Re: Nothing like oil?

tphile <tphile@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Oil is essential in an industrial society for many things,
lubrication, fuel, plastics etc.
but I doubt we are gonna find fossil fuels on the Moon, Mars,
Asteroids, Ringworlds or anyplace else we are likely to colonize
or terraform. No fossils to make fuel.
Oil may be rarer and more valuable than water on Arakkis.
we will need a serious synthetic substitute

Why waste time synthesizing petroleum in order to turn right round and
desynthesize it into the appropriate feedstocks for those various
uses?

Much more sensible to synthesize the feedstocks directly.

Even more sensible to skip the feedstock stage and synthesize the end
product with as few possible steps between raw materials and finished
product.

D.
--
Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh.

http://derekl1963.livejournal.com/

-Resolved: To be more temperate in my postings.
Oct 5th, 2004 JDL
.

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