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KindChange3300 t1_j083gyn wrote

Reply to comment by [deleted] in How much gas/oil, roughly, is actually left for us to use? How long until we get to the last drop and need to start rationing? by football2106

Perhaps another way to explain your position is this: if we really needed to, we could literally create oil out of thin air and energy; that is, use CO2 and water in endothermic reactions.

The question is - are there cheaper, safer and more convenient alternatives to either extract ing or creating the hydrocarbons we want for energy storage and transportation?

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BelovedOmegaMan t1_j08mifr wrote

Not just that, but most plastics can be returned back to crude oil by the pyrolosis process-it's just that it's expensive to do so. There's billions of gallons of oil out there in landfills, etc. in the form of long-chain hydrocarbons called plastic. If a nation wanted to, say, nationalize turning plastics back into oil, it could absolutely be done-it's just that there's no reason to do so on a large scale. Yet.

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Jamie1897 t1_j08rnlp wrote

The reason we don't do it is because it doesn't currently make economic sense. The unsubsidized price is related to its energy intensity, so it likely doesn't make energy sense to do it. It does, however, make lots of sense to incinerate municipal solid waste in waste-to-energy plants and recover the energy as electricity and steam for space-heating and cooling.

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BelovedOmegaMan t1_j08ueaa wrote

>The reason we don't do it is because it doesn't currently make economic sense.

Yes, that's what I said, thank you.

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Jamie1897 t1_j08ntx6 wrote

No, transportation and mobile industrial equipment are why oil, compared to coal or natural gas, is uniquely valuable. There is no replacement for it, especially in heavy transportation, freight, aviation, maritime, and mobile industrial equipment.

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KindChange3300 t1_j08wuhk wrote

Given the current state of technology, yes. But we must, for example, not allow an environment that sabotages potentially disruptive innovation.

What if, for example, portable fusion reactors become financially viable? Or other energy storage technologies emerge which make current generation battery technologies obsolete. For example, gyroscopic energy storage has been explored. What does happen, however is that industry-sponsored regulations and subsidies stifle development of other avenues in favor of incumbent interests.

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