4 ms·
How is it infinite? Oil forms from ancient organic matter under intense heat and pressure, a process taking millions of years, making it non-renewable on human
by n1b0m 10mo ago
How is it infinite? Oil forms from ancient organic matter under intense heat and pressure, a process taking millions of years, making it non-renewable on human timescales.
- tbrownaw 10mo agoBiodiesel is a thing.
- mr_toad 10mo agoIt can be synthesized from air and water with energy and the right catalysts, although the process isn’t cheap. However if solar power keeps getting cheaper it might become feasible to produce it this way instead of drilling.
- n1b0m 10mo agoVery interesting, I wasn’t aware of that
- DANmode 10mo agoDespite spending a mind-numbing amount of time deeply embedded in the automotive world, I had no idea synthetic oil didn’t have oil or petroleum precursors. This is an incredible, and wildly under discussed win. As soon as solar energy is being used at scale, this will probably become way more commonly used - big electricity expense is the only main cost. Carbon capture is the other main input…hmmm.
- devilbunny 10mo agoThe problem is that solar only works when the sun is out and startup/shutdown on industrial chemical processes isn’t easy. Once you start involving batteries for around-the-clock operation, it’s more efficient just to use electricity directly. Synthetic hydrocarbons are best used for the cases like aviation where the energy density is the biggest hurdle.
- DANmode 10mo agoYes, these are the historical barriers. They’re melting.
- petre 10mo agoDME is even easier to synthetize from syngas and afterwards methanol than synth oil.
- herewulf 10mo agoIt's simply the reverse of oxidizing it (AKA combusting it).
- estimator7292 10mo agoSilver can be synthesized in particle colliders. Does that make it an infinite resource?
- DonHopkins 10mo ago[flagged]