kind of reminds me of the classic desktop app vs web app debate. One big advantage of web app is that upgrages are single source, just update the server. But desktop apps, there may be many multiple old versions out there because users don't always update. In a similar way, why are we focusing on the very difficult and slow task of upgrading all cars to EV? Why not improve the source of oil itself?

ZenoArrow 10y ago
> "In a similar way, why are we focusing on the very difficult and slow task of upgrading all cars to EV? Why not improve the source of oil itself?" Some people are pursuing this. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biodiesel https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biodiesel Personally I think it's a mistake to rely on any single energy source as heavily as we have with oil, so I hope the EV car market continues to grow, but biodiesel may be better suited for some applications.
bubbleRefuge 10y ago
EV's have other benefits. Ultimately, when economy of scale is fully realized, perhaps electric motors are cheaper, cleaner, and easier to maintain than ICE's. Perhaps automobile supply chains will become similar to laptop/Iphone supply chains ( ie extremely efficient) . Perhaps EVs are easier to re-cycle. Perhaps they perform better on the road. For ex, accelerate and stop faster . Perhaps there will be a 5x 10x 20x breakthrough in battery technology?
- cpprototypes 10y ago
  When comparing just technology, EV cars are superior. Far greater engine efficiency, less complexity and moving parts, efficient transmission of energy from power plants to vehicle, etc. But we live in an oil world. There are billions of cars out there. Cars are big investments that are handed down generation to generation like houses, especially in developing countries. EV car sales are still a drop in the bucket compared to ICE car sales. If we want fast and rapid action on climate change, the quickest path is not pushing EV. It would be massive investment in reducing the cost to make synthetic oil. This may seem impossible, but that's what many said about solar competing with fossil fuels. EV car enthusiasts often talk about how EV cars get immediate environmental benefits from power plant upgrades such as burning coal to solar. But how much more orders of magnitude environment improvement would we get from carbon neutral oil creation? If a cost effective way was found that could compete with fossil fuels, billions of cars would immediately benefit environmentally. Again, another computer analogy. Imagine someone invented a beautiful new elegant programming language that reduces CPU energy use by 50%. At the same time, someone found a way to reduce JVM CPU energy use by 20%. If we wanted the shortest path to worldwide energy reduction in CPU, what would be faster, just update the JVM for millions of servers or rewrite everything in the new programming language?
  - seanp2k2 10y ago
    Don't we already kinda do this with Ethanol, and aside from how growing so much corn is also bad for the environment, how it's a less efficient fuel, and other concerns (indirect land use change etc), it already works to des crease our dependence on the stuff in the ground? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanol_fuel_in_the_United_States# https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanol_fuel_in_the_United_S...
    - cpprototypes 10y ago
      Ethanol is terrible, especially corn produced ethanol. The type of process I'm referring to is this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-diesel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-diesel The inputs to this are just energy + water + CO2 = oil. No corn or other plants required. Currently this type of technology is far from cost competitive. But that could potentially change if more was invested into this area.
dredmorbius 10y ago
I've been looking into synfuels, especially petroleum analogs, of which there's been over 50 years of research. I do find it genuinely exciting. The same benefits of petroleum (safety, stability, portability, storage, and very, very flexible use) apply to any synthetic analogs. The "problem" is that you pay full cost. Most synthesis methods lose about 50% of the input energy (mostly in hydrogen electrolysis). Where petroleum has historically offered 100:1 energy benefits, and is now typically delivers 20-30x the input energy, synfuels would cost you energy: 1:2 or worse. The equivalent energy cost increase is 40-60x that of present sources. That's not objectively a bad thing, but it's a tremendous shock to a system based on cheap energy. The research as I said is impressive: Brookhaven National Laboratory (US), M.I.T., and the US Naval Research Lab, going back to Meyer Stienberg at BNL in 1964 (the suggestion itself came from M. King Hubbert, who'd first projected peak oil, in a 1963 paper). Progress, however, has been fairly scant, with only very small-scale tests. The advantage would be a fuel that's infinitely miscable and substitutable for existing petroleum-based petrol, diesel, kerosene (a/k/a jet fuel), etc. And it can be carbon-neutral (via seawater or atmospheric-based carbon stocks). The disadvantages are cost and complexity as well as input energy. That said, I think it's well-worth pursuing.
- cpprototypes 10y ago
  The energy efficiency of the process is bad, but the future economic conditions could change dramatically: 1) Fossil fuels costs will eventually start rising and never come down again. How much investment and attention will synthetic production receive when oil is $100/barrel? Or at $200/barrel, or $300/barrel? More investment could lead to significant process improvements. 2) Solar energy has improved tremendously and continues to improve more. But the great weakness of solar is that it's only effective at daytime. Anything produced in excess of daytime demand is basically waste energy. Since it's waste energy, the inefficiency of the oil synthesis process doesn't matter. The only competitor here is other energy storage methods such as batteries. The key question here will be, is it better to store this excess waste energy in batteries or use the synthetic process to make oil? From a pure efficiency standpoint, battery is better. But when considering the existing oil infrastructure, the answer is not as clear.

ZenoArrow 10y ago

> "In a similar way, why are we focusing on the very difficult and slow task of upgrading all cars to EV? Why not improve the source of oil itself?" Some people are pursuing this. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biodiesel https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biodiesel Personally I think it's a mistake to rely on any single energy source as heavily as we have with oil, so I hope the EV car market continues to grow, but biodiesel may be better suited for some applications.

bubbleRefuge 10y ago

EV's have other benefits. Ultimately, when economy of scale is fully realized, perhaps electric motors are cheaper, cleaner, and easier to maintain than ICE's. Perhaps automobile supply chains will become similar to laptop/Iphone supply chains ( ie extremely efficient) . Perhaps EVs are easier to re-cycle. Perhaps they perform better on the road. For ex, accelerate and stop faster . Perhaps there will be a 5x 10x 20x breakthrough in battery technology?

cpprototypes 10y ago
When comparing just technology, EV cars are superior. Far greater engine efficiency, less complexity and moving parts, efficient transmission of energy from power plants to vehicle, etc. But we live in an oil world. There are billions of cars out there. Cars are big investments that are handed down generation to generation like houses, especially in developing countries. EV car sales are still a drop in the bucket compared to ICE car sales. If we want fast and rapid action on climate change, the quickest path is not pushing EV. It would be massive investment in reducing the cost to make synthetic oil. This may seem impossible, but that's what many said about solar competing with fossil fuels. EV car enthusiasts often talk about how EV cars get immediate environmental benefits from power plant upgrades such as burning coal to solar. But how much more orders of magnitude environment improvement would we get from carbon neutral oil creation? If a cost effective way was found that could compete with fossil fuels, billions of cars would immediately benefit environmentally. Again, another computer analogy. Imagine someone invented a beautiful new elegant programming language that reduces CPU energy use by 50%. At the same time, someone found a way to reduce JVM CPU energy use by 20%. If we wanted the shortest path to worldwide energy reduction in CPU, what would be faster, just update the JVM for millions of servers or rewrite everything in the new programming language?
- seanp2k2 10y ago
  Don't we already kinda do this with Ethanol, and aside from how growing so much corn is also bad for the environment, how it's a less efficient fuel, and other concerns (indirect land use change etc), it already works to des crease our dependence on the stuff in the ground? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanol_fuel_in_the_United_States# https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanol_fuel_in_the_United_S...
  - cpprototypes 10y ago
    Ethanol is terrible, especially corn produced ethanol. The type of process I'm referring to is this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-diesel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-diesel The inputs to this are just energy + water + CO2 = oil. No corn or other plants required. Currently this type of technology is far from cost competitive. But that could potentially change if more was invested into this area.

dredmorbius 10y ago

I've been looking into synfuels, especially petroleum analogs, of which there's been over 50 years of research. I do find it genuinely exciting. The same benefits of petroleum (safety, stability, portability, storage, and very, very flexible use) apply to any synthetic analogs. The "problem" is that you pay full cost. Most synthesis methods lose about 50% of the input energy (mostly in hydrogen electrolysis). Where petroleum has historically offered 100:1 energy benefits, and is now typically delivers 20-30x the input energy, synfuels would cost you energy: 1:2 or worse. The equivalent energy cost increase is 40-60x that of present sources. That's not objectively a bad thing, but it's a tremendous shock to a system based on cheap energy. The research as I said is impressive: Brookhaven National Laboratory (US), M.I.T., and the US Naval Research Lab, going back to Meyer Stienberg at BNL in 1964 (the suggestion itself came from M. King Hubbert, who'd first projected peak oil, in a 1963 paper). Progress, however, has been fairly scant, with only very small-scale tests. The advantage would be a fuel that's infinitely miscable and substitutable for existing petroleum-based petrol, diesel, kerosene (a/k/a jet fuel), etc. And it can be carbon-neutral (via seawater or atmospheric-based carbon stocks). The disadvantages are cost and complexity as well as input energy. That said, I think it's well-worth pursuing.

cpprototypes 10y ago
The energy efficiency of the process is bad, but the future economic conditions could change dramatically: 1) Fossil fuels costs will eventually start rising and never come down again. How much investment and attention will synthetic production receive when oil is $100/barrel? Or at $200/barrel, or $300/barrel? More investment could lead to significant process improvements. 2) Solar energy has improved tremendously and continues to improve more. But the great weakness of solar is that it's only effective at daytime. Anything produced in excess of daytime demand is basically waste energy. Since it's waste energy, the inefficiency of the oil synthesis process doesn't matter. The only competitor here is other energy storage methods such as batteries. The key question here will be, is it better to store this excess waste energy in batteries or use the synthetic process to make oil? From a pure efficiency standpoint, battery is better. But when considering the existing oil infrastructure, the answer is not as clear.