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"The Fischer-Tropsch process is almost a hundred years old, and has been used on an industrial scale. E.g. Nazi Germany used it to produce a non-trivial fractio

"The Fischer-Tropsch process is almost a hundred years old, and has been used on an industrial scale. E.g. Nazi Germany used it to produce a non-trivial fraction of their liquid fuels during WWII." I know it's not an argument against, but the Nazis lost WW2 because they ran out of oil. They invaded Russia at the last moment they could before they wouldn't have the oil to invade, and when they invaded they made a beeline for Russia's oil fields. They were desperate for fuel from anywhere, because their tanks are useless and they either have to fight to the death wherever their tanks run out of fuel, or abandon their tanks. ...also, the main non-fossil fuel the nazis used was probably hay. For their horses. It's just a super weird example.

jabl 6y ago
> I know it's not an argument against, but the Nazis lost WW2 because they ran out of oil. Well, they would most likely have lost anyway, but failing to capture the Caucasian oil fields as well as the Allies attacking their fuel infrastructure certainly hastened their demise. One can make a good argument that the strategic bombing on the western front in WWII was largely ineffective, but there were parts that were wildly successful, like attacking the fuel infrastructure. As for why they didn't just use synthetic fuel all the way instead of just a fraction of the total use, I don't know. I guess they just couldn't scale it up fast enough. And certainly getting oil from the ground is much cheaper than creating synthetic fuel from coal in huge industrial parks. > ...also, the main non-fossil fuel the nazis used was probably hay. For their horses. It's just a super weird example. Sure. Blitzkrieg captured the public imagination, but in reality only a small fraction of the German army were these mechanized shock troops. Most were infantry that moved by train or marched with horses carrying equipment.

jabl 6y ago

> I know it's not an argument against, but the Nazis lost WW2 because they ran out of oil. Well, they would most likely have lost anyway, but failing to capture the Caucasian oil fields as well as the Allies attacking their fuel infrastructure certainly hastened their demise. One can make a good argument that the strategic bombing on the western front in WWII was largely ineffective, but there were parts that were wildly successful, like attacking the fuel infrastructure. As for why they didn't just use synthetic fuel all the way instead of just a fraction of the total use, I don't know. I guess they just couldn't scale it up fast enough. And certainly getting oil from the ground is much cheaper than creating synthetic fuel from coal in huge industrial parks. > ...also, the main non-fossil fuel the nazis used was probably hay. For their horses. It's just a super weird example. Sure. Blitzkrieg captured the public imagination, but in reality only a small fraction of the German army were these mechanized shock troops. Most were infantry that moved by train or marched with horses carrying equipment.