Eli5 of we can make lab diamonds on a large scale why can’t we do the same for oil and gas.
In: 166
about 3/4 of all oil is used as an energy source. cars, trucks, trains, ships, etc.
energy *source* is an important distinction. we spend energy getting it out of the ground and refining it, but we get *way* more energy from it. we are literally harvesting energy from the earth.
if we synthesize those same chemicals, that means all that energy came from us. we had to spend *another* energy source to put the energy in there to use. that would make oil a “store of energy” basically a battery. and if we’re just storing energy, we have better ways to do that. so synthetic oil as a fuel has a niche right now only because we have an oil fuel infrastructure already. if the need for fuel ever outstrips oil sources, we’ll just move away from oil altogether. it wouldn’t even be a choice, it’s all we *could* do.
synthetic oil as a source of plastics is something we *can* do, but it’s very expensive. plastic is currently cheap because plastic is basically a waste product of fuel production. oil would have to go away before it really made sense to synthesize plastic, and then plastic wouldn’t be the cheap disposable garbage it is now.
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