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Somehow I thought that a significant proportion of oil ended up in non-fuel products (plastics, lubricants etc). So I was going to comment on how difficult it w

by ian0 7y ago

Somehow I thought that a significant proportion of oil ended up in non-fuel products (plastics, lubricants etc). So I was going to comment on how difficult it would be to give it up. But after a bit of digging I found this[0] and it seems the vast majority of it is used for fuel. Question from someone who knows nothing about refining, if we did move away from oil/gas as fuel, would we still have to extract as much to gain the same amount of non-feul petroleum products? [0] https://energyeducation.ca/encyclopedia/In_a_barrel_of_oil https://energyeducation.ca/encyclopedia/In_a_barrel_of_oil

atemerev 7y ago
If we keep the current levels of consumption, then yes, we won't need that much oil. However, if oil will stop being used as fuel, petroleum products are expected to become much cheaper, which could raise the demand.
- tom_mellior 7y ago
  But first demand would drop, making a lot of extraction less profitable than it is now. Wouldn't a lot of the oil suppliers go out of business (forever) before we could "rescue" them by buying even more plastic crap we don't need? Also, even if we started building our houses out of plastic or something, I can't imagine that covering as much use of oil as we are currently burning.
  - bryanlarsen 7y ago
    Saudi oil is still quite cheap to extract, so Canadian oil sands producers going bankrupt wouldn't stop all production. Also, a producer going bankrupt means their assets are sold for pennies on the dollar which would enable a low cost producer to take over without the huge sunk costs of the original producer.
- abathur 7y ago
  Source on petro products becoming cheaper? It's the natural inference from supply and demand (so I agree it's possible), but it's worth keeping in mind that oil is a very big capital-intense business. Extraction, multiple rounds of transport, and refining all have significant economies of scale. Some of those scale advantages might break down if demand downscaled to any small fraction of current, which could make the fallout unpredictable. I'm also not sure how fungible a barrel of oil is. That is to say, is the fuel fraction of current production easily repurposed for making plastics, or is that fraction more or less destined to become fuel of some sort? If fixed fractions are just compositionally destined for certain uses, a collapse in demand for those fractions could actually increase the cost of the remaining in-demand fractions since they still have to cover the costs of production.
kijin 7y ago
Plastic products still contain most of the carbon that was originally in the oil, so I don't think it will be a problem for the climate even if we keep extracting oil and making plastic out of it. It will be just like making steel out of iron ore. We only need to stop burning that shit.
- noir_lord 7y ago
  From a climate point of view certainly but we need to stop dumping plastics in the ocean desperately, we are fucking up the largest biosphere on the planet.
sword_smith 7y ago
Last I checked about 4 percent of the produced oil went into the production of plastic.
Merrill 7y ago
The plastic celluloid slightly predates the beginning of crude oil extraction. Plastics can be made starting with non-petroleum chemicals, such as cellulose. See also Henry Ford's plastic car made from soybeans, wheat, and corn, and designed to run on hemp fuel. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soybean_car https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soybean_car However, making cars from foodstuffs may be inconsistent with feeding 10 billion people.
- swiley 7y ago
  Until we find a way to economically cleave the ether bond in cellulose it’s more or less a byproduct of food production and can’t be used for a whole lot else. (edit: I meant anything food related, obviously you can make paper, rayon etc. out of it.) What starts to encroach on the biomass used for food is when you start using the sugars (producing ethanol etc) which is what would be used to make plastics (like PE) that are currently made from oil.
ilaksh 7y ago
I've read that oil or derivatives is used in a very large proportion of industrial or construction products and proxesses.
dTal 7y ago
As has been remarked, the problem is less about extracting it and more about burning it. However, to answer your question, in the absence of any extraction its still quite easy to make oil from any carbon-based substance (search "thermal depolymerization"). We will never run out of oil - at worst, we will run out of "cheap" oil. However, as plastic is ludicrously cheap anyway, I don't see that as a major problem. Sure, it might cause some companies some headaches, but it won't cause any major disruption to modern life.

by ian0 7y ago

atemerev 7y ago

If we keep the current levels of consumption, then yes, we won't need that much oil. However, if oil will stop being used as fuel, petroleum products are expected to become much cheaper, which could raise the demand.

tom_mellior 7y ago
But first demand would drop, making a lot of extraction less profitable than it is now. Wouldn't a lot of the oil suppliers go out of business (forever) before we could "rescue" them by buying even more plastic crap we don't need? Also, even if we started building our houses out of plastic or something, I can't imagine that covering as much use of oil as we are currently burning.
- bryanlarsen 7y ago
  Saudi oil is still quite cheap to extract, so Canadian oil sands producers going bankrupt wouldn't stop all production. Also, a producer going bankrupt means their assets are sold for pennies on the dollar which would enable a low cost producer to take over without the huge sunk costs of the original producer.
abathur 7y ago
Source on petro products becoming cheaper? It's the natural inference from supply and demand (so I agree it's possible), but it's worth keeping in mind that oil is a very big capital-intense business. Extraction, multiple rounds of transport, and refining all have significant economies of scale. Some of those scale advantages might break down if demand downscaled to any small fraction of current, which could make the fallout unpredictable. I'm also not sure how fungible a barrel of oil is. That is to say, is the fuel fraction of current production easily repurposed for making plastics, or is that fraction more or less destined to become fuel of some sort? If fixed fractions are just compositionally destined for certain uses, a collapse in demand for those fractions could actually increase the cost of the remaining in-demand fractions since they still have to cover the costs of production.

kijin 7y ago

Plastic products still contain most of the carbon that was originally in the oil, so I don't think it will be a problem for the climate even if we keep extracting oil and making plastic out of it. It will be just like making steel out of iron ore. We only need to stop burning that shit.

noir_lord 7y ago
From a climate point of view certainly but we need to stop dumping plastics in the ocean desperately, we are fucking up the largest biosphere on the planet.

sword_smith 7y ago

Last I checked about 4 percent of the produced oil went into the production of plastic.

Merrill 7y ago

The plastic celluloid slightly predates the beginning of crude oil extraction. Plastics can be made starting with non-petroleum chemicals, such as cellulose. See also Henry Ford's plastic car made from soybeans, wheat, and corn, and designed to run on hemp fuel. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soybean_car https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soybean_car However, making cars from foodstuffs may be inconsistent with feeding 10 billion people.

swiley 7y ago
Until we find a way to economically cleave the ether bond in cellulose it’s more or less a byproduct of food production and can’t be used for a whole lot else. (edit: I meant anything food related, obviously you can make paper, rayon etc. out of it.) What starts to encroach on the biomass used for food is when you start using the sugars (producing ethanol etc) which is what would be used to make plastics (like PE) that are currently made from oil.

ilaksh 7y ago

I've read that oil or derivatives is used in a very large proportion of industrial or construction products and proxesses.

dTal 7y ago

As has been remarked, the problem is less about extracting it and more about burning it. However, to answer your question, in the absence of any extraction its still quite easy to make oil from any carbon-based substance (search "thermal depolymerization"). We will never run out of oil - at worst, we will run out of "cheap" oil. However, as plastic is ludicrously cheap anyway, I don't see that as a major problem. Sure, it might cause some companies some headaches, but it won't cause any major disruption to modern life.