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[-] Catoblepas@piefed.blahaj.zone 31 points 11 months ago

From what I can find it sounds like plant oils, not petroleum, for anyone else that was confused.

[-] jaybone@lemmy.zip 8 points 11 months ago

Isn’t petroleum technically a plant oil?

[-] Catoblepas@piefed.blahaj.zone 10 points 11 months ago

It was plant oil, being fermented anaerobically and heated for millions of years chemically changes it.

[-] xylol@leminal.space 3 points 11 months ago

Have we tried speed running oil creation like we did with diamonds?

[-] atomicbocks@sh.itjust.works 11 points 11 months ago

Yes, we have even made bacteria that excretes fuels. But nothing that competes with just pulling hydrocarbons out of the ground at scale like we have with diamonds.

The main scaling issue is that the constituent carbon still has to come from somewhere, and one of the main carbon sources we have is... oil.

The best solution is to move away from carbon based fuels.

[-] ryedaft@sh.itjust.works 2 points 11 months ago

As atomicbocks points out, a major obstacle for sustainable fuels for combustion engines is that there isn't enough biomass around. Also why the new sustainable ship engines run on ammonia.

[-] ryedaft@sh.itjust.works 1 points 11 months ago

Today, approximately 15% of the world's production of vanillin is still made from lignin wastes,[11] while approximately 85% is synthesized in a two-step process from the petrochemical precursors guaiacol and glyoxylic acid.[12][13]

this post was submitted on 18 Aug 2025
425 points (95.9% liked)

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