Alt text:

An idling gas engine may be annoyingly loud, but that’s the price you pay for having WAY less torque available at a standstill.

    • cron@feddit.de
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      10
      ·
      5 months ago

      Renewable fuels exist and are used today, but the efficiency and pollution aspects still apply.

      • Revan343@lemmy.ca
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        5 months ago

        If you’re making your diesel from CO2 pulled from the air, pollution aspects don’t really apply (at least, CO2 emission issues don’t, there’s still NOx, but that’s what cat piss is for).

        Problem is, converting atmospheric CO2 back into fuel makes the efficiency issue drastically worse. Maybe with enough solar panels and windmills, and use the Fischer–Tropsch process with the excess energy that the grid isn’t consuming.

        Of course, that would be for mobile fuel, if solar plants were going to do anything like that for later use generating electricity during peaks, making diesel is dumb; you’d want to use hydrogen or ammonia for in-place energy storage.

        • cron@feddit.de
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          3
          ·
          5 months ago

          I was thinking about fuels like HVO. They work well, but have their own ecological implications.

          • Revan343@lemmy.ca
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            2
            ·
            5 months ago

            Ah. I’m generally skeptical of any plant-based ‘green fuel’ because they generally take up agricultural capacity that would otherwise be producing food

    • rmuk@feddit.uk
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      37
      arrow-down
      32
      ·
      5 months ago

      No, it’s renewable. But… not in any practical timeframe.

      • Delta_V@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        45
        ·
        5 months ago

        Not really. Its trees from a time before micro organisms evolved the ability to eat dead trees. These days, the solar energy collected by trees will get used to power the metabolisms of fungi before those trees can get buried and eventually become new coal & petroleum.

        I suppose an impact from a sufficiently large asteroid could turn the entire crust of the planet into magma, sterilizing it and therefore opening the possibility that new oil might be created some day.

        • AEsheron@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          32
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          edit-2
          5 months ago

          IIRC it is actually mostly from algea. A small amount from some fern-like plants. By the time trees existed, they were being broken down by bacteria.

      • aname@lemmy.one
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        8
        ·
        5 months ago

        I think I read somewhere that oil will not be produced anymore because now bacteria can break down that biomass that it previously didn’t. Hence, non-renewable even on long timescales.

      • AeonFelis@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        3
        arrow-down
        4
        ·
        edit-2
        5 months ago

        Only if we bring back the dinosaurs. There are six movies (and counting!) explaining why this is not a good idea.

    • RogueBanana
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      5 months ago

      Energy density is a huge advantage which most people find hard to give up especially when the biggest problem that we face is invisible to most people. We can’t fix a problem if we ignore the cause.

      • AVincentInSpace@pawb.social
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        10
        arrow-down
        2
        ·
        5 months ago

        A lot of people have been having their cake days recently. Guess it’s the first anniversary of the Reddit exodus.