this post was submitted on 19 Jun 2024
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The motors have never been the problem, it's always been the battery. See train engines, they are a diesel generator with electric motors.
This is where history pisses me off. We should have been headlong into battery research after the oil embargoes. Could have been 40 years faster.
I think people forget that petroleum is condensed and distilled solar energy. One gallon of gasoline is the results of years of solar energy.
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Non renewable solar energy unfortunately.
No, it's renewable. But... not in any practical timeframe.
That's not the definition of renewable.
It is iv we use it sustainably.
Not really. Its trees from a time before micro organisms evolved the ability to eat dead trees. These days, the solar energy collected by trees will get used to power the metabolisms of fungi before those trees can get buried and eventually become new coal & petroleum.
I suppose an impact from a sufficiently large asteroid could turn the entire crust of the planet into magma, sterilizing it and therefore opening the possibility that new oil might be created some day.
IIRC it is actually mostly from algea. A small amount from some fern-like plants. By the time trees existed, they were being broken down by bacteria.
I think I read somewhere that oil will not be produced anymore because now bacteria can break down that biomass that it previously didn't. Hence, non-renewable even on long timescales.
Only if we bring back the dinosaurs. There are six movies (and counting!) explaining why this is not a good idea.
Technically no. Only if we erase bacteria capable of breaking down trees.