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An interesting possible future, as the EROEI of traditional fossil fuels continues to drop (the cheap easy oil is gone), the oil price naturally goes up. At th

An interesting possible future, as the EROEI of traditional fossil fuels continues to drop (the cheap easy oil is gone), the oil price naturally goes up. At the same time, renewables (solar + wind) massively increases, but there's no cost effective solution for storing the intermittent excess energy produced. These two factors (increasing oil price + a way to store excess renewable energy) combine to make synthetic oil competitive. If a carbon tax is introduced, that's another third factor that could help synthetic oil. Would the market favor increasing electrification or a synthetic oil that works immediately in all the existing carbon based infrastructure?

snek_case 5y ago
Battery powered electric vehicles are much more efficient than gasoline engines in terms of energy use per mile. With synthetic oil, you're losing energy both during the synthesis step and while using it. However, I think for airplanes or long term energy storage it could still make a lot of sense.
- boplicity 5y ago
  Agreed, in terms of airplanes. For airplanes, one of the most important considerations is the amount of energy per mass of fuel. Batteries are not practical, in this sense, as they weigh too much. It is simply not possible for batteries to fuel a large plane over long distances.
  - rlpb 5y ago
    Also, batteries weigh the same when they're depleted, whereas used fuel doesn't weigh anything.
    - manicdee 5y ago
      Used fuel weighs more than the raw fuel, it’s just outside your vehicle in the typical use case. As you have shown, a typical assumption made with fuel burning vehicles is that disposing of the effluent is free and you can just throw it overboard.
      - bronco21016 5y ago
        In terms of measuring performance of the aircraft, you do indeed just throw it overboard. Obviously the energy system as a whole need to take into account the dumping of hydrocarbons into the atmosphere but I believe the parent commenter does that by suggesting synthetic fuels created through carbon capture. Anyway, my point is just that when comparing two aircraft, and their fuel sources, it’s probably worth just comparing the closed system of the aircraft and measuring the environmental impact of fuel sources separately.
        mLuby 5y ago
        Wouldn't the fair comparison be tossing depleted batteries overboard? Or less ridiculously, storing rather than exhausting the burned fuel. Obviously we won't do that, but it's worth considering what the apples to apples comparison would really look like.
        bullsbarry 5y ago
        The fact that aircraft get lighter as they burn fuel increases their effective range since a lighter aircraft requires less fuel to fly.
        edrxty 5y ago
        It's also important as most long range airliners take off with more fuel than they can safely land with. The air frames are very heavily optimized as every pound matters. If you always landed with the same weight you took off with, you'd end up needing to make the landing gear and surrounding structure significantly stronger to prevent excessive wear over time.
        nradov 5y ago
        Also landing speeds would have to be higher because stall speed increases with weight. Faster landings are more dangerous.
        5y ago
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- foobarian 5y ago
  If you don't have any place to put the excess energy then the comparison is between inefficient synthetic oil and 0% efficient unused capacity.
  - snek_case 5y ago
    The nice thing about oil is that it's very energy dense. We could store excess energy in the summer to be used in the winter. In contrast, batteries can maybe provide a few days of storage, but with synthetic oil, we could buffer for multiple months.
  - oconnore 5y ago
    It’s probably more efficient to use a fuel like methane as opposed to oil as a medium-long term storage, e.g. for turbines used to address peak power grid usage, or winter storms (especially as more homes electrify HVAC).
- buu700 5y ago
  I like the idea of globally phasing out fossil fuels for synthetic fuels made from carbon capture (possibly with biomass components if required). Gas cars might be less efficient than electric, as expected of any kind of shim or polyfill, but they would be good enough that we wouldn't need to incentivize people to ditch their current vehicles. Perhaps more importantly, it would fill a big gap in our planning for the future. Rather than banking on the ability to massively scale up lithium mining, we build renewable power plants in proximity to natural gas plants and hook up carbon capture systems to those plants. Boom, now they're just overly complicated batteries, and therefore part of the solution rather than part of the problem. Consider them technical debt; at least people get to keep their jobs for a while longer and modernizing of the grid progresses more quickly.
onlyrealcuzzo 5y ago
Doesn't KSA and Venezuela still have decades of cheap oil left? And aren't aren't cars electrifying fast enough and getting feel efficient enough that oil demand should start going down?
- roenxi 5y ago
  Looking at the proven oil reserves of KSA [0] I suspect they are not at all transparent about how much oil they have left. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_reserves_in_Saudi_Arabia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_reserves_in_Saudi_Arabia
  - s1artibartfast 5y ago
    They intentionally are opaque. Whenever it is advantageous for them to do so they disclose more proven Reserves.

snek_case 5y ago

Battery powered electric vehicles are much more efficient than gasoline engines in terms of energy use per mile. With synthetic oil, you're losing energy both during the synthesis step and while using it. However, I think for airplanes or long term energy storage it could still make a lot of sense.

boplicity 5y ago
Agreed, in terms of airplanes. For airplanes, one of the most important considerations is the amount of energy per mass of fuel. Batteries are not practical, in this sense, as they weigh too much. It is simply not possible for batteries to fuel a large plane over long distances.
- rlpb 5y ago
  Also, batteries weigh the same when they're depleted, whereas used fuel doesn't weigh anything.
  - manicdee 5y ago
    Used fuel weighs more than the raw fuel, it’s just outside your vehicle in the typical use case. As you have shown, a typical assumption made with fuel burning vehicles is that disposing of the effluent is free and you can just throw it overboard.
    - bronco21016 5y ago
      In terms of measuring performance of the aircraft, you do indeed just throw it overboard. Obviously the energy system as a whole need to take into account the dumping of hydrocarbons into the atmosphere but I believe the parent commenter does that by suggesting synthetic fuels created through carbon capture. Anyway, my point is just that when comparing two aircraft, and their fuel sources, it’s probably worth just comparing the closed system of the aircraft and measuring the environmental impact of fuel sources separately.
      - mLuby 5y ago
        Wouldn't the fair comparison be tossing depleted batteries overboard? Or less ridiculously, storing rather than exhausting the burned fuel. Obviously we won't do that, but it's worth considering what the apples to apples comparison would really look like.
        bullsbarry 5y ago
        The fact that aircraft get lighter as they burn fuel increases their effective range since a lighter aircraft requires less fuel to fly.
        edrxty 5y ago
        It's also important as most long range airliners take off with more fuel than they can safely land with. The air frames are very heavily optimized as every pound matters. If you always landed with the same weight you took off with, you'd end up needing to make the landing gear and surrounding structure significantly stronger to prevent excessive wear over time.
        nradov 5y ago
        Also landing speeds would have to be higher because stall speed increases with weight. Faster landings are more dangerous.
        5y ago
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
foobarian 5y ago
If you don't have any place to put the excess energy then the comparison is between inefficient synthetic oil and 0% efficient unused capacity.
- snek_case 5y ago
  The nice thing about oil is that it's very energy dense. We could store excess energy in the summer to be used in the winter. In contrast, batteries can maybe provide a few days of storage, but with synthetic oil, we could buffer for multiple months.
- oconnore 5y ago
  It’s probably more efficient to use a fuel like methane as opposed to oil as a medium-long term storage, e.g. for turbines used to address peak power grid usage, or winter storms (especially as more homes electrify HVAC).
buu700 5y ago
I like the idea of globally phasing out fossil fuels for synthetic fuels made from carbon capture (possibly with biomass components if required). Gas cars might be less efficient than electric, as expected of any kind of shim or polyfill, but they would be good enough that we wouldn't need to incentivize people to ditch their current vehicles. Perhaps more importantly, it would fill a big gap in our planning for the future. Rather than banking on the ability to massively scale up lithium mining, we build renewable power plants in proximity to natural gas plants and hook up carbon capture systems to those plants. Boom, now they're just overly complicated batteries, and therefore part of the solution rather than part of the problem. Consider them technical debt; at least people get to keep their jobs for a while longer and modernizing of the grid progresses more quickly.

onlyrealcuzzo 5y ago

Doesn't KSA and Venezuela still have decades of cheap oil left? And aren't aren't cars electrifying fast enough and getting feel efficient enough that oil demand should start going down?

roenxi 5y ago
Looking at the proven oil reserves of KSA [0] I suspect they are not at all transparent about how much oil they have left. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_reserves_in_Saudi_Arabia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_reserves_in_Saudi_Arabia
- s1artibartfast 5y ago
  They intentionally are opaque. Whenever it is advantageous for them to do so they disclose more proven Reserves.