– Why can’t we just ‘produce’ gasoline, like synthetically?
In: 439
We can, and you can even use carbon-capture to pull CO2 out of the air and (after a kajillion steps) use that carbon to assemble the gasoline.
The bad news is all those steps cost energy, so doing this is like picking up a hundred pennies and then spending 75 bucks to transform the pennies into a $5 bill. (I made up those numbers, but you get the idea; it’s really inefficient and not worth it in most cases.)
Could it EVER be worth it? Well, if you’re in a remote location and your life depends on a gasoline-powered machine, sure. There will probably always be cases where hydrocarbon fuels’ ease of use and energy density make them the best thing for the job. But on a national scale, synthetic hydrocarbons wouldn’t be a great investment.
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