Craig wrote:
On Jun 19, 4:33 pm, Pietro <pietro... at (no spam) gmail.com> wrote:
I know nothing about chemistry. This question just occurred to me and
I thought you dudes might have the answer.
I'm just wondering if oil (as in the stuff that is heading for $200 a
barrel) can be manufactured in a lab/factory? It's just hydrogen,
carbon and a few other cheap and common elements right?
I assume the reason it's not is that the process required to make the
bonds/molecules is prohibitively expensive (lots of electricity?), but
- out of interest - it is possible right? And (speculatively), how
expensive would crude oil have to become to make mass production of
artificial oil viable? Are we talking about orders of magnitude or
what?
Thanks.
Hello Pietro,
In principle, it is possible. As you suspect, it is not currently
viable.
The basic problem boils down to energy. What makes oil so great is
that, by reacting it with oxygen (which is available for free from the
air), we can release lots of energy. So, theoretically, we could take
the stuff that oil turns into when it burns, and transform it back
into oil. However, this would cost energy. Where does this energy
come from? All of the "alternative energy" technologies out there
have different ways of answering that last question.
The important part is that we need to get energy from *somewhere*. We
can't just pull it out of thin air for free. Oil gives us energy by
reacting with oxygen. Solar energy comes from sunlight. Nuclear
energy comes from certain nuclear reactions (uranium fission, etc.).
Windmills obtain energy from the wind. And so on.
We consume oil because it comes out of the ground in a form that's
very easy to use. For example, solar energy has the problem that we
need a way to store it, so we can use it even when the sun isn't
shining. We could transform some other energy (e.g. solar) into oil,
if we really wanted, but we would still need to get that energy from
someplace, somehow. There's also a further complication than any time
you convert energy, you always lose some to inefficiency. So, for
synthetic oil to be viable, some *other* kind of energy would have to
be substantially cheaper than simply shoving a pipe into the ground
and burning what gets pumped up. (I exaggerate the simplicity of
using oil, but you get the idea.)
As an example, one process that makes synthetic oil is the Fischer-
Tropsch process. This can turn certain chemicals (hydrogen and carbon
monoxide) into "oil", under the right conditions. The feedstock can
be easily obtained from other fossil fuels, like coal or natural gas.
You can see how this might be attractive, if you have lots of coal
lying around, but not so much oil.
As a matter of historical fact, the Fischer-Tropsch (FT) process has
only been used three times since it was invented about a century ago.
The first time was in Nazi Germany during World War II. Germany was
blockaded by its enemies, and could not obtain Arabian oil to power
their tanks/planes/etc.. So, they used FT to make what they could not
otherwise get. The second time was in South Africa. South Africa was
embargoed because of its apartheid policies, so for similar reasons,
they had to make what they could not trade to get. The third time is
currently (as far as I know) in Southeast Asia. Indonesia and
Malaysia have large reserves of natural gas, but no oil. They want to
sell their natural gas, like the Arabians sell their oil, but it's a
lot more awkward to transport a gas than a liquid. So, they have
adapted FT to turn natural gas into a liquid, and they sell that.
Remember, it still costs them energy to transform the natural gas, but
it happens to work out that oil is so much more valuable, and natural
gas is so cheap for them to get (and so hard to sell), that it ends up
being worthwhile.
What's my point? The Fischer-Tropsch process exists and can crank out
as much synthetic oil as you care to make. We've known how to do it
for a very long time. However, it has only been worth using in a few
isolated situations.
I don't have enough specific knowledge to tell you exactly what would
be needed for some way of getting synthetic oil to take off (e.g. oil
at $X/barrel). It depends not only on the cost of oil, but also on
the cost of making synthetic oil, or whatever other form of stored
energy (e.g. hydrogen, etc.). Again, something else would have to be
*so* much cheaper than oil, to make it worthwhile.
I hope that answers your question.
- Craig
Psssst! Don't tell all those countries buying oil from Indonesia that
they aren't really getting oil at all but natural gas and some kind of
ersatz oil made from natural gas.
FK
