this post was submitted on 04 Nov 2024
1302 points (99.2% liked)

Science Memes

11704 readers
2334 users here now

Welcome to c/science_memes @ Mander.xyz!

A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.

Rules

  1. Don't throw mud. Behave like an intellectual and remember the human.
  2. Keep it rooted (on topic).
  3. No spam.
  4. Infographics welcome, get schooled.

This is a science community. We use the Dawkins definition of meme.

Research Committee

Other Mander Communities

Science and Research

Biology and Life Sciences

Physical Sciences

Humanities and Social Sciences

Practical and Applied Sciences

Memes

Miscellaneous

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
1302
Know thy enemy (mander.xyz)
submitted 2 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
74 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 102 points 2 months ago (4 children)

Some of these ships would carry green hydrogen and new lithium batteries and old lithium batteries (to be recycled) and whatnot. Also at least some oil would be still needed for fine chemicals like meds or (idk what's proper english term for that) large scale organic synthesis like plastics, or even straight distillates like hexane (for edible oil extraction) or lubricants. Some of usual non-energy uses of oil can be easily substituted with enough energy like with nitrogen fertilizers but some can't

[–] [email protected] 36 points 2 months ago (2 children)

the argument for renewable energy isnt that we should stop using oil, its that we shouldnt burn it. why turn our limited supply of oil into CO2 and water when we can turn it into plastics, medicine, solvents, etc? around 3/4 of crude oil is used as fuel, but if renewable energy was used, the number of oil tankers would decrease by more than 75% bc local supplies would generally be sufficient for industrial, non-fuel uses

[–] [email protected] 14 points 2 months ago

ikr, but that tweet implies that all of oil/gas/coal ships would be unnecessary

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

bc local supplies would generally be sufficient for industrial, non-fuel uses

this is assuming that its not just cheaper to import that needed oil? This is always going to be a fundamental problem, though maybe we already happen to produce plastic with native oil idk.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago (3 children)

And oil for Styrofoam. And met coal for steel.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)

There's alternative processes, and if you avoid burning oil and coal for fuel you can basically do all that with the amount of oil that's in easy reach instead of using tar sands or drilling into even more difficult to reach places.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago (2 children)

You have to be careful when talking about steel because coal is both an ingredient (steel is iron + carbon) and used for heating afaik. You can take coal out of the heating step (confusingly called steel making) but not out of the ingredient step, unless you want to find a different carbon source.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago (1 children)

There's (admittedly comparatively expensive) alternative processes, and even if you stick to the old process and just stop using coal for electricity generation you'd cut coal use by 75%.

Not to mention, the carbon that stays in the steel doesn't actually go into the atmosphere, so there's less CO2 emissions for that specific use if you can substitute the fuel used for heating.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

That's why I said met coal for steel.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

you're probably talking about direct reduced iron and it's really a problem that can be dealt with easily, just chuck a piece of coke when it's molten for the second time in electric arc furnace (and maybe electrodes introduce enough carbon). substituting coke with hydrogen works also on "ingredient step" if you mean by that fuel needed to reduce iron ore to iron

maybe there's a way to make electrowinning iron economical, and it'd be pretty green too, but i don't know if it is workable

e: you can also avoid need for met coal if you use methane or syngas for direct reduced iron process

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 months ago

the problem with tar sands is a fundamental energy conversion issue. It's really hard to refine because you don't get nearly as much energy out as you put in, compared to something like fracking.

It may become reasonable in the future with really cheap renewable energy and higher oil prices for example, but as of right now, it's economically unviable.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

coal can be substituted to some degree with processes like direct reduction. hydrogen works but syngas from biomass or trash also works

file styrofoam under plastics

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

Everything that comes out of a petrochemical plant can be made without oil, in fact BASF had recipes in place for decades now and is switching sources as the price shifts. Push come to shove they can produce everything from starch. It's also why they hardly blinked when Russia turned off the gas.

The carbon that actually ends up in steel is a quite negligible amount (usually under 1%, over 2% you get cast iron), you can get that out of the local forest, and to reduce the iron hydrogen works perfectly, the first furnances are already online.

[–] ayyy 1 points 2 months ago

That wouldn’t really need to be shipped around though, domestic supply can cover those needs almost everywhere.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

I'm guessing most countries would try to recycle batteries locally. Or/and throw them onto solar systems straight away