What is oil made from? I mean, I know it is dead dinosaurs and such, but molecularly, what is its makeup?

Is this supposed to be a honeypot for Oil is Mastery?

Is this supposed to be a honeypot for Oil is Mastery?

Heh! Yeah, I remember I wanted to ask this when he was here, but I thought better of it and opted not to...

Oil is made up mostly of hydrocarbons - large and small molecules consisting mainly (or solely) of hydrogen and carbon.

The process of refining crude oil separates out the large-molecule hydrocarbons from the small-molecule hydrocarbons. Different hydrocarbons are used for different applications.

Oil is made up mostly of hydrocarbons - large and small molecules consisting mainly (or solely) of hydrogen and carbon.

The process of refining crude oil separates out the large-molecule hydrocarbons from the small-molecule hydrocarbons. Different hydrocarbons are used for different applications.

Interesting. So how is oil from the ground different from say; vegetable oil? or peanut oil or olive oil or what have you?

olive oil is usually heavily refined as well. even if it says extra virgin.

So extracting oil from the ground, transporting it, refining it, and distributing it is cheapoer than making hydrogen from seawater? Just hhow is that anyway, I'm not trying to side track this thread but thoght this question does pretain to how we get energy.

One reason it could be cheaper is that the world isn't set up for hydrogen based systems, we've been using oil and its derivatives for ~100 years or more.
How much would it cost to convert everything?

That is something that I do not know however the gas stations could all sell hydrogen instead of gas very easily all they need do is change their equipment they use. A car needs a tank that could hold hydrogen , compressed, so that to wouldn't be difficult either. Processing the seawater is about the same as making the gas from beginning to end so it would be the hardest thing to accomplish but it could be done.

Interesting. So how is oil from the ground different from say; vegetable oil? or peanut oil or olive oil or what have you?

The types of hydrocarbons in crude oil are different. ``Hydrocarbon'' is a generic name for anything containing hydrogen and carbon. The way the hydrogens and carbons are arranged makes a big difference. For example, asphalt is a hydrocarbon, but it is very different from, say, toluene or xylene which are both components of gasoline.

So extracting oil from the ground, transporting it, refining it, and distributing it is cheapoer than making hydrogen from seawater? Just hhow is that anyway, I'm not trying to side track this thread but thoght this question does pretain to how we get energy.

Yes. Extracting hydrogen from water is a very energetically intense process, as far as I understand it.

That is something that I do not know however the gas stations could all sell hydrogen instead of gas very easily all they need do is change their equipment they use. A car needs a tank that could hold hydrogen , compressed, so that to wouldn't be difficult either. Processing the seawater is about the same as making the gas from beginning to end so it would be the hardest thing to accomplish but it could be done.

This is pretty much the point. This is like saying all we have to do is build a shitload of windmills, then we can guarantee energy independence. This is way too simplistic a view. There is no infrastructure for switching to a hydrogen economy. And there seems to be little reason right now to make the investment---and, make no mistake...it is quite an investment.

So extracting oil from the ground, transporting it, refining it, and distributing it is cheapoer than making hydrogen from seawater? Just hhow is that anyway, I'm not trying to side track this thread but thoght this question does pretain to how we get energy.

It is because the chemical bond holding the water molecule together is so strong. It doesn't want to break. You have to put a lot of energy into that system to break it.

The number one method for hydrogen production in the world (most efficient, most cost effective) is steam reformation of natural gas. Companies will do almost anything else to produce hydrogen before trying electrolysis. That is also why hydrogen is the answer to the USA's environmental problem, but not the economic problem: hydrogen prices are tied to natural gas prices.

A bit off subject, but still related: I often wondered why desalinization of sea water was a last ditch option for coastal areas in need of drinking water. Why would they seriously consider towing icebergs to their location first? The cost of the electricity needed to desalinize the water is the problem. I believe it was Tampa Bay, Florida that said they can make drinking water from ground water for way under $1 per 1000 gallons, but desalinization is over $3 per 1000 gallons. The largest part of their budget is paying for the electricity needed to run the desalinization plant and that water is just under 3% of their supply.

But no one has explained exactly what Oil is.

So extracting oil from the ground, transporting it, refining it, and distributing it is cheapoer than making hydrogen from seawater?Look at it this way: You apply an electrical current to a water molecule, and it separates into hydrogen and oxygen atoms which recombine into hydrogen and oxygen molecules. Then what do you do with the hydrogen? The only thing you can do is burn it, using oxygen, which reunites the hydrogen and oxygen into water again. This extracts the energy from it that can be used to run powerplants that generate electricity. Then you use the electricity to separate the water again...

You see the problem? You're just bashing the same atoms back and forth. First you pump energy into them to separate them, then you let them recombine and extract that same energy.

There is no net harvesting of an energy source here. And it's worse than that, because both the separation and the recombination processes are not 100% efficient, so you lose energy as waste heat going both ways. Eventually you end up with an ocean full of water and no more electricity to run your hydrolysis engines.

You have to have a source of energy, and water is not that. You have to pump energy into it in order to extract energy from it.

Energy sources are either:Exhaustible like fossil fuels. Yes in a billion years more deposits may be laid down, but we're using it up much faster than it's deposited. Renewable like biofuels. The waste from burning organic matter is pumped into the air as carbon dioxide and new plants use sunlight to turn that carbon dioxide back into organic matter. Notice that the real source of energy here is sunlight; more on that in a moment. Quasi-inexhaustible like wind and tides. These only seem inexhaustible because we're not putting much of a strain on those systems. If the human population were a million times larger (which the earth could theoretically support but in conditions we wouldn't enjoy), all the windmills would cause the atmosphere to stop moving and all the tidal generators would cease the motion of the seas. In addition to running out of energy that would really screw up the environment. Fortunately the earth's population is now widely predicted to peak at about ten billion within the lifetime of you younger people, so these quasi-inexhaustible energy sources may be viable. I don't know enough about it to do the arithmetic. Truly inexhaustible, at least on the scale of human life. That means solar energy. Yes the sun's output is finite but even with a quadrillion humans on this planet, all driving Buicks, we could not use enough of it to make a significant difference. The real limitations on solar power are the sun's impending collapse several billion years from now. However that will be preceded by a major warming that will raise the temperature of our planet above the boiling point of water so we'll have to find a way off anyway.A bit off subject, but still related: I often wondered why desalinization of sea water was a last ditch option for coastal areas in need of drinking water. Why would they seriously consider towing icebergs to their location first? The cost of the electricity needed to desalinize the water is the problem.Distillation of waste water is much cheaper. A device called the solar still has been invented which can distill one liter of waste water per day using nothing more than sunlight. Sure it requires sunny weather but most of the places where people are suffering from lack of clean water happen to have very sunny weather. These things can be manufactured in a place like Vietnam or Bangladesh and sold at a profit for five dollars each. Somebody like Bill Gates could ship one to every human being who needs it by spending his charity budget for several years in a row.

But no one has explained exactly what Oil is.

Because it's not a clear question.

Oil itself is typically a mixture of several different types of hydrocarbons. Those hydrocarbons are made of long carbon chains, with hydrogens sticking off here and there. These chains can wrap around dirt, say, in which case people call it ``tar sand'' or ``oil shale''. All oil contains some pollutants, and has to be refined to remove these impurities. Also in the refining process, the chains of hydrocarbons are broken down to smaller bits, which results in a more uniform mixture.

Some crude oil is called ``light and sweet''. I don't know what makes it ``light'' and ``sweet''. I think light means that the hydrocarbon chains are already mostly broken up, and the sweet probably means it contains very few things other than the hydrocarbons. It is typically what comes out of the ground in Saudi Arabia. (``West Texas Intermediate'' is a less pure form of crude, and is what sets the price for a barrel of oil. In general, light sweet oil is more expensive, and has to be transported long distances to be refined here.) Light and sweet means that it requires very little refining to make gasoline---in fact, I've heard (I don't know if this is true) that you can basically burn the crude oil from Saudi Arabia in your car without refining it.

The tar sands or oil shale is another form of oil, where the hydrocarbon molecules have become tangled up with sand. Basically, you dig some oily sand out of the ground and have to remove the sand. This results in a longer, more expensive refining process. The typical yields of crude oil from tar sands is less, when one accounts for the energy used in refining. This is like oil from North America.

Another common pollutant in oil is sulfur (which can cause acid rain if it is burned in your engine). Getting rid of the sulfur (to meet government regulations) is a difficult task, and is expensive. I think that the USA has the best technology in this regard. Oil from Venezuela has a high sulfur content, I think.

The question is, can we make hydrocarbons in the lab. Of course we can, but the process is expensive, and it's much easier to just dig it out of the ground. Another way to synthesize hydrocarbons is to start with coal, which is basically a bunch of carbon with no hydrogens. We can refine the coal into a crude form of petroleum, then refine that into gasoline. I remember seeing a chemist give a colloquium where he estimated that the US has enough coal so that, even after all of the oil runs out, we can satisfy our current demand for gasoline for 300 years. The process of refining coal into gasoline is also very expensive, in terms of the net yield one gets per ton of coal. There was also some other problem associated with the process, which I can't recall.

====Edit

The ``liquid coal'' is a viable alternative to gasoline, although it is very inefficient. One ton of coal gives two barrels of gasoline.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=worse-than-gasoline

The Coal to Fuel Promotion Act of 2007 sought to increase the amount of coal used to make gasoline, to ensure energy independence. The bill was introduced in 2007, but looks like it was tabled in committee.

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c110:s.154:

The bill offered HUGE subsidies to the coal industry, to the tune of $10 billion. The bill was supported by several people, including a now-famous, then-senator of coal-rich Illinois:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/09/AR2007010901503.html

Sock Puppet response.

Only actual non-banned members in this conversation, please!

Making hydrogen from water requires a minimum of about 285 kj/mol of hydrogen produced. Making it from hydrocarbons like methane requires only around 40 kj/mol.

here is a question. if we set up enough solor stations could we dampen down climate change simply by using up that solor power to make electricity rather than it being free to heat the planet? if yes then is there also a risk of planetary cooling if we went off the deep end with solor?

here is a question. if we set up enough solor stations could we dampen down climate change simply by using up that solor power to make electricity rather than it being free to heat the planet? if yes then is there also a risk of planetary cooling if we went off the deep end with solor?

yes & yes

easier to picture with hydro-turbines. Put enough of them in a river, and the river will stop flowing.

Is there a reason that you say yes, or are you just talking out of your ass?

I've been thinking about it, and I can't come up with an argument one way or the other.

here is a question. if we set up enough solor stations could we dampen down climate change simply by using up that solor power to make electricity rather than it being free to heat the planet? if yes then is there also a risk of planetary cooling if we went off the deep end with solor?

What making the planet heat up is the greenhouse gases (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_effect)which trap the heat from the sun that suppose to be reflected back to the space (see pic below). If by using solar power means we reduce using oil, which also means that we reduce burning and producing greenhouse gases, then yes, I think it should cool down the climate [the heat is no longer trapped in the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, because there are less greenhouse gases].

http://www.myclimatechange.net/UserImage/3/Definition/GreenhouseEffect.jpg

Well, Asguard's question is a bit nuanced. But the answer is no, it doesn't work like that.

Solar cells work using the photo-electric effect. You can think of it as using a bullet to knock an apple off of a tree. If the bullet is too slow (i.e. you throwing it), it won't have enough energy to make the apple fall. However, if you give the bullet enough energy, it will knock the apple out of the tree.

Photons from the sun hit the surface of a solar cell, and if there is enough energy, the photon knocks an electron out of its place in a non-conducting band into a conducting band. This gives a current (electrons moving = current).

But it takes a lot of energy to knock electrons out of their place. For photons, energy goes like 1/wavelength, which means longer wavelength photons have less energy. But it is precisely the long wavelength photons that are responsible for heating the earth (IR radiation). Solar cells use visible light---this is just good design, as visible light has the highest intensity from the sun.

Either way, Search & Destroy doesn't know what (s)he is talking about.

To clarify:

Long wavelength photons are responsible for heating the earth, and short wavelength photons are the photons that solar cells use.

I was a bit confused, because the solar cells can absorb the long wavelength photons. But this is resolved because they don't absorb any more or less of the long wavelength photons than, presumably, the ground they're sitting on.

What is oil made from? I mean, I know it is dead dinosaurs and such, but molecularly, what is its makeup?

I wouldn't of said it was "dead dinosaurs". I would actually suggest that it was millions of years worth of decaying plankton (protezoa & Algae). This is one of the main reasons that OilisMastery's comments rarely found much more form than blatent woo-wooism, as he would have everyone believe that it just exists as a chemical formulated naturally without the need of life.

(I don't deny it's possible to "fabricate through process" oil, it's just for it to naturally be produced without refinement is ridiculous).

BenTheMan, is that all of the solor generators though?

some of them work by heat, ie they heat a vat of concreate (or whatever its made of) which is used to make steam which turns a turbine. Solor heating is the same except that it heats water.

Inzomnia, i do realise that but the biggest risk isnt CO2 its water. if enough water turns to vapor and sits in the atmosphear we have a real problem which cant be solved by simply dialing down CO2 emmissions and planting more trees. If you can reduce the surface heat (by using up that heat to produce energy for instance) then you have less steam and there for less H2O in the atmosphear.

It might not work that way but i couldnt understand why it wouldnt

Either way, Search & Destroy doesn't know what (s)he is talking about.

Hi and thanks for that luckily I'm flame retardant lol.

But seriously I think you are missing a crucial point. Solar cells are being built out of different materials thus have different 'band gaps.' For instance a multi-junction cell can efficiently interact and transform different wavelengths.

In theory the notion of shooting an apple can be tweaked to a wide enough diversity of wavelengths and mass-produced to counteract global warming. This won't happen don't worry I'm not saying that. I'm just saying it is possible.

And to clear one thing up - are the photons that heat up our earth subject to the 'photo-electric' effect?

I was a bit confused, because the solar cells can absorb the long wavelength photons. But this is resolved because they don't absorb any more or less of the long wavelength photons than, presumably, the ground they're sitting on.

Why will this happen? What about infrared solar panels?

BenTheMan, is that all of the solor generators though?

some of them work by heat, ie they heat a vat of concreate (or whatever its made of) which is used to make steam which turns a turbine. Solor heating is the same except that it heats water.

Inasmuch as I understand it, most solar cells work via the photo-electric effect. I haven't heard of the types of setups you're talking about.

If you think about it, using visible light makes the most sense. The greatest intesity of solar radiation coming from the sun is in the visible band of the EM spectrum. This is precisely why the band is called ``visible''---our eyes evolved in the most efficient way possible, utilizing the brightest part of solar radiation.


But seriously I think you are missing a crucial point. Solar cells are being built out of different materials thus have different 'band gaps.' For instance a multi-junction cell can efficiently interact and transform different wavelengths.

I may be missing something, and if you can provide some sort of evidence that other designs are being used, I will happily concede the point. However, it makes no sense to me that one would design a solar cell to operate on such low intensity, low energy photons coming from the sun.

And to clear one thing up - are the photons that heat up our earth subject to the 'photo-electric' effect?

I don't know what this means. Do you mean ``Can IR photons knock electrons off of metals?'' The answer is probably yes, if the electrons were bound loosely enough to the metal. Probably you'd have a hard time finding such materials, but I don't know.

Why will this happen? What about infrared solar panels?

If you can show me where people have designed an IR solar panel for large scale use, then please do. I think they would be very inefficient, for reasons listed above.

Another point I'd like to raise:

I think labeling IR as an unproductive energy source intuitively contradicts your other notion that IR accounts for most of earth's warming.

Depending on my terms, I could say IR accounts for half of the energy coming into earth from the sun.

---

And here is an example of primitive, but existing IR panels:

http://sparkingtech.com/tech/new-infrared-solar-panels-work-even-at-night/

As Asguards question was theoretical, so was my answer. We have the potential to capture all of the sun's energy with solar panels.

ben, they are used to provide base line power because they can store heat for 24 hours. there for they can keep producing power at night. they were designed by a proffessor at a NSW uni but our gov wasnt intrested so it was sold to a US company

Oil is composed of aliphatic molecules of fully saturated carbon chains. They are chemically very simple and maximally reduced. When you burn them, they oxidize and from water and carbon dioxide.

here is a question. if we set up enough solor stations could we dampen down climate change simply by using up that solor power to make electricity rather than it being free to heat the planet? if yes then is there also a risk of planetary cooling if we went off the deep end with solor?
Any electricity that we produce will probably ultimately end up being used to heat up the planet anyway.

Inzomnia, i do realise that but the biggest risk isnt CO2 its water. if enough water turns to vapor and sits in the atmosphear we have a real problem which cant be solved by simply dialing down CO2 emmissions and planting more trees. If you can reduce the surface heat (by using up that heat to produce energy for instance) then you have less steam and there for less H2O in the atmosphear.


But, Asguard, water vapor isn't considered as major concern (or is it..??), because as I understand it, there is an uncontrollable phenomena that regulates its level, i.e. when the water vapor content in atmosphere increase, the rainfall simply increase, too, so the water vapor decrease again. Here (link (http://members.shaw.ca/sch25/FOS/Climate_Change_Science.html)) is a bit explanation and here is the profile of global relative humidity for past decades (taken from that link), water vapor is likely decreasing:

http://members.shaw.ca/sch25/FOS/GlobalRelativeHumidity300_700mb.jpg

An excerpt from that link (http://members.shaw.ca/sch25/FOS/Climate_Change_Science.html):
This graph shows that the relative humidity has been dropping, especially at higher elevations allowing more heat to escape to space. The curve labelled 300 mb is at about 9 km altitude, which is in the middle of the predicted (but missing) tropical troposphere hot-spot. This is the critical elevation as this is where radiation can start to escape without being recaptured. The average relative humidity at this altitude has declined by 20% (or 9.4 percentiles) from 1948 to 2008!



CO2 concentration, on the other hand (the green line), is steadily increasing, as a result of anthropogenic activities:

http://members.shaw.ca/sch25/FOS/GlobalTroposphereTemperaturesAverage.jpg


Any electricity that we produce will probably ultimately end up being used to heat up the planet anyway.

But there are clean energy (such as photovoltaic) and, uhm, dirty energy (?:p). "Dirty" energy such as fossil fuel produces CO2 as by product, and the CO2 blocks the heat that suppose can be escaped out of atmosphere.

lol at "2002+Best Fit".

:rolleyes:

But there are clean energy (such as photovoltaic) and, uhm, dirty energy (?:p). "Dirty" energy such as fossil fuel produces CO2 as by product, and the CO2 blocks the heat that suppose can be escaped out of atmosphere.
Yes, I know, I was responding to his question about whether or not capturing solar radiation and converting its energy into electricity would lower global temperatures due to the solar radiation being turned into electricity rather than heat. Any electricity we generate will probably end up as waste heat anyway.

Yes, I know, I was responding to his question about whether or not capturing solar radiation and converting its energy into electricity would lower global temperatures due to the solar radiation being turned into electricity rather than heat. Any electricity we generate will probably end up as waste heat anyway.

I see what you mean. Yea, in that case, in which the earth is like a closed system, it does not matter how the heat is distributed, it's still stored within earth.

I see what you mean. Yea, in that case, in which the earth is like a closed system, it does not matter how the heat is distributed, it's still stored within earth.

http://www.unews.utah.edu/p/?r=053007-1

I think labeling IR as an unproductive energy source intuitively contradicts your other notion that IR accounts for most of earth's warming.

No, it doesn't. 49% of the heat on earth comes from IR radiation directly from the sun. The rest of the heat is caused by visible light which is absorbed and re-emitted in the IR band.

Depending on my terms, I could say IR accounts for half of the energy coming into earth from the sun.

You can always define ``your terms'' in such a way that makes you right.

ben, they are used to provide base line power because they can store heat for 24 hours. there for they can keep producing power at night. they were designed by a proffessor at a NSW uni but our gov wasnt intrested so it was sold to a US company

Source?

Any electricity we generate will probably end up as waste heat anyway.

To what extent is this ``waste heat'' responsible for warming the earth?

I'm sorry but I still don't understand why it's theoretically impossible to efficiently capture IR. Please explain it in a nice, specific paragraph. I will spend my time reading it if you spend time writing it.

I never said it was impossible, I just said that it didn't make sense. Asguard pointed out that there were solar cells designed to work with IR radiation.

The point I was making is that most solar cells run on visible light, and most solar technology in the future will also run on visible light. So solar-cell-induced global cooling is probably never going to be an issue, even if we covered the surface of the earth in solar cells.

This, coupled with the fact that most of the warming (51%) of the earth happens when ambient light is reflected and absorbed, and then re-emitted as IR radiation---solar cells reflect a good deal of light (i.e. they'll never be 100% efficient at capturing radiation). So, again, global cooling will never be a problem.

I never said it was impossible, I just said that it didn't make sense. Asguard pointed out that there were solar cells designed to work with IR radiation.

The point I was making is that most solar cells run on visible light, and most solar technology in the future will also run on visible light. So solar-cell-induced global cooling is probably never going to be an issue, even if we covered the surface of the earth in solar cells.

This, coupled with the fact that most of the warming (51%) of the earth happens when ambient light is reflected and absorbed, and then re-emitted as IR radiation---solar cells reflect a good deal of light (i.e. they'll never be 100% efficient at capturing radiation). So, again, global cooling will never be a problem.

I agree. It's possible but it's not going to happen. I would bet my life on it. I know we are on the same page. I'm drunk. Thank you for the conversation and hopefully you won't judge me so drastically next time. I'm a human, not some piece of matter for you to call names.

Ahhhh

goodnight