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A comment on The global fight for critical minerals is costly and damaging. Parent comment

Re:The global fight for critical minerals is costly and dama... by AnimalMuppet on Wednesday July 19, 2023 @10:34AM (#36787067)
If I understand correctly, we want more gasoline than the natural fraction in petroleum. So refineries "crack" longer molecules to create shorter ones, increasing the amount of gasoline.

I'm not sure if that's the gasoline subsidizing the heavier fractions. It might be the other way around. There would be more heavier fractions available if we didn't crack them, and therefore they'd be cheaper.

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Re:The global fight for critical minerals is costly and dama... by actionfromafar on Wednesday July 19, 2023 @04:50PM (#36793129)
That still requires changes to the refineries, but even so, when the cracking is eventually turned off, the same mechanism remains.
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