3 ms·

Nothing against you because I held the same views in the past but I think this is a very dangerous line of thinking. Not everything can be solved with "when it'

Nothing against you because I held the same views in the past but I think this is a very dangerous line of thinking. Not everything can be solved with "when it's scare we will come up with alternatives" or "even if the alternatives aren't efficient enough now we will improve them if we run into a scarcity issue". I hear this around energy most often. Oil is becoming more and more expensive ($$ and energy-wise) to extract (I find the best way to look at how many barrels of oil are extracted for the energy cost of 1 barrel). This number has been falling ever since the first well was tapped. We have used up all the "easy oil" and moving on to things like fracking which, environmental damage aside, does not have good returns and some of the major drill sites have adjusted their predicted yield down sharply (also fracking sites have a steep fall off where normal wells have more of a bell curve). The problem is: we have no viable substitute for oil (/gas). The world runs on oil. Solar is great but you can't put it in a tank or ship across the ocean or fly and battery tech isn't really close to closing that gap. You also can't make plastic from solar energy. Not to mention converting all our cars, trucks, etc to battery-powered is not a fast or cheap process. I highly recommend watching these videos on Energy Economics [0], Peak Cheap Oil [1], and Shale Oil [2] (aka fracking). All of this to say, I think it's dangerous to assume that we will have the time (or money) to reverse or halt the loss of non-renewable materials. Especially since if any of these start to get really expensive due to lower supply/higher demand it will kick off a number of other issues. If the price of oil spikes that affects a ton of our economy from gas, to plastics, and more. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvqEi7XRKY8&list=PLRgTUN1zz_ofJoMx1rB6Z0EA1OwAGDRdR&index=21 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvqEi7XRKY8&list=PLRgTUN1zz_... [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0uKihKkx0eY&list=PLRgTUN1zz_ofJoMx1rB6Z0EA1OwAGDRdR&index=22 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0uKihKkx0eY&list=PLRgTUN1zz_... [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0uKihKkx0eY&list=PLRgTUN1zz_ofJoMx1rB6Z0EA1OwAGDRdR&index=23 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0uKihKkx0eY&list=PLRgTUN1zz_...

philipkglass 6y ago
Plastics and liquid fuels can be manufactured starting from carbon dioxide and hydrogen. Hydrogen of course can be produced via the electrolysis of water with solar electricty. Carbon Recycling International already operates a commercial methanol plant for making methanol using renewable electrolytic hydrogen and carbon dioxide. This article "Process Advantages of Direct CO2 to Methanol Synthesis" has a lot of details: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fchem.2018.00446/full https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fchem.2018.0044... Methanol is a portable liquid that can be used directly as a fuel. It is also convertible to the olefins (alkenes) propylene and ethylene, the two most common plastic feedstocks. China has built millions of tons of capacity for methanol-to-olefins in the past decade, though unfortunately their input methanol is mostly produced from coal. See e.g. this recent plant that came on stream: "World’s largest single-train methanol-to-olefins plant now operating" https://www.chemengonline.com/worlds-largest-single-train-methanol-to-olefins-plant-now-operating/ https://www.chemengonline.com/worlds-largest-single-train-me... Helium is one of the very few mineral resources that is simultaneously industrially important, scarce, difficult to substitute, and exhibits poor prospects for higher sustainable terrestrial production. The other few elements in this small club are (IMO) the platinum group metals and rhenium.
- catalogia 6y ago
  The planet Jupiter is a quarter helium by mass, so I propose we deliberately waste all our helium on earth then use that as an excuse to start mining operations in space. (I'm semi-joking.)
rad_gruchalski 6y ago
> Solar is great but you can't put it in a tank or ship across the ocean or fly Not directly. But what about using it for hydrogen production?
- gorkish 6y ago
  It works but is super super inefficient, and actually using hydrogen directly as a fuel also has huge drawbacks, primarily due to the fact that it is prone to detonate vs simply combust. Unfortunately I don’t believe hydrogen is going to ever be viable at global scale unless it’s simply used to synthesize artificially produced petrochemicals, an even more inefficient process.
  - imtringued 6y ago
    Compared to the inefficiencies of fossil fuels hydrogen is a paragon of efficiency.

philipkglass 6y ago

Plastics and liquid fuels can be manufactured starting from carbon dioxide and hydrogen. Hydrogen of course can be produced via the electrolysis of water with solar electricty. Carbon Recycling International already operates a commercial methanol plant for making methanol using renewable electrolytic hydrogen and carbon dioxide. This article "Process Advantages of Direct CO2 to Methanol Synthesis" has a lot of details: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fchem.2018.00446/full https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fchem.2018.0044... Methanol is a portable liquid that can be used directly as a fuel. It is also convertible to the olefins (alkenes) propylene and ethylene, the two most common plastic feedstocks. China has built millions of tons of capacity for methanol-to-olefins in the past decade, though unfortunately their input methanol is mostly produced from coal. See e.g. this recent plant that came on stream: "World’s largest single-train methanol-to-olefins plant now operating" https://www.chemengonline.com/worlds-largest-single-train-methanol-to-olefins-plant-now-operating/ https://www.chemengonline.com/worlds-largest-single-train-me... Helium is one of the very few mineral resources that is simultaneously industrially important, scarce, difficult to substitute, and exhibits poor prospects for higher sustainable terrestrial production. The other few elements in this small club are (IMO) the platinum group metals and rhenium.

catalogia 6y ago
The planet Jupiter is a quarter helium by mass, so I propose we deliberately waste all our helium on earth then use that as an excuse to start mining operations in space. (I'm semi-joking.)

rad_gruchalski 6y ago

> Solar is great but you can't put it in a tank or ship across the ocean or fly Not directly. But what about using it for hydrogen production?

gorkish 6y ago
It works but is super super inefficient, and actually using hydrogen directly as a fuel also has huge drawbacks, primarily due to the fact that it is prone to detonate vs simply combust. Unfortunately I don’t believe hydrogen is going to ever be viable at global scale unless it’s simply used to synthesize artificially produced petrochemicals, an even more inefficient process.
- imtringued 6y ago
  Compared to the inefficiencies of fossil fuels hydrogen is a paragon of efficiency.