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To: stockpirate
I question calling oil a fossil fuel

I agree. the earth makes the stuff.

Some years ago, I searched info on whale oil. There was a record sized baleen whale that rendered x amount of barrels of whale oil. A whale oil barrel is about 35 gallons. Today's oil barrel is about 43 us gallons.

Assuming the baleen whale is equivalent to a dinosaur and could die and self render oil, I estimated that somewhere around 250,000 baleen whale sized dinosaurs would have to die every day to render up enough oil for the world's needs today.

Feel free to check my less than rigorous calculations.

19 posted on 03/07/2015 6:45:09 AM PST by tbpiper
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To: tbpiper; stockpirate
I agree. the earth makes the stuff.

Yeah, what is oil? Carbon and hydrogen right? Carbon is the 4th most abundant element in the universe and hydrogen is number 1. Carbon and hydrogen are everywhere. We don't need living creatures to die to get carbon. We just need a chemical reaction at temperature and pressure to get oil...the earths interior!

22 posted on 03/07/2015 7:03:59 AM PST by DouglasKC
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To: tbpiper; stockpirate
"Assuming the baleen whale is equivalent to a dinosaur and could die and self render oil, I estimated that somewhere around 250,000 baleen whale sized dinosaurs would have to die every day to render up enough oil for the world's needs today."

You can make your own fuel. Harold Bates made some in England out of chicken manure. L. John Fry made methane from pig manure in South Africa, dealing with a mountain of waste and a huge fly problem at the same time, and getting enough fuel to make electricity and hot water for all his needs at the time.

But methane might not be to your liking. My brother's idea about retrofitting his driver's seat with a funnel probably would not have worked either.

You might prefer to do the research and figure out how to "digest" cellulose fibers back into simpler chemical constituents such as butanol, which is an adequate substitute for gasoline. If you can work out how to make a vehicular fuel out of cornstalks, wheat straw, and switch grass clippings, the world will likely beat a path to your door, or perhaps away from it; one or the other.

These fuel conversions are all initially powered by the sun, but chemical energy can be made more compact than solar energy, so that's why we use chemicals in our gas tanks rather than a big solar mirror on the roof of our cars.

23 posted on 03/07/2015 7:09:53 AM PST by NicknamedBob (Do your light housework in your dreams. What else is sleep for but to clear away the cobwebs?)
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To: tbpiper

I question calling oil a fossil fuel
I agree. the earth makes the stuff.


IT IS RENEWABLE ENERGY....................


26 posted on 03/07/2015 7:26:18 AM PST by PeterPrinciple (Thinking Caps are no longer being issued but there must be a warehouse full of them somewhere.)
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