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

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[–] 106 points 2 years ago (4 children)

Non renewable solar energy unfortunately.

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  • [–] 10 points 2 years ago (1 child)

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

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (1 child)

    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.

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  • [–] 5 points 2 years ago (4 children)

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

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  • [–] 45 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    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.

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  • [–] 8 points 2 years 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.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years 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.

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