They can clone a sheep (woot !!!! nice work dolly) and now they are talking about blindly messing around and splicing a mix of dna or genes and new chromosomes together (get ready for the "Rage" virus)….
How hard can it be to clone or replicate oil?
It sounds like we will be fighting each other for the stuff in the near future.
Source: http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,2196436,00.html
World oil production has already peaked and will fall by half as soon as 2030, according to a report which also warns that extreme shortages of fossil fuels will lead to wars and social breakdown.
The German-based Energy Watch Group will release its study in London today saying that global oil production peaked in 2006 – much earlier than most experts had expected. The report, which predicts that production will now fall by 7% a year, comes after oil prices set new records almost every day last week, on Friday hitting more than $90 (£44) a barrel.
PraiseBob – ahhh but my Dad had a Chemical Engineering Degree (the best grade) and told me not to follow his path….. he said theres no money in Chemistry and few real exciting opportunities.
Can’t it be done with nanotechnology… moving stuff at the atomic or molecular level?
Ok I take your point about oil not being "alive" and therefore can’t be cloned. But orginally it was alive… or the trillions of creatures that died to create it as they decomposed together under pressure of the earth…. so why not just get the dna of those creatures, clone them enmasse, squash them up and get oil?
ladygray – ok valid points there – and tbh a member of my family died for multiple sclerosis in 2005…. after 8 years of us nursing him at home… including 3 years when he had no use of his muscles, no vocal ability, and fed with a tube… so yes I do know.
However oil is the lubrication for so much of the economy… without it we might enter a new dark age….. which could easily bring on a social/cultural breakdown, with little mercy to those who can’t take care of themselves.
I’m not sure whether this applies to you, but what do think is useful.
One of my students asked a similar question. ‘Why can’t science do something useful about solving our problems’. I pointed out that she spends her life on a mobile phone, or plugged into her I-pod, dressed in synthetic fibres. She spends time on her PC communicating with her friends in a centrally heated home under electric light and is transported around the world by automobile and aeroplane.
What else do you want science to give you?
Now you want science to solve the problem of your energy profligate lifestyle.
It is possible to synthesise hydrocarbon chains, the basis of oil. However to achieve this with any rapidity (nature takes millions of years) needs more energy put in than you can hope to get out.
For efficiency you therefore need to start with something like glucose which has carbon and hydrogen already in it. But that means using land suitable for growing food to grow bio-fuel crops to supply the raw materials. If you don’t think this will be a problem look at how current would prices for wheat and corn have risen lately as bio-fuels become more popular.
If we as a species want to conserve oil stocks we need to cut down on our energy use rather than swap a problem of oil shortages for one of food shortages or spend more effort on alterative energy.
November 16th, 2009 at 12:34 pm
They have. But it costs more than the real thing.
References :
November 16th, 2009 at 12:41 pm
because you can only clone a living thing and oil isnt alive
References :
November 16th, 2009 at 12:55 pm
it’s all a conspiracy by george w. bush in order to invade iraq.
References :
November 16th, 2009 at 1:44 pm
The World will probably take advantage uf it all.. and just keep using more and more4 of it like.. everyday.. untill the world has become one big layer of gas… and the ozone!! OHMY!
References :
November 16th, 2009 at 1:51 pm
lol, true.. you should go into politics you got my vote!
References :
November 16th, 2009 at 2:23 pm
Here’s an idea. Instead of telling everyone what scientists should do, how about if you go out and get yourself a chemical engineering degree and solve the problem for the rest of the world?
References :
November 16th, 2009 at 2:58 pm
Good to know you’re informed before you spout out ridiculous ideas. How exactly do you propose to "clone" oil? There is such a thing as conservation of mass – you can’t make these hydrocarbons appear out of thin air. And if your proposal includes an idea to build hydrocarbons out of smaller building blocks – well then conservation of energy is going to bite you in the butt. You can’t win that way – "cloning" oil is impossible. At least in any economically viable way.
To answer your question about whether they can do it on a nanoscale:
A. That’s not cloning, and
B. It’s nowhere NEAR economically viable, if they even have the scientific capability to do that yet (which I am pretty sure they don’t).
We have a much better shot of using different energy. For instance, we happen to be sitting on a ton of coal in this country – it just has the negative effect of causing a lot of pollution when you burn it. But there are ideas like coal gasification that could have potential. Not to mention using nuclear power, which is very clean and efficient.
Your friend,
Bigferribunny
References :
November 16th, 2009 at 3:33 pm
Are you for serious???!?!? Why don’t they clone Big Macs then we can sell them for a nickel, I mean come on?!!?!? It’s a natural resource. Cloning consists on replicating living organisms, oil is not alive, and neither is your car. Just take a chemistry course…..the picture would then be clearer.
References :
November 16th, 2009 at 4:09 pm
they did that in germany in ww2 fellow. it is a little better than natural oil but it costs twice as much. it is worth it to me.
what else don’t you know? you work on that education lad.
References :
November 16th, 2009 at 4:26 pm
One word.
ETHANOL, look up biofuels
References :
November 16th, 2009 at 4:38 pm
Why would we waste the time and money to try to "clone" oil? The money and time would be better used to develop alternate sources of energy and replace oil/petroleum altogether. Fossil fuels are so toxic to the environment. Besides, I can’t think of a better, more useful pursuit for scientists than genetics. Clearly, you must come from a very healthy family and have never had to watch someone you love suffer a painful, debilitating disease such as multiple sclerosis or schizophrenia. If we can rid the world of these types of illnesses, why on earth wouldn’t we want to?
References :
November 16th, 2009 at 5:06 pm
I’m not sure whether this applies to you, but what do think is useful.
One of my students asked a similar question. ‘Why can’t science do something useful about solving our problems’. I pointed out that she spends her life on a mobile phone, or plugged into her I-pod, dressed in synthetic fibres. She spends time on her PC communicating with her friends in a centrally heated home under electric light and is transported around the world by automobile and aeroplane.
What else do you want science to give you?
Now you want science to solve the problem of your energy profligate lifestyle.
It is possible to synthesise hydrocarbon chains, the basis of oil. However to achieve this with any rapidity (nature takes millions of years) needs more energy put in than you can hope to get out.
For efficiency you therefore need to start with something like glucose which has carbon and hydrogen already in it. But that means using land suitable for growing food to grow bio-fuel crops to supply the raw materials. If you don’t think this will be a problem look at how current would prices for wheat and corn have risen lately as bio-fuels become more popular.
If we as a species want to conserve oil stocks we need to cut down on our energy use rather than swap a problem of oil shortages for one of food shortages or spend more effort on alterative energy.
References :
Scientist
November 16th, 2009 at 5:31 pm
Ok so oil isn’t livling so can’t be cloned. It was made from things that lived many millenia ago but has broken down to such a basic level there isnt really any of their DNA left in it to clone. Also we don’t need exactly those creatures; oil could be made from a number of organisms, and is still forming now as things that die are being slowly crushed under the tomes of soil and rock that form over them on sea beds etc, it just takes a hell of a long time!
Artificially crushing biological matter in a few weeks/ months in the exact conditions as were used to make oil over thousands of years would use up far more energy than we would get out of the oil at the end, making it pointless.
Oil is essentially just made up of 2 types of atom; Hydrogen and Carbon. The carbon is joined together in long chains and the Hydrogen is attached to them on the outside. The bonds between atoms are extremely complex- if we were advanced enough to simply be pushing atomes together to make new things we’d all make gold and be rich.
It is the breaking of these bonds that relseases the energy we need to power cars, heat water etc. So forming these bonds would have to take up a huge amount of energy and the end result would be that we don’t actually get any energy out of the whole process.
I agree with what alot of people are saying- finding renewable sources is a much better use of our time. The combustion of fossil fuels is killing our planet but i still have hope that we can find another clean energy source like nuclear fusion.
References :