Who says oil isn't a renewable resource?

[sub]

Liars, that's who.

http://environment.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn12141&feedId=online-news_rss20

 

[DaRkOwNs]

omg, thats...actually intelligent AND practical. i havent seen that combination in years.

 

[sub]

I would rather we find an alternate fuel source, but hey, I'm not complaining. This probably wouldn't be that practical for economic use anyways.

 

[Synth]

HOORAY, WE'RE SAVED!

 

[Grega]

I still think we should be using hydrogen. I mean you can get it from water and it renews itself once used ^^

But that would be a blow that would probably kill the fuel industry. Since practically every country with sea access could make its own fuel. Nice find but im for a revolution

 

[SA_Gohan]

That's pretty awesome. Too bad it likely will never see mass production ><

 

[frsrblch]

I still think we should be using hydrogen. I mean you can get it from water and it renews itself once used ^^

But that would be a blow that would probably kill the fuel industry. Since practically every country with sea access could make its own fuel. Nice find but im for a revolution

You still need the energy to make the hydrogen...

 

[Brim]

Might be good for reducing plastic waste but I'm pretty sure we already have something like that in place

Anti-gravity man, we made it back in the 70s, government's just keeping a tight lid on it so oil and electric monopolies can keep making money...its all a conspiracy...

 

[Optional22]

That doesn't make oil renewable. If we could take carbon dioxide and water and create hydrocarbons and oxygen, then oil would be renewable. Until then, plastics are a renewable resource, not oil.

And ethanol isn't that great of a step forward. It still releases the same wastes: carbon dioxide and water. Hydrogen would be the best alternative, if it were easier to get.

 

[Almighty_Gir]

how would it? hydrogen combusts too fast to be of ny use in a power station. since power stations still rely on the ability to heat water to steam, to turn a turbin around a magnetised coil to generate eledtricity.

the only viable option for using hydrogen as a REAL fual source, is nuclear fusion, a process which they are quite far off the mark of using safely.

if you tried using hydrogen to fuel a car, you'll just end up with bodyparts everywhere.

 

[Jariroth]

A US company is taking plastics recycling to another level – turning them back into the oil they were made from, and gas.

It's still not renewable. Surely you can take all the plastic you want and turn them into oil, but it doesnt change the fact that oil was needed to create that plastic.
But still a good way to recycle plastic, hope this drops fuel prices a bit...

 

[dan_esf_fanatic]

Plus they didn't mention how much energy was needed for the process, and it's a known fact that 70% of USA's electrical energy comes from oil.

And what of the oil used to make gas? Gas that's put into cars and burned up? You know, that's one of the major oil uses. I thought plastic was made from the oil that's left after turning it into petrol and burning it up in thermo power plants? lol by then 80% of the oil is already gone. This is not a salvation for mankind, the only two salvations I could think of right now are:

1. A way to massively use solar energy.
2. Nuclear fusion.

The first one is extremely expensive right now and while theoretically it's possible to put it into massive use and make it the basic energy supply, there's a lot of work and a lot of money needed for it. I think I even know how it could be done.

Like for television, we could put some solar satellites, satellites that have large solar panels around them, in our orbit in the stratosphere. Of course, not outside the ozone xD. The energy collected by those panels would be incomparably greater to the energy we currently get from fossil fuels and water. That enormous energy could be transmitted to Earth in the form of microwaves (not ovens, waves), and then converted to electrical energy on Earth and used. Those microwaves could theoretically be used to alter the WEATHER in some cases, eliminating droughts and other severe weather conditions. Of course, this is all theoretical a lot of things could go wrong, plus it's extremely expensive. There, that's what I heard from my dad who's 57 now and has read a lot about this subject and therefore knows a lot about it, and is generally very smart. I'm not bragging tho xD.

 

[DaRkOwNs]

i looked up the properties of hydrogen and all i could find was high flammability but it didnt say it was combustible

i think they tried to run a modern car off of hydrogen on mythbusters a while back...no explosions but it didnt really run correctly

 

[kam!]

[...]

Like for television, we could put some solar satellites, satellites that have large solar panels around them, in our orbit in the stratosphere. Of course, not outside the ozone xD. The energy collected by those panels would be incomparably greater to the energy we currently get from fossil fuels and water. That enormous energy could be transmitted to Earth in the form of microwaves (not ovens, waves), and then converted to electrical energy on Earth and used. Those microwaves could theoretically be used to alter the WEATHER in some cases, eliminating droughts and other severe weather conditions. Of course, this is all theoretical a lot of things could go wrong, plus it's extremely expensive. There, that's what I heard from my dad who's 57 now and has read a lot about this subject and therefore knows a lot about it, and is generally very smart. I'm not bragging tho xD.

Even if that's possible, the loss would be enourmous. The short range wireless thingy only has an efficiency of 40% (or 60%).
And I don't know about you, but I certainly don't want microwaves to be sent through the whole atmosphere.
I mean a plane flies through it and the passengers will be fried xD.

@DaRkOwNs
Hydrogen is combustible. Mix 2 parts Hydrogen with one part oxygen, light it and you have a nice clean explosion.

 

[Hitokiri]

I'm sure this thing will help a little but they won't switch over to melting craploads of plastic and junk.

It'd be more beneficial to us anyway if we got in some public transportation reforms and such, and tried developing cleaner fuels, etc., out of necessity. If we just keep burning oil... :\