4 ms·

I'd love to see an investigation into fossil fuel accumulation over geological time scales - especially petroleum. From what I've seen, 10,000 barrels per year

by csours 6mo ago

I'd love to see an investigation into fossil fuel accumulation over geological time scales - especially petroleum. From what I've seen, 10,000 barrels per year is a reasonable guestimate. If that is the case, then just the electrical energy harvested from solar panels in the UK could convert air into fuel at a faster rate than the WHOLE earth (on average over geological time scales) (as long as the fuel conversion/production was at least 1% efficient at converting electricity to fuel). https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/1owp09/if_oil_takes_millions_of_years_to_be_made_how/ https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/1owp09/if_oil_t... https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2096249517300200 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S209624951...

Rekindle8090 6mo ago
solar panels dont convert air into fuel
- csours 6mo ago
  Thank you? Solar panels don't convert air to fuel directly, but you could use the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabatier_reaction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabatier_reaction
  - lostmsu 6mo ago
    H2 is already a fuel
- margalabargala 6mo ago
  Solar panels generate energy which can be used for a variety of purposes. One of those uses is converting air to fuel. If it helps you, think of it like money. You cannot eat it or be sheltered beneath it, but you can use it to purchase food and shelter.
- Brian_K_White 6mo ago
  Of course they do. They convert anything you want into anything else you want.
moralestapia 6mo ago
Random question and memes-aside, is there oil on other planets? Edit: GPT says hydrocarbons yes, oil as in Earth no (because that comes from complex living matter). Edit 2: As far as we know, I really hope there's more life out there.
- csours 6mo ago
  Well, there are a lot of planets, and a lot of time. So I would say yes. On average though, I would say no.
- augusto-moura 6mo ago
  We can't be sure, but probably not on the solar system.
- Brian_K_White 6mo ago
  I thought they discovered at least decades ago that our oil is actually largely inorganic? It's not dinosaurs & ferns but a direct chemical & physical process. I know a lot of people still say it's just a competing theory but they have found many large deposits in places where it's not possible for it to have been organic. (too deep, in the middle of pure granite with only raw volcanic material and no other organics, etc)
  - IsTom 6mo ago
    Wikipedia seems to disagree https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petroleum#Abiogenic_petroleum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petroleum#Abiogenic_petroleum
  - adrian_b 6mo ago
    Oil is fluid, so it will not necessarily stay where it is formed, but it will flow through the rocks until it is stopped by impermeable rocks, like granite. So there is nothing surprising in finding oil elsewhere than where it has formed. Some hydrocarbons can form in the absence of life, e.g. by Fischer-Tropsch synthesis from syngas, catalyzed by some minerals, where syngas can form in volcanic gases or in hydrothermal vents. However that is likely to have been a negligible contribution to the oil reserves of the Earth and most or all oil ever found has a chemical composition that has clear indications of being produced by the decay of organic matter from living beings.
joe_the_user 6mo ago
The thing is that the supply of fossil fuel depends one's willingness to spend effort finding it. There's a virtually unlimited amount of methane on the ocean floor but harvesting it is not economically viable (fortunately). US fracking technology allows otherwise unavailable heavy oil to be harvested but naturally at a higher price than Saudi light crude. So solar tech, as it declines in cost, will replace a larger and larger portion of fossil fuels but not the entire spectrum of these some come out of the ground close to the form we need them in (solar asphalt is hard to imagine with subsidies).
- danans 6mo ago
  > solar asphalt is hard to imagine with subsidies Arguably asphalt is exactly the sort of application we should be using petroleum for - keeping it sequestered in earth instead of burning it.
  - defrost 6mo ago
    No - asphalt is bound together by bitumen, a sticky, waterproof byproduct of petroleum refining. eg: You don't get asphalt without bitumen and you don't get bitumen save as a byproduct of a massive amount of fossil fuels being pulled up .. and inevitably increasing the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere.
    - danans 6mo ago
      > You don't get asphalt without bitumen and you don't get bitumen save as a byproduct of a massive amount of fossil fuels being pulled up There are alternatives to virgin bitumen for binding asphalt, like recycled asphalt [1], asphalt blended with recycled rubber, etc. These could conceivably be used together with a smaller amount of virgin petroleum-derived bitumen. 1. https://www.nyc.gov/site/ddc/resources/features/july-2016-green-asphalt.page https://www.nyc.gov/site/ddc/resources/features/july-2016-gr...
      - defrost 6mo ago
        Indeed. There are also paths to tackling the impacts from concrete, from steel making, from livestock generating methane, etc. The figure that has to watched, reduced, and ideally if possible made negative for a time is the rate of CO2 addition to the atmosphere; pulling up additional hydrocarbons already sequestered will always(?) lead to some amount of additional CO2 being set free as a gas. The very existence of any bitumen (derived from buried hydrocarbons) is just a sign of the horse (previously sequestered CO2) having already left the stable (buried for millenia).
CGMthrowaway 6mo ago
>I'd love to see an investigation into fossil fuel accumulation over geological time scales - especially petroleum. From what I've seen, 10,000 barrels per year is a reasonable guestimate. From what we know it's a very lumpy distribution. Most of the fossil fuels were created in a few specific points of history
tim333 6mo ago
10,000 barrels per year seems super low. Some figures I found of google estimated total fossil fuel in the earth 1.90E+16 tons (all the hydrocarbons, not just easily extracted) say it got there over a billion years that would be approx 2E7 tons/yr or 1E8 barrels. ie. 100,000,000 barrels equivalent a year.
- csours 6mo ago
  Source? Are you referring to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerogen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerogen? At any rate, this is why I would like to see a better investigation of the subject Better Kerogen wiki: https://wiki.aapg.org/Kerogen https://wiki.aapg.org/Kerogen
  - tim333 5mo ago
    Source this https://www.scirp.org/journal/paperinformation?paperid=92529 https://www.scirp.org/journal/paperinformation?paperid=92529 No idea if it's correct.

by csours 6mo ago

Rekindle8090 6mo ago

solar panels dont convert air into fuel

csours 6mo ago
Thank you? Solar panels don't convert air to fuel directly, but you could use the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabatier_reaction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabatier_reaction
- lostmsu 6mo ago
  H2 is already a fuel
margalabargala 6mo ago
Solar panels generate energy which can be used for a variety of purposes. One of those uses is converting air to fuel. If it helps you, think of it like money. You cannot eat it or be sheltered beneath it, but you can use it to purchase food and shelter.
Brian_K_White 6mo ago
Of course they do. They convert anything you want into anything else you want.

moralestapia 6mo ago

Random question and memes-aside, is there oil on other planets? Edit: GPT says hydrocarbons yes, oil as in Earth no (because that comes from complex living matter). Edit 2: As far as we know, I really hope there's more life out there.

csours 6mo ago
Well, there are a lot of planets, and a lot of time. So I would say yes. On average though, I would say no.
augusto-moura 6mo ago
We can't be sure, but probably not on the solar system.
Brian_K_White 6mo ago
I thought they discovered at least decades ago that our oil is actually largely inorganic? It's not dinosaurs & ferns but a direct chemical & physical process. I know a lot of people still say it's just a competing theory but they have found many large deposits in places where it's not possible for it to have been organic. (too deep, in the middle of pure granite with only raw volcanic material and no other organics, etc)
- IsTom 6mo ago
  Wikipedia seems to disagree https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petroleum#Abiogenic_petroleum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petroleum#Abiogenic_petroleum
- adrian_b 6mo ago
  Oil is fluid, so it will not necessarily stay where it is formed, but it will flow through the rocks until it is stopped by impermeable rocks, like granite. So there is nothing surprising in finding oil elsewhere than where it has formed. Some hydrocarbons can form in the absence of life, e.g. by Fischer-Tropsch synthesis from syngas, catalyzed by some minerals, where syngas can form in volcanic gases or in hydrothermal vents. However that is likely to have been a negligible contribution to the oil reserves of the Earth and most or all oil ever found has a chemical composition that has clear indications of being produced by the decay of organic matter from living beings.

joe_the_user 6mo ago

The thing is that the supply of fossil fuel depends one's willingness to spend effort finding it. There's a virtually unlimited amount of methane on the ocean floor but harvesting it is not economically viable (fortunately). US fracking technology allows otherwise unavailable heavy oil to be harvested but naturally at a higher price than Saudi light crude. So solar tech, as it declines in cost, will replace a larger and larger portion of fossil fuels but not the entire spectrum of these some come out of the ground close to the form we need them in (solar asphalt is hard to imagine with subsidies).

danans 6mo ago
> solar asphalt is hard to imagine with subsidies Arguably asphalt is exactly the sort of application we should be using petroleum for - keeping it sequestered in earth instead of burning it.
- defrost 6mo ago
  No - asphalt is bound together by bitumen, a sticky, waterproof byproduct of petroleum refining. eg: You don't get asphalt without bitumen and you don't get bitumen save as a byproduct of a massive amount of fossil fuels being pulled up .. and inevitably increasing the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere.
  - danans 6mo ago
    > You don't get asphalt without bitumen and you don't get bitumen save as a byproduct of a massive amount of fossil fuels being pulled up There are alternatives to virgin bitumen for binding asphalt, like recycled asphalt [1], asphalt blended with recycled rubber, etc. These could conceivably be used together with a smaller amount of virgin petroleum-derived bitumen. 1. https://www.nyc.gov/site/ddc/resources/features/july-2016-green-asphalt.page https://www.nyc.gov/site/ddc/resources/features/july-2016-gr...
    - defrost 6mo ago
      Indeed. There are also paths to tackling the impacts from concrete, from steel making, from livestock generating methane, etc. The figure that has to watched, reduced, and ideally if possible made negative for a time is the rate of CO2 addition to the atmosphere; pulling up additional hydrocarbons already sequestered will always(?) lead to some amount of additional CO2 being set free as a gas. The very existence of any bitumen (derived from buried hydrocarbons) is just a sign of the horse (previously sequestered CO2) having already left the stable (buried for millenia).

CGMthrowaway 6mo ago

>I'd love to see an investigation into fossil fuel accumulation over geological time scales - especially petroleum. From what I've seen, 10,000 barrels per year is a reasonable guestimate. From what we know it's a very lumpy distribution. Most of the fossil fuels were created in a few specific points of history

tim333 6mo ago

10,000 barrels per year seems super low. Some figures I found of google estimated total fossil fuel in the earth 1.90E+16 tons (all the hydrocarbons, not just easily extracted) say it got there over a billion years that would be approx 2E7 tons/yr or 1E8 barrels. ie. 100,000,000 barrels equivalent a year.

csours 6mo ago
Source? Are you referring to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerogen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerogen? At any rate, this is why I would like to see a better investigation of the subject Better Kerogen wiki: https://wiki.aapg.org/Kerogen https://wiki.aapg.org/Kerogen
- tim333 5mo ago
  Source this https://www.scirp.org/journal/paperinformation?paperid=92529 https://www.scirp.org/journal/paperinformation?paperid=92529 No idea if it's correct.