If the idea that oil is produced from organic carbon is laughable, you might want to inform all of the drilling companies so they can fire the paleobiologists on staff looking for fossilized plankton, a hallmark of subterranean oil deposits.
Let’s do some back of the envelope geochemistry here. The biggest reservoir of oxygen on earth is its crust, primarily in the form of silica. Carbon is also found mineralized, in the form of carbonates (limestone) and silicocarbonates. Carbonates are also highly oxidized. Furthermore, just about every mineral ore extracted from the earth is an oxide that must be reduced. Typically, this is done with carbon, because carbon has a much higher affinity for oxidation than many metals. Simply put, the earths crust is almost completely oxidized. There is a distinct scarcity of oxygen-scavenging species.
Carbon fixation requires the reduction of carbon oxides, a task not so simple as evidenced by the use of carbon to reduce metals. Abiotic carbon fixation would require a mineral reducing agent, and energy to power the reaction.
Where does this energy and reducing power come from? The biotic answer is very clean: plants fix carbon, then get buried and anaerobically decomposed into simple organic compounds. Your suggestion, in which a strong reducing agent is itself reduced in the absense of reducing agents and energy, yielding a net reduction in entropy, is a process very similar to magic.
Where does the leftover oxygen go? The only reasonable inorganic source of hydrogen to form hydrocarbons is water, where does that oxygen go? We don’t find pockets of oxygen or highly reactive oxidized species while mining, most minerals are fairly inert. Since carbonates are found everywhere in the earths crust, why isn’t oil found uniformly distributed across and throughout the crust, instead settling into pockets close to subduction zones and nearby fossilized lifeforms? Where does the energy come from? How is entropy reversed and complex molecules preferentially formed from simpler inorganic compounds? Most importantly, if the conditions for such a reaction are so simple, why have we not been able to perform cost effective carbon fixation despite massive amounts of both private and public funding aimed at achieving exactly this goal?
I’m not super sure why you think solar is the only renewable energy source I’m referring to. I’m well aware that the sun goes down. This does not preclude the possibility of a robust energy portfolio comprised of wind, solar, hydroelectric (both tidal and river), geothermal, and biomass fired generators. All for rounding this out with nuclear, not sure why you assumed I’m opposed.
I made no assumption about you. I just stated what I observed where I had worked.
I would be interested in the capacity factors for wind turbines based on their location.
I don’t know how many locations have enough tidal differential to make them practical. Many river hydroelectric plants are already in use. It is free operational electricity, how much more is available that isn’t already in use?
Biomass offers low density BTU. Getting fuel into any boiler of reasonable size would be a massive logistical task.
The power generation company had a garbage land fill that extracted a minuscule amount of biomass gas to generate less than a single MW for a few years.
I don’t know much of anything about geothermal electric generation as to it being a practical solution.
Oh fair enough, I thought you were referring to me specifically.
One of the major draws for tidal energy is that most of the world lives along shorelines, and from what I’ve read you don’t need particularly strong tides, just tides that don’t vary in direction. Pretty low bar for most coastal locations. There’s an installation going in close to where I live (still won’t doxx myself, sorry yall), excited to see the results. Similarly, there are actually several biomass fired plants in my state, hundreds of MW, it’s actually pretty practical. I’m optimistic about biomass because the fastest growing sources of biomass are grasses, which crop out very dry (reducing need for drying) and can grow without irrigation almost anywhere in the country.
You’re right about hydro and geothermal, just have to live in a good spot I guess.
Also, maybe someone can tell me whether solar and wind electric generation technology is capable of load following yet.
It is really simple with a turbine-generator. The 550 MW steam turbine-generator could easily follow 6 MW/minute swing.
The power company base loaded the solar plant, which means that whatever it generated was put on grid. It did nothing to follow the load demand. Following the load demand was left to those units that could vary fuel, e.g., steam turbines and combustion turbines. They paid more for the solar power than they charged the customers. It was nothing more than political move to look more green.
I have a biochem degree, so I get completely what you are saying. Not a science wiz by any means. Did a biochem degree ages ago as I was originally pre-med and went and entire different route lol.
This is very interesting though. Not saying it’s 100% right, but the thought that all oil stems directly from biocarbons sinking or layered into the mantle at such densities across the globe has always seemed a little far fetched or not the entire story to me.
Typically power generating units are labeled by their peak MW capability. That is a 20 MW solar plant is capable of generating 20 MW when the sun is at its highest and the sky is clear.
Because at night a solar plant can generate zero power, it would be advantageous to store some of the power generated during the day to be used when the sun is no longer in the sky.
But the very best solar plants, in the very best locations only have a 25% capacity factor. So a 20 MW solar plant that stored all of its power in, say batteries, and released at a constant rate over 24 hours, it would only produce 5 MW per hour.
On a petroleum powered boiler with a turbine-generator capable of a peak power of 200 MW, it could generate 200 MW every hour of the day.
So is the 20 MW solar power plant 10% the size of the 200 MW petroleum power plant every hour of the day and night? Actually it is only 2.5% the size of the petroleum plant.
When a green proponent boasts the number of MW solar capability of a plant it is misleading when comparing to a power generating source with a capacity factor near 100%.
