– Why can’t we just ‘produce’ gasoline, like synthetically?

Question

– Why can’t we just ‘produce’ gasoline, like synthetically?

In: 439

Answer 1

You can, but there’s a trade off to it.

We (as a civilization) like fossil fuels because the energy we put in is muchless than the energy we get out of them, but any time we create synthetic fuels we lose energy along the way.

There’s energy loss for gasoline as well, mostly in refining and logistically transporting it, but on the whole it’s relatively cheap for what we get out of it.

If you want another reason to curb our use of fossil fuels: in the event of societal collapse it would be really handy for anyone left behind to have easy access to some amount of fossil fuels to jump start things again, as the more green options require way more investment than a developing civilization can manage.