As Fracking Rises, Peak Oil Theory Slowly Dies

Forbes ^ | 7/16/2013 | David Blackmon

[Ben Ficklin]

In the early days refineries did only distillation but along the way they learned how to crack or break the longer chain hydrocarbons(alkanes) into shorter chain hydrocarbons. Theoretically you can take a 20 carbon alkane which might be called didecane and crack that into 12 carbon alkane called dodecane which would go into diesel and an 8 carbon alkane called octane which would into gasoline.

What you say about steam and removing a hydrogen is right. Take the ethane out of natural gas and steam crack it to remove hydrogen to make ethene aka ethylene which is used to make polyethylene(polemerized ethylene) , a common plastic. if the suffix is ane(alkane) it is a single bonded carbon. If the suffix is ene(alkene) it is double bonded(2 less hydro-gens)

3HC-CH3 ethane is steam cracked to remove 2 hydrogen which gives you 2HC=CH2 ethene/ethylene.

Similarly Propane from nat gas can be used to make propene/propylene to make polypropylene

Butane to butene to butadiene to synthetic rubber. In butadiene there are two double bonds, either in the 1,2 position or the 1,3 position.

[theBuckwheat]

“...Just like socialism and AGW Theory will never die. ...”

Exactly. The so-called “peak oil” is just a horse to ride in order to carry The Collectivist Agenda to greater glories.

[American Constitutionalist]

What most people would be surprised about and won't believe is that ? petroleum products can be produced and refined from wood.
Yes, wood, when a piece of wood or paper is burned there is a chemical process that is released that releases butane, methane, and other gasses.
Even gasoline can be, or a form of it can be produced from wood.

[thackney]

petroleum products can be produced and refined from wood.

At what cost and what volume of input versus output. We can do a lot of things that don't actually make sense.