3 ms·

Well they inadvertently proved once again just how energy-dense and how incredibly ridiculously efficient liquid petroleum fuels are and what a boon and a curse

Well they inadvertently proved once again just how energy-dense and how incredibly ridiculously efficient liquid petroleum fuels are and what a boon and a curse they've been to humanity during this brief one-or-two-century blip, and how difficult it will be to replace them with anything that could even come close to current levels of energy output/consumption. (That's a problem statement, not an ad.)

mschuster91 9y ago
You can always synthesize gas (or use hydrogen as replacement, if your system can deal with the associated problems). Liquid fossil-based stuff is where the problem lies.
- murbard2 9y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gas_to_liquids https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gas_to_liquids
  - mschuster91 9y ago
    Yeah but that's fuels, they're relatively simple compared to the vast amount of stuff e.g. the plastics industry needs... and it doesn't scale at the moment.
walrus01 9y ago
If you have a truly ridiculous amount of electricity, such as from a multi-megawatt scale photovoltaic system that was almost free to install, or from a theoretical very high power/low cost nuclear reactor... You could electrolyze seawater into hydrogen and store it in tanks. Doesn't necessarily have to be fossil fuel. The watthours per amount of hydrogen stored are ridiculous, but as giant scale photovoltaic becomes commonplace, it might be possible. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_photovoltaic_power_stations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_photovoltaic_power_sta... Cover a 20 x 20 km section of Libyan desert with ground mount 360W PV panels, there's your power source.
- kogepathic 9y ago
  > Cover a 20 x 20 km section of Libyan desert with ground mount 360W PV panels, there's your power source. Sure, but first you need to find a desert in a relatively stable country, and then you have to account for the fact that the panels will need to be cleaned. UAE is building lots of solar, if you've been through DXB or AUH you've probably seen the Total [0] ads for solar. However I know from personal experience that even in the desert you need to have methods to clean the panels or they will be covered in dust/sand after some time, and this significantly reduces their output. [1] [0] http://www.total.com/en http://www.total.com/en [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleaning_event https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleaning_event

mschuster91 9y ago

You can always synthesize gas (or use hydrogen as replacement, if your system can deal with the associated problems). Liquid fossil-based stuff is where the problem lies.

murbard2 9y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gas_to_liquids https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gas_to_liquids
- mschuster91 9y ago
  Yeah but that's fuels, they're relatively simple compared to the vast amount of stuff e.g. the plastics industry needs... and it doesn't scale at the moment.

walrus01 9y ago

If you have a truly ridiculous amount of electricity, such as from a multi-megawatt scale photovoltaic system that was almost free to install, or from a theoretical very high power/low cost nuclear reactor... You could electrolyze seawater into hydrogen and store it in tanks. Doesn't necessarily have to be fossil fuel. The watthours per amount of hydrogen stored are ridiculous, but as giant scale photovoltaic becomes commonplace, it might be possible. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_photovoltaic_power_stations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_photovoltaic_power_sta... Cover a 20 x 20 km section of Libyan desert with ground mount 360W PV panels, there's your power source.

kogepathic 9y ago
> Cover a 20 x 20 km section of Libyan desert with ground mount 360W PV panels, there's your power source. Sure, but first you need to find a desert in a relatively stable country, and then you have to account for the fact that the panels will need to be cleaned. UAE is building lots of solar, if you've been through DXB or AUH you've probably seen the Total [0] ads for solar. However I know from personal experience that even in the desert you need to have methods to clean the panels or they will be covered in dust/sand after some time, and this significantly reduces their output. [1] [0] http://www.total.com/en http://www.total.com/en [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleaning_event https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleaning_event