Cratering motor fuel sales in Norway show the death spiral that can end oil

Re:Cratering motor fuel sales in Norway show the death spira... by gohigh54 on Saturday October 21, 2023 @11:48AM (#37967770)

30-40+/-% of refined oil is gasoline. So if you need to refine oil for jet fuel, heating oil, plastics, pavement and/or the 100s of other products we use everyday, then you are stuck with gasoline. Need to solve the 100s of other equally significant challenges as well.

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Re:Cratering motor fuel sales in Norway show the death spira... by WJW on Saturday October 21, 2023 @12:03PM (#37967946)

It's 30-40% gasoline because that is what the refining process has been optimized to produce. You can get other hydrocarbon mixes by choosing different process parameters.

Also, a huge part of oil refining is already shortening the chain lengths by adding hydrogen and "cracking" the hydrocarbon molecules [1]. They don't do that to gasoline at the moment because it has such a huge available market that it doesn't make economic sense to process it further. If that market disappears however, then we absolutely would be able to convert "waste" gasoline further into jet fuel or plastics or whatever.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cracking_(chemistry)

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Re:Cratering motor fuel sales in Norway show the death spira... by titzer on Saturday October 21, 2023 @11:52AM (#37967830)

So it's surplus and we have a problem if we don't use it now? That can't be a serious argument. They'd have to start paying us to use this annoying byproduct of throwaway materials? Something sounds fishy with that argument.

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Re:Cratering motor fuel sales in Norway show the death spira... by lazide on Saturday October 21, 2023 @12:11PM (#37968032)

In most places, Gasoline is already cheaper than milk, for instance.

Most people just don’t buy 20+ gallons of milk at a time.

Propane has gotten down to $3.30/gal in the US West.

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Re:Cratering motor fuel sales in Norway show the death spira... by icegreentea2 on Saturday October 21, 2023 @12:03PM (#37967949)

Well, you could at least burn them in centralized plants and get back a bunch of thermal efficiency. You can probably gain a bunch of processing efficiency too that way.

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