1103
xkcd #2948: Electric vs Gas
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this post was submitted on 19 Jun 2024
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I think people forget that petroleum is condensed and distilled solar energy. One gallon of gasoline is the results of years of solar energy.
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Non renewable solar energy unfortunately.
Renewable fuels exist and are used today, but the efficiency and pollution aspects still apply.
If you're making your diesel from CO2 pulled from the air, pollution aspects don't really apply (at least, CO2 emission issues don't, there's still NOx, but that's what cat piss is for).
Problem is, converting atmospheric CO2 back into fuel makes the efficiency issue drastically worse. Maybe with enough solar panels and windmills, and use the Fischer–Tropsch process with the excess energy that the grid isn't consuming.
Of course, that would be for mobile fuel, if solar plants were going to do anything like that for later use generating electricity during peaks, making diesel is dumb; you'd want to use hydrogen or ammonia for in-place energy storage.
I was thinking about fuels like HVO. They work well, but have their own ecological implications.
Ah. I'm generally skeptical of any plant-based 'green fuel' because they generally take up agricultural capacity that would otherwise be producing food
No, it's renewable. But... not in any practical timeframe.
That's not the definition of renewable.
It is iv we use it sustainably.
Not really. Its trees from a time before micro organisms evolved the ability to eat dead trees. These days, the solar energy collected by trees will get used to power the metabolisms of fungi before those trees can get buried and eventually become new coal & petroleum.
I suppose an impact from a sufficiently large asteroid could turn the entire crust of the planet into magma, sterilizing it and therefore opening the possibility that new oil might be created some day.
IIRC it is actually mostly from algea. A small amount from some fern-like plants. By the time trees existed, they were being broken down by bacteria.
I think I read somewhere that oil will not be produced anymore because now bacteria can break down that biomass that it previously didn't. Hence, non-renewable even on long timescales.
Only if we bring back the dinosaurs. There are six movies (and counting!) explaining why this is not a good idea.
Technically no. Only if we erase bacteria capable of breaking down trees.
Energy density is a huge advantage which most people find hard to give up especially when the biggest problem that we face is invisible to most people. We can't fix a problem if we ignore the cause.
Happy cake day!
A lot of people have been having their cake days recently. Guess it's the first anniversary of the Reddit exodus.
oops you posted irrelevant pedantics that verge on misinformation 😧
sure it’s distilled solar energy that cannot be renewed. relevant language highligted. no one “forgets,” this. literally no one. it’s just not relevant to a timespan less than millions of years. cheers! ☀️
Petroleum can't be renewed, but biofuels can be.
v true but i also dislike how biofuels get smorked into yet more CO2 which is kind of a problem rn
Biofuels are carbon-neutral. They release CO~2~ when burned, but it doesn't matter because that same CO~2~ had recently been sucked out of the atmosphere by the plant they came from.
In theory true. In reality not true.
Not passing judgement on anything, just putting the facts out there that I happen to know :) Biofuel may or may not be a good tool to move toward more sustainability, and it’s certainly better than petrol.
My biofuel of choice is biodiesel produced from byproducts of chicken rendering that would otherwise become waste/pollution anyway. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
The way I see it, we should electrify all the things that can be (urban driving, both freight and passenger trains, etc.), maximize the use of those things (e.g. by shifting long-haul freight away from trucking and back towards rail, and shifting airline travel to high-speed rail), and then use biofuels for the relatively-niche stuff that's left instead of spending excessive effort trying to get electric to cover 100% of cases.
Um piss off. It is not irrelevant or misinformation. That is exactly what petroleum is.
You clearly can't understand a factual statement from an opinion I never said it was good I never said it was bad I just said it was. If you'd bother to take a moment to think about it. You would realize that I was referring to the fact that petroleum is extremely energy dense. For the very reason I stated. That is fundamentally why petroleum has become a successful energy source and why it's been so difficult to replace.
You're welcome to point out where I said it was renewable. I think you're going to have a difficult time finding that statement.
As for being a pedantic ass that's clearly your territory. A pedantic ass that it likes to put words in other people's mouths.
Your post was bordering on irrelevant to the original comment. In light of that the information you provided can really only be interpreted is as pro-fossil fuel.
Just because you can only interpret it that way doesn't mean it is true.
mean comment alert 🚨 opinion invalidated