– Why can’t we just ‘produce’ gasoline, like synthetically?
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We already do to a certain degree with ethanol fuel. It’s basically turning corn into a fuel that most modern cars can run on with little to no modifications.
But as many people have already pointed out, it takes a lot of energy to make a fuel source that is as energy dense as gasoline. That’s why most modern car manufacturers are more focused on making electric cars instead of making cars that run on alternative fuels. If you’re going to take up a bunch of land to make corn to turn into fuel, you could easily use a similar sized plot of land to put a solar farm and more directly convert the sun’s energy into go juice for your car.
We already do to a certain degree with ethanol fuel. It’s basically turning corn into a fuel that most modern cars can run on with little to no modifications.
But as many people have already pointed out, it takes a lot of energy to make a fuel source that is as energy dense as gasoline. That’s why most modern car manufacturers are more focused on making electric cars instead of making cars that run on alternative fuels. If you’re going to take up a bunch of land to make corn to turn into fuel, you could easily use a similar sized plot of land to put a solar farm and more directly convert the sun’s energy into go juice for your car.
We already do to a certain degree with ethanol fuel. It’s basically turning corn into a fuel that most modern cars can run on with little to no modifications.
But as many people have already pointed out, it takes a lot of energy to make a fuel source that is as energy dense as gasoline. That’s why most modern car manufacturers are more focused on making electric cars instead of making cars that run on alternative fuels. If you’re going to take up a bunch of land to make corn to turn into fuel, you could easily use a similar sized plot of land to put a solar farm and more directly convert the sun’s energy into go juice for your car.
gasoline is a chemical battery that comes out as heat instead of as electricity.
remember the respirations<->photosynthesis reaction IS the combustion reaction that gas uses – [carbohydrate] + O2 <-> H2O+CO2+energy – every single photosynthetic plant is synthesising carbohydrates – and gasoline is in fact a carbohydrate.
We can grow fields of crabgrass or algae in deserts, and then press them, and use that as fuel – that’s how you make BIOdiesel. You can also just do the same thing as photosynthesis chemically; use solar energy to power carbon fixation machines that produce whatever type of gas you want to make.
we don’t do that, not because we don’t know HOW, but because doing it is more expensive than digging new gas out of the ground: the national average for biodiesel is 5.50/gallon (despite being subsidized), regular gas is $3.50-$4/gallon, and synth gas is up at $15-20/gallon – prohibitively expensive. It’s simply cheaper to store energy in batteries or in hydrogen (for hydrogen fuel cells) than it is to store it in gasoline
we use gasoline because it’s an available and highly dense energy source, not because it’s the most efficient way to store NEW energy, so once we start running out of gas we aren’t going to dedicate too much into making more simply because there are cheaper ways to store energy than a complex, hard to create hydrocarbon.
gasoline is a chemical battery that comes out as heat instead of as electricity.
remember the respirations<->photosynthesis reaction IS the combustion reaction that gas uses – [carbohydrate] + O2 <-> H2O+CO2+energy – every single photosynthetic plant is synthesising carbohydrates – and gasoline is in fact a carbohydrate.
We can grow fields of crabgrass or algae in deserts, and then press them, and use that as fuel – that’s how you make BIOdiesel. You can also just do the same thing as photosynthesis chemically; use solar energy to power carbon fixation machines that produce whatever type of gas you want to make.
we don’t do that, not because we don’t know HOW, but because doing it is more expensive than digging new gas out of the ground: the national average for biodiesel is 5.50/gallon (despite being subsidized), regular gas is $3.50-$4/gallon, and synth gas is up at $15-20/gallon – prohibitively expensive. It’s simply cheaper to store energy in batteries or in hydrogen (for hydrogen fuel cells) than it is to store it in gasoline
we use gasoline because it’s an available and highly dense energy source, not because it’s the most efficient way to store NEW energy, so once we start running out of gas we aren’t going to dedicate too much into making more simply because there are cheaper ways to store energy than a complex, hard to create hydrocarbon.
In a *very* simplistic way vehicular ethanol is a sustainable (in the sense that we can just get more) but not exactly cleaner way of achieving combustion fuel. It’s arguably better than burning oil but even at that it’s kind of a stretch; the carbon captured in the plant of choice is immediately released into the atmosphere with the inefficiency of the system puting it in a net negative. With all that considered, it is still more expensive (financially and energetically) than pumping and distilling oil. Funny enough, in the past it was regarded as the future; nowadays some people even forget it exists as a power source.
The one thing that combustion has on any substitute is storability. It’s incredibly hard to save power for later and combustion engines are pretty efficient in using a stable, relatively simple to manipulate liquid to get a car moving. It wasn’t until very recent breakthroughs in battery technology that we could even consider an electric car as an alternative. Hopefully it will be the main choice soon enough
In a *very* simplistic way vehicular ethanol is a sustainable (in the sense that we can just get more) but not exactly cleaner way of achieving combustion fuel. It’s arguably better than burning oil but even at that it’s kind of a stretch; the carbon captured in the plant of choice is immediately released into the atmosphere with the inefficiency of the system puting it in a net negative. With all that considered, it is still more expensive (financially and energetically) than pumping and distilling oil. Funny enough, in the past it was regarded as the future; nowadays some people even forget it exists as a power source.
The one thing that combustion has on any substitute is storability. It’s incredibly hard to save power for later and combustion engines are pretty efficient in using a stable, relatively simple to manipulate liquid to get a car moving. It wasn’t until very recent breakthroughs in battery technology that we could even consider an electric car as an alternative. Hopefully it will be the main choice soon enough
In a *very* simplistic way vehicular ethanol is a sustainable (in the sense that we can just get more) but not exactly cleaner way of achieving combustion fuel. It’s arguably better than burning oil but even at that it’s kind of a stretch; the carbon captured in the plant of choice is immediately released into the atmosphere with the inefficiency of the system puting it in a net negative. With all that considered, it is still more expensive (financially and energetically) than pumping and distilling oil. Funny enough, in the past it was regarded as the future; nowadays some people even forget it exists as a power source.
The one thing that combustion has on any substitute is storability. It’s incredibly hard to save power for later and combustion engines are pretty efficient in using a stable, relatively simple to manipulate liquid to get a car moving. It wasn’t until very recent breakthroughs in battery technology that we could even consider an electric car as an alternative. Hopefully it will be the main choice soon enough
We can. If we needed to, we would probably synthesize a better chemical than gasoline. The problem is, gasoline from oil is a net energy gain while synthesizing gasoline is a net energy loss.
It doesn’t take much energy to drill a well and then you get hundreds of millions of barrels of crude oil and it doesnt take a lot of energy to process and transport hundreds of millions of gallons of gasoline, kerosene, fuel oil, propane, butane, methane, jet fuel, diesel, etc to market.
If you want to synthesize gasoline you need to start with carbon, hydrogen, and a few other atoms. The most convenient place to get these chemicals is in giant giant poola hundreds of feet under the ground. Oddly enough, they’re often strung together into hydrocarbons that are pretty easily distilled into….gasoline, kerosene, fuel oil, propane, butane, methane, jet fuel, diesel, etc…
If you want to try gathering those elements from the atmosphere or separate water, that requires a LOT of energy and is kind of a general pain in the ass. Then you need to input energy into the synthesizer to make the atoms into gasoline.
By the time you have gasoline you get less energy from burning it than you spent making it. You would have been better off using that energy for doing whatever you needed to do in the first place. Unless you specifically need something that goes boom.
We can. If we needed to, we would probably synthesize a better chemical than gasoline. The problem is, gasoline from oil is a net energy gain while synthesizing gasoline is a net energy loss.
It doesn’t take much energy to drill a well and then you get hundreds of millions of barrels of crude oil and it doesnt take a lot of energy to process and transport hundreds of millions of gallons of gasoline, kerosene, fuel oil, propane, butane, methane, jet fuel, diesel, etc to market.
If you want to synthesize gasoline you need to start with carbon, hydrogen, and a few other atoms. The most convenient place to get these chemicals is in giant giant poola hundreds of feet under the ground. Oddly enough, they’re often strung together into hydrocarbons that are pretty easily distilled into….gasoline, kerosene, fuel oil, propane, butane, methane, jet fuel, diesel, etc…
If you want to try gathering those elements from the atmosphere or separate water, that requires a LOT of energy and is kind of a general pain in the ass. Then you need to input energy into the synthesizer to make the atoms into gasoline.
By the time you have gasoline you get less energy from burning it than you spent making it. You would have been better off using that energy for doing whatever you needed to do in the first place. Unless you specifically need something that goes boom.
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