4 ms·

Currently usually from biomass or coal, see almighty wp http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthetic_fuel http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthetic_fuel The factories w

by yaix 15y ago

Currently usually from biomass or coal, see almighty wp http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthetic_fuel http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthetic_fuel The factories would not being build in the few countries that currently supply the vast majority of the oil the world consumes. A number of countries (Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, to name a few) would lose 99% of their income overnight. Maybe its the wrong place to discuss the political implications of technical inventions here on hn, though. (I am a little annoyed that some people seem to just down vote anything they lack knowledge about. What do you mean by "science fiction story"??)

burgerbrain 15y ago
"What do you mean by "science fiction story"??" Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible (or at least non-supernatural) content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_fiction http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_fiction
- jerf 15y ago
  Yaix is correct. There's nothing magical about oil such that it can only be produced underground in the Earth. All the petrochemicals can be made via other processes. We know this because people have done it, some even at industrial scales. If you have enough cheap electricity, the oil problem goes away... but there's a lot of terawatts lying in wait behind that innocuous word "enough". But in the end, all significant resource considerations across the next couple of centuries come down to matters of energy, not atoms.
  - burgerbrain 15y ago
    The "futuristic technology" in this case is the cold fusion (particularly, the cold fusion being cheap enough that we don't care about electrical costs of anything), not the synthetic oil.
    - yaix 15y ago
      Ahm... that was the topic of the original article. Didn't you read it? On HN, comments usually refer to the topic of the article they are attached to.
  - jholman 15y ago
    Hmn. All _chemical_ resource considerations, sure. I agree that the oil/plastic thing is a no-brainer, with "enough free energy". What're you going to do about rare elements? Just apply nuclear reactors? Helium is easy, I guess, since we have no shortage of plans for fusion reactors that run at a loss. What about "rare earths", though?
    - jerf 15y ago
      Get them from outer space, or use less efficient alternatives and not care about the reduced efficiency because it's so darned cheap.
- yaix 15y ago
  Don't be childish, please. I am asking you, what part of what I wrote sounds like SciFi to you. Synthetic Fuel is produced for many years already, its not SciFi but decade old technology.
  - shin_lao 15y ago
    Do you have any idea of the amounts of oil we're talking about? Currently, the world consumes almost 100,000,000 barrels of oil PER DAY. You're writing science fiction when you think you can replace that by synthetic fuel. Current synthetic fuel production is around 200,000. Most of that production requires coal or natural gas... There's a difference between a proof of concept and an industrial scale production.

by yaix 15y ago

burgerbrain 15y ago

"What do you mean by "science fiction story"??" Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible (or at least non-supernatural) content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_fiction http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_fiction

jerf 15y ago
Yaix is correct. There's nothing magical about oil such that it can only be produced underground in the Earth. All the petrochemicals can be made via other processes. We know this because people have done it, some even at industrial scales. If you have enough cheap electricity, the oil problem goes away... but there's a lot of terawatts lying in wait behind that innocuous word "enough". But in the end, all significant resource considerations across the next couple of centuries come down to matters of energy, not atoms.
- burgerbrain 15y ago
  The "futuristic technology" in this case is the cold fusion (particularly, the cold fusion being cheap enough that we don't care about electrical costs of anything), not the synthetic oil.
  - yaix 15y ago
    Ahm... that was the topic of the original article. Didn't you read it? On HN, comments usually refer to the topic of the article they are attached to.
- jholman 15y ago
  Hmn. All _chemical_ resource considerations, sure. I agree that the oil/plastic thing is a no-brainer, with "enough free energy". What're you going to do about rare elements? Just apply nuclear reactors? Helium is easy, I guess, since we have no shortage of plans for fusion reactors that run at a loss. What about "rare earths", though?
  - jerf 15y ago
    Get them from outer space, or use less efficient alternatives and not care about the reduced efficiency because it's so darned cheap.
yaix 15y ago
Don't be childish, please. I am asking you, what part of what I wrote sounds like SciFi to you. Synthetic Fuel is produced for many years already, its not SciFi but decade old technology.
- shin_lao 15y ago
  Do you have any idea of the amounts of oil we're talking about? Currently, the world consumes almost 100,000,000 barrels of oil PER DAY. You're writing science fiction when you think you can replace that by synthetic fuel. Current synthetic fuel production is around 200,000. Most of that production requires coal or natural gas... There's a difference between a proof of concept and an industrial scale production.