Why cant we synthesize oil?

[Fescue4u]

Im just brain storming and Im sure there is a good answer.

But if we can synthesize diamonds why not oil? Oil is not an element, but is created deep in the earth through known conditions.

Wouldnt it be cool if we could build "oil factorys".

Talk about cutting our reliance on Middle East oil.

[Mountainman]

1. There is synthetic motor oil

[Lefty48197]

12. I think the real problem is the $4 per quart.

.

[brokensymmetry]

2. Sure.

Only problem is, where do we get the energy?

If we had unlimited energy, we could freeze air, distill out the CO2, and convert that to oil. Alas, we don't have unlimited energy. :(

[Fescue4u]

8. But we do.

That big ole' shining disk in the sky.

Im just blueskying here....but I could imagine a vast field of solar panels..sitting right next to an "oil factory"

Or use (GASP!) Nuclear energy to produce oil.

[bryant69]

3. One downside

Is that oil is a big polluter; and if we knew we would never run out, there would be little incentive to try more efficent more environmentally friendly solutions

But it might be necessary as a stop gap measure.

Bryant
check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[Junkdrawer]

4. You'd spend more energy than you would get. out...

Short answer.

[LosinIt]

5. Guess what they make the diamonds from ???? OIL

It's all about the carbon

[Canuckistanian]

9. And uranium for reactors? OIL!

Baby food? OIL!
Birth control pills? OIL!
Silly Putty? OIL!
Dijon Mustard? OIL!
Those things on the ends of your shoelaces? OIL!
Dust bunnies under the fridge? OIL!

oops, sorry, just needed to adjust my dosage again.
:D

[Dogmudgeon]

6. We kinda can

Oil is a very complex substance, though, and there are a lot of chemicals that would have to be synthesized first.

Synthesis of high molecular weight, high-octane fuel has been done for years, but the cost is much higher than for pumped oil, and the EROEI -- Energy Return On Energy Investment -- is negative.

--bkl

[progressiveBadger]

7. Maybe pollution?

I'm guessing productuction would be dirty. Don't know though, haven't had a chemistry class for 5 years.

[htuttle]

10. You can, of course

But doing it in such a way as to get more energy out of it than it took to make it? Ahhh...there's the rub.

There is a newish technology that purports to generate something like oil from any organic waste, but I haven't looked very closely at it yet.

In the long view, natural petroleum is just an energy storage medium. All the energy stored in the Earth's petroleum originally came from the sun millions of years ago (via the plant material that ultimately became oil). The energy that created the oil came from the earth's core. If you want to synthesize oil, you have to donate all that energy to the process.

[absolutezero]

11. we can't

oil isn't just one chemical, its a mixture of thousands of chemicals

my analytical chem professor showed us the data in class, there are atleast 4,000 chemicals in gasoline alone, crude oil could be in the tens or hundreds of thousands of different compounds.

[Deja Q]

13. Possible, but the cost to make it is greater than the benefit produced.

On an economic scale, anyway.

It's all about money. Not long term species' improvement or survival.

http://groundstate.ca/node/view/68

Of course, the guy is orgasmic over quantities that don't even begin to scratch the surface of our obese need for the stuff. 200 barrels per day when we use 23 MILLION barrels per day.

How much energy goes into making the synthetic oil? Add that into net cost...

It's much ado about nothing.

[whistle]

14. let's just conserve it....

...to make oil substitutes would cost $100 or more per barrel. Plus, our present technologies require more energy to produce a barrel of synthetic fuel then the energy we would derive from that man-made fuel. It just is not feasible. Lets just tax oil by $1.00 to $1.50 per gallon and conserve the stuff. What has been produced naturally is still the best and instead of running out in 25 to 30 years, we can buy time, say 100 to 120 years to come up with the kind of technology that will give humanity unlimited cheap energy.

Look at who profits now from high energy prices, people who could care less about what happens in the world and who is hurt. Fuck them! This is a world crisis and political power needs to be removed from these scumbags and given to the people.

[donhakman]

15. It is made with sunshine and water

plus hemp seed. More oil than from corn.

[botchan]

16. We Can - See July Discover Magazine Page 56

The question isn't can we, but why try to produce petroleum based oils? It would seem to make more sense to start working on a corn based oil that has the viscosity values of petroleum based oils.

[Warren DeMontague]

17. There was a lot of scientific Buzz around Thermal Depolymerization Last Yr

You know, garbage into oil...

Then, all of a sudden, it stopped.

Sounded like a pretty reasonable and environmentally sound way to deal with waste, a win-win. Although I think the real, long term solution is to find energy answers that don't involve adding carbon to the atmosphere- solar, wind, etc.

http://www.changingworldtech.com/techfr.htm

http://www.sovereignty.org.uk/features/footnmouth/zwaste2.html