Wolfgang Schwanke wrote:
wrote in :

There are no alternatives to oil.

The electric grid uses a vanishingly small amount of oil.

The transportation system uses a vanishingly small amount of
electricity.

Concerning ground transport, there's rail which nowadays is mostly
electric. The combustion engine is really only indispensable in air and
ship transport, as you say, and a fraction of ground transport which
for various reasons can't be transferred to rail.

Most rail is diesel electric; there is a diesel engine driving a
generator.

There are no electrified rails or overhead wires between LA and
Chicago.

Unless you run tracks from every distribution center to every local
retail outlet, rail can never be more than a small fraction of the
transportation system.

Rail is good for hauling bulk items, such as coal, over long distances
between major hubs.

It doesn't get lettuce from Fresno to grocery stores in San Diego.


Technically the problem is trivial; manufacture synthetic fuels. We've
known how to do that for half a century.

Practically the problem is enourmous; the estimated costs I've seen
for synthetic fuels would be many times the current cost of gasoline
and diesel.

There are methods for making oil from coal. Somewhere I read that the
process has been revived in China. If it's so uneconomical, why are
they doing it?

As I said before, such processes have been doable for about a half
century now.

No one is doing it commercially because it is too expensive.

Lots of people are tinkering to see if the cost can be reduced.

When the price of crude oil exceeds the cost of making artificial oil,
then it will happen commercially.

--
Jim Pennino

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