Researchers Close in on Technology for Making Renewable (man-made) Petroleum

Science Daily ^ | 03-29-2011 | Staff

[hk33]

CO2 is already extracted from the ground to use in industry.

Look at the McElmo Dome facility owned by Kinder Morgan

http://www.kindermorgan.com/business/co2/supply_mcelmo.cfm

[steelyourfaith]

Thanx for the ping Ernest_at_the_Beach !

 

Beam me to Planet Gore !

[Marine_Uncle]

From the article:
"Wackett Wacko says. "CO2 is the major greenhouse gas mediating global climate change, so removing it from the atmosphere is good for the environment...
There, fixed it.

[Mich Patriot]

Yep, back to the stone age seems fine with them. I bet they’d still be looking for someone with ambition to grow the food for everyone else, or go fetch the water. Libs are libs no matter what century it is.

[SunkenCiv]

:’) Thanks Ernest. I know — we can burn coal to generate the electricity to produce the clean artificial petroleum and, uh, wait...

[bigheadfred]

Just do a slow render on F-A Michelle.

We’d have enough whale oil for a long, long time.

[neverdem]

And if we use up the CO2 what will the plants do....it is crucial for them....they have no other fuel

But this scheme, if it comes to fruition, only means that the CO2 in the atmosphere is temporarily borrowed. Once the fuel is oxidized, it's back in the atmosphere. Our CO2 sinks are not just the atmosphere. Are they all static? Are any dynamic?

[Ancesthntr]

The earth manufactures petroleum, therefore it is naturally renewable.

For mankind to think it can improve on that is exceedingly arrogant and presumptious.

We also couldn't feed more than a few million people from natural sources provided by the planet, but by using the brains that God gave us to domesticate animals and invent agriculture (not necessarily in that order), we can now feed billions.

We also couldn't fly, but we used the brains that God gave us to invent and improve aircraft of various types. That's not arrogance or presumption, that's discovering scientific laws and applying them to make something useful.

You are, perhaps without realizing it, arguing the Luddite position. If this is a valid technological idea, why not proceed with it? If it isn't valid (i.e. it won't work, or it will be prohibitively expensive), then let's move on to the next idea - because the only other choice is to wait for the planet to manufacture more oil, something that cannot be done in sufficiently large quantities in the next decade or two to stop our civilization from collapsing as energy prices skyrocket. Is that what you want?