We do away with all the nasty petroleum?
There is just a ‘little’ issue with doing this…
If there is no petroleum, there will be an estimated 6000 products that will no longer be available!
Partial list, HERE from Ranken Energy. And more from Canada, HERE.
And a partial list from US DOE-
Adhesive Air mattresses Ammonia Antifreeze Antihistamines Antiseptics Artificial limbs Artificial turf Asphalt Aspirin Awnings Backpacks Balloons Ballpoint pens Bandages Beach umbrellas Boats Cameras Candies and gum Candles Car battery cases Car enamel Cassettes Caulking CDs/computer disks Cell phones Clothes Clothesline Clothing Coffee makers Cold cream Combs Computer keyboards Computer monitors Cortisone Crayons Credit cards Curtains Dashboards Denture adhesives Dentures Deodorant Detergent Dice Dishwashing liquid Dog collars Drinking cups Dyes Electric blankets Electrical tape Enamel Epoxy paint Eyeglasses Fan belts Faucet washers Fertilizers Fishing boots Fishing lures Floor wax Food preservatives Footballs Fuel tanks Glue Glycerin Golf bags Golf balls Guitar strings Hair coloring Hair curlers Hand lotion Hearing aids Heart valves House paint Hula hoops Ice buckets Ice chests Ice cube trays Ink Insect repellent Insecticides Insulation iPad/iPhone Kayaks Laptops Life jackets Light-weight aircraft Lipstick Loudspeakers Lubricants Luggage Model cars Mops Motorcycle helmets Movie film Nail polish Noise insulation Nylon rope Oil filters Packaging Paint brushes Paint roller Pajamas Panty hose Parachutes Perfumes Permanent press Petroleum jelly Pharmaceuticals Pillow filling Plastic toys Plastics Plywood adhesive Propane Purses Putty Refrigerants Refrigerator linings Roller skate wheels Roofing Rubber cement Rubbing alcohol Safety glasses Shampoo Shaving cream Shoe polish Shoes/sandals Shower curtains Skateboards Skis Soap dishes Soft contact lenses Solar panels Solvents Spacesuits Sports car bodies Sunglasses Surf boards Swimming pools Synthetic rubber Telephones Tennis rackets Tents Tires Tool boxes Tool racks Toothbrushes Toothpaste Transparent tape Trash bags Truck and automobile parts Tubing TV cabinets Umbrellas Unbreakable dishes Upholstery Vaporizers Vinyl flooring Vitamin capsules Water pipes Wind turbine blades Yarn
And a comment from a friend who had to take a child to the ER- “ER visit with a child last week. I just looked at all the tubing, barf bags, oxygen regulators, gloves, bandages, furniture and fixtures in the room and tried to imagine the hospital going back to glass, leather, metal and wood for everything. Not to mention the computers and sensors. Casts would go back to plaster-only.” And this was JUST in the ER. Add in syringes, IV bags, medication, etc…
Hopefully, the idjits in charge actually do a ‘bit’ of research before they continue down this particular path!
a) active malice
b) Also, can’t use leather ‘because of CO2’
c) wood, spotted owl, etc
d) metal has energy costs, making energy cost LOL because of the inefficient wasteful practice of pretending to have ‘renewable’ ‘capacity’ drives up cost of metal
e) technically speaking, there are still innocents supporting some of this policy.
f) active malice
Ya know, if we could somehow eliminate self-righteousness (and whatever else it is that makes folks want to go on the attack), it would solve an awful lot of problems.
That, and getting good roads to places needed food, medicine, etc.
And also a reliable source of cheap reloading components.
And finally. a LONG vacation for me and my gift-from-God, happily-ever-after trophy wife Vanessa, the elegant,foxy, praying black grandmother of Woodstock, GA; I think an ocean cruise. Can anyone feed my cats while we are away?
There’s a book by Vaclav Smil called “How the World Really Works”. Not an easy read, but well researched. The civilized world is based on steel, cement, plastics, and ammonia – all impossible without massive quantities of hydrocarbons. Just an example: half of the world’s population would die without the food farmed with diesel fueled equipment, grown with fertilizer made from natural gas, and carried by the international trade made possible by giant ships of steel fueled by bunker crude.
I dream of the world where facts are more important than “feelings” we once lived in. Sadly, we won’t get back there until we reach what my Dad called, “The Belly Flapping Principal”.
Once again, Toasty’s Corollary: any sufficiently destructive stupidity is indistinguishable from malice.
The proportion of one product to another varies widely by crude oil type, but yeah.
I’m sitting on 4,000 tons of VLSFO (Very Low Sulfur Heavy Fuel Oil, which is residual oil mixed with ULSD (Ultra Low Sulfur Distillate), which we call ‘cutter stock’ and which is sometimes just dirty diesel that we use to dilute the heavy stuff to drive down the total sulfur content below 0.5%, which is the legal maximum in the civilized parts of the world.
Along with the 4,000 tons of MGO I have 400 tons of MGO (Marine Gas Oil, which is the same as over-the-road diesel but with slightly more sulfur, which large engines need as a lube in the upper cylinder and injector rails during firing) along with actual lube).
These 4400 tons of fuel are just barely enough to get ONE large container ship from NY to across the Pacific. An ultralarge ship might take 6500 tons. There are 8-10 of these ships in NY harbor unloading right now. Takes 18-36 hours.
All those plastics, all those parts, equipment, chemicals, etc… 90 % of ALL THINGS spend time on a ship. Put the luddites in a wool clout and throw them in a field to eat grass.
And to go back, petroleum is the CLEANER option! The previous Great Chemical Feedstock was… COAL TAR – a seriously nasty collection of chemicals.
Bob- All of the above!!!
Pat- If wishes were horses…
Neo- I have it, but honestly haven’t made it through it yet. Dense isn’t the word…
WSF- I don’t think that time is far off. Dammit…
Toast- TRUE DAT!
Paul- Thanks! I was going to add that, but wasn’t sure what the correct numbers were. I know what it is for a CRUDES…
Orvan- Point!!!
There is zero chance any of the “converted” to green BS will ever change their minds, it is a belief system based on raw emotion, not one based on logic.
The safest path for our own safety is to make sure none of them ever end up in teaching or any other position of influence over others.
That eliminates all political office.
Mind numbing idiocy, virtue signaling, corruption and clownish malfeasance. And active malice.
Hey Old NFO;
The idjits pushing this are running on pure emotions, logic has no bearing on their decision making process, thanks to the crappy education they have gotten from our higher educational system. Now they think they know it all and have no idea how things really work, only what the unicorn farts and rainbows that their professors filled their heads with.
Terra- Sadly, that is true. But at the same time, they are in ‘control’ in education at all levels. And quite a few of the political offices too… dammit.
LSP- Exactly!
Bob- That is correct!
The opposition consists of two different types of people. The evil criminals in power who KNOW such facts like this….that oil is VITAL for modern society….but simply DO NOT CARE. And the vast numbers of seething heaving morons that blindly follow them and give them political clout. The solution to the problems caused by both types is simple. Not pleasant….but simple.
Currently we use 15 calories of petroleum to deliver 1 food calorie to the shelf. 50% of green space is grass we mow instead of feeding to bovines who turn it into wonderful meat. Our current farming practices remove top soil at 1-2mm a year, where regenerative ranching builds it back. However, regenerative ranching is not the way we’ve always done it and requires a significant change in mentality in both how we raise livestock but also being willing to eat more meat in our diets.(Also requires about 3-5 years before the land starts to equal or exceed pre fertilizer productivity for grass production) Then there is companion planting and never leaving bare dirt-again requires a mindset change.
We have made nuclear power untenable, worthy of a long post on its own. (Even if we were 100% nuclear cars would still need to be gas).
Bottom line, we could be conserving petroleum for plastics which save lives. We could even use more metal rather than plastic if we wanted to build things to last. We are taking the easy and cheap way (always do) but fortunately there are alternatives that we already know about when the economics change. Sadly the virtue signalers will be stuck on stupid.
I think landfills will become the new gold mines at some point as we try to find easy places to find recyclables.
I sometimes daydream about some hard-core Green pontificating before the cameras, and everything he, she, or it is wearing or uses that is made from petroleum suddenly vanishes. Elastic, synthetic fabrics, “vegan leather,” cosmetics, hair spray, dyes in clothing and shoes (if natural fabrics and real leather) . . . What a glorious day it would be!
Dan- Excellent point!
Xoph- Good points, and I wasn’t aware of the time required to ‘start’ recovering the land.
TXRed- Oh, that would be ‘beautiful’…for us, not for them…