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

Question

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

In: 439

Answer 1

The thing that makes petroleum valuable as a fuel is that hydrocarbons are convenient packages for the energy that was required to forge their chemical bonds. The huge expenses of resources and energy that are involved in drilling, extracting, and refining petroleum are more than offset by being able to easily release millions of years worth of chemistry, heat, and pressure.

We could try to manufacture petroleum in a lab, but then all we’re doing is spending more energy to store some energy to burn later, and there’s no real advantage to anybody in doing that.