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/sci/ - Science & Math

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2621353 No.2621353 [Reply] [Original]

/sci/ I have almost no experience with anything science-related, but randomly on my way home I was thinking...what if humans just made our own oil? That way we don't have to fear running out.

Sorry if this is idiotic, just a thought I had

>> No.2621356

OP go to the patent shop quickly before a p/sci/duck steals your idea

>> No.2621379

THE OIL COMPANIES WILLL GO BANKRUPT

>> No.2621399
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2621399

If it helps discussion some dude is already doing "Something" like this.


He made a machine that converts plastic back into oil.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGGabrorRS8

>> No.2621416

Good idea. However, the reason oil works is that energy in the past that came from the sun pulled carbon out of the atmosphere and put it under the ground. This energy was stored in what became oil molecules. When we burn oil, we release that energy. If you can come up with a way to get solar energy to make oil out of carbon in the atmosphere today, perfect. However the energy must come from somewhere.

>> No.2621426

>>2621416
The oil also gets some energy content from the pressure and heat underground.

>> No.2621445

I've also had this thought. I know little about (organic) chemistry, but I assume that the answer is: we could, but it would be vastly more expensive than just drilling into the ground and sucking it out.

In the end, oil is just a battery that stores energy. Yes, you could create oil in a lab, but you'd have to put the energy into it yourself, like he said: >>2621416

And, if we're going to make some sort of synthetic fuel in a lab, gasoline is a bad choice because it doesn't burn very cleanly. Might as well make something that doesn't pollute so much when it burns.

>> No.2621465

>>2621426
>>2621416
come on guys.. im not even really into science and i know this.

oil is basically biomass thats been under pressure and heat for fucking ever. i read somewhere that most oil fields were big ass rain forests millions of years ago.

so, if you could figure how to make the energy it takes to heat and put pressure on large amounts of carbon less than the oil you would get from the process, sure you could.

>> No.2621481

>>2621465
What do you mean by "come on guys?" You just repeated what those other two posters said, but in a more retarded way. And you don't "make energy." You convert energy from one form (solar, nuclear, whatever) into the form that you want, which is chemical energy in this case.

>> No.2621490

>>2621465
Actually, most big oil-fields were oil-filled algae millions of years ago, the rainforests in turn turned into coal.

>> No.2621498

>>2621465
wow.

ok, fucking retard, where do we get the energy to apply the heat and pressure?

OH! I know, from a power plant, which uses the stuff we want to make, a perfect circle!!!

>> No.2621502
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2621502

>>2621353

>> No.2621515

>>2621481
because the other two guys only explained one part of it. i put the two together.

also, reread what i wrote in the last line. i say "make energy" as in creating energy. I'm sure i could have worded it better but it makes sense.

>> No.2621528

>>2621502
Step 1: Invent time machine
Step 2: Drive to work.
Step 3: Go back in time to before I went to work, siphon fuel out of my car to refill my car.
trollface.jpg
Problem, causality?

>> No.2621540

>>2621498
reread what i wrote fucktard, i implied that it wasn't possible fucktard

>> No.2621546

>>2621528
im_ok_with_this.jpg

Can you make your time machine energy-efficient enough that the potential energy from the gasoline you siphon from your car in the past equals or exceeds the energy needed to move backwards and forwards in time? XD

>> No.2621575

>>2621515
> i say "make energy" as in creating energy.
That's just it... you can't "create energy" or "make energy," you can only convert it from one form to another. Gasoline stores energy in chemical bonds between atoms. You can create those bonds synthetically but you are going to have to use energy from somewhere else to do it -- e.g. solar. We don't have a cost-effective method for doing this and it's probably not even worth coming up with one, for reasons already discussed here.

>> No.2621596

>>2621546
Of course I can.
When I'm done, I go back in time and siphon the gas from my time machine to refill my time machine.

>> No.2622015

>>2621596
Fuckin' time machines, how do they work?

>> No.2622726

I saw a video of some guys making oil cultivated from GM bacteria, and ran a diesel engine off of it.

>> No.2622743

There's oil in your skin pores. You can burn that and dung.

>> No.2622810
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2622810

>>2621399
>mfw I knew this could work but never bothered to patent it

>> No.2622834

>>2621353
>>2621465
>>2621515

Lrn2First Law of Thermodynamics.

>> No.2622896

we can do that, or rather we can recycle our oil. We take the CO2 that is being expelled by factories or power plants and pump it into glass tanks filled with a simple photosynthetic protist, inorganic nutrients and water. The protists use photosynthesis to convert the CO2, water and sunlight into O2 and complex carbon polymers. When the tank is full, we homogenize the slurry, put it through several centrifuge cycles and use some of the product as biodiesel. the rest will be water, starch, cellulose and protein, which can be used as cattle feed