alt.hn

4/30/2026 at 1:54:20 PM

How an oil refinery works

 https://www.construction-physics.com/p/how-an-oil-refinery-works

by chmaynard

5/1/2026 at 2:11:33 AM

About thirty years ago, I was given a personal tour of an oil refinery in Yokohama, Japan. I was doing freelance translation then for a Japanese oil company. I mentioned to one of my contacts there that I would be interested in actually seeing the sort of equipment I was translating documents about, and they arranged a visit for me.

Two things stand out in my memory:

Even though the refinery was in full operation, we saw no other people as we walked and drove around the facility. The only staff we saw were in the control room, and they didn’t seem very busy.

The other was the almost complete lack of odors. That particular refinery is close to an upscale residential area, and the company had to be careful to keep sulfurous and other gases from escaping in order to avoid complaints and possibly fines. Some of the documentation I was translating then was about their system for detecting and preventing odor releases. As I recall, they had people walk around the perimeter and local neighborhoods regularly, just sniffing for smells from the plant. On the day we were there, I noticed petroleum odors only when we were close to one of the refining towers; otherwise, the only smell was from the nearby Tokyo Bay.

by tkgally

5/1/2026 at 9:44:43 AM

Wow. I grew up in Houston, and I assumed that the smell from these plants was pretty-much unavoidable. It's shocking (and I guess not all that surprising) that this is a choice that manufacturers make.

I guess it really does depend on the economic power of the surrounding communities.

by jyounker

5/1/2026 at 2:10:07 PM

When? I don't know Houston, but I recall in MN a refinery that made the whole area stink for 10 miles around. 15 years latter I went by and the air was great even when driving buy the main gate. Soon after my brother in law got a job at that refinery and he told me that for a years they decided the EPA fines for releases were a cost of going business, but when management decided to clean up they were quickly able to root cause and fix all the issues that caused "releases." Houston can clean up as well, but since I've never been to that city I can't say if things have changed.

by bluGill

5/1/2026 at 11:13:25 PM

It's not like there is one chemical plant. The plants start on the east side of town, and they pretty much go all the way to Beaumont. The night-time view Eastward from the top of the ship channel bridge is best described as "Hell at Christmas time". Lights and flares stretching to the horizon.

There are a few times I've been in Pasadena (the town East of Houston), and I've just started retching from the smell. I don't understand how anyone can live there (and my father did for many years.)

by jyounker

5/1/2026 at 9:50:18 AM

Where I live there's been a long running saga around flaring: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/topics/c6wk2ml6gwzt

When it's lit at night you can see it from up to twenty miles away. Closer in you can hear it. Things have gone back and forwards on mitigations, fines, industrial disputes, and in the end the plant is closing.

by pjc50

5/1/2026 at 1:51:45 PM

I grew up in Louisiana in Cancer Alley[1]. At night, we rarely got to see stars because the flares gave the sky an orange glow.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cancer_Alley

by munificent

5/1/2026 at 7:24:25 PM

You might have smelled Baton Rouge before the Clean Air Act of 1990 kicked in.

And that was long after the emission cutbacks of the 1970's had taken place, back when it was really rank. But the EPA had not been around very long at that early point.

Driving across the state of Louisiana you could feel better stopping to nap in the car for a few hours in a far-away mosquito-infested rest stop next to a low-lying bayou during a flash-flood warning, rather than get a hotel room in the state capital, it smelled so toxic.

Don't ask me how I know . . .

by fuzzfactor

5/1/2026 at 1:30:02 PM

When we lived in Edinburgh our flat had a fantastic view north - which included the spire of Fettes College and occasionally the flare from Mossmorran - which together look quite like Barad-dûr and Mount Doom...

by arethuza

5/1/2026 at 12:23:37 PM

I have a basic understanding of the economics behind flaring, but from the outside it seems like such a waste of energy & hydrocarbons!

by consumer451

5/1/2026 at 11:15:33 AM

Likewise, a lot of the complaints people have about data centers are engineering choices. If companies can get away with it, they'll do it the cheap way.

by tgsovlerkhgsel

5/1/2026 at 1:17:53 PM

What could be needed is internalization of external costs. If you release chemicals that cause problems, charge the polluter, and send the charges to those affected.

On a global scale this breaks down, because governments value the lives of non-citizens orders of magnitude below the lives of their own citizens. The US will spend millions to save one expected life at home; it will avoid spending thousands to save one expected life in a third world country.

by pfdietz

5/2/2026 at 4:14:54 PM

Polluter pays models are becoming more common. Idk exactly how they function but in Ontario Canada they just switched from a municipal tax funded WM model to a private consortium funded model.

Often the pushback on these "polluter taxes" is that they increase the costs of downstream goods and therefore the consumer pays it anyway, but I think when the link of how the consumer is "already paying" is made clear (as was easy in the case of municipal WM taxes) it's also easier to see how the costs would actually reduce in the long term (bc for "management" this is another line item they can optimize via reduced pollution rather than some vague cost to society via property taxes)

by BigGreenJorts

5/1/2026 at 6:35:18 PM

The problem with "costs" is that when companies are finally faced with steep fines or lose a lawsuit, they would often declare bankruptcy or a spin-off a division and dump all the obligations to the spun-off company which would go bankrupt. The only thing that works, I believe, is the threat of criminal penalties with actual jail time.

by rawgabbit

5/1/2026 at 7:28:39 PM

That's a good point, so laws requiring bonds or insurance would also be needed. This could be an incentive towards at least limiting the worst case outcomes; if those are too large insurance may not be available.

by pfdietz

5/1/2026 at 3:33:27 AM

Sounds about right. I work in the field contracting to a lot of plants and once they are built they don’t need a ton of people there. It’s really if they are doing shutdowns that there are a lot of people.

by hyraki

5/1/2026 at 6:38:25 PM

The odor point is interesting. I think a lot of people mentally picture refineries as visibly dirty and smelly by default, but a plant near dense urban/residential areas probably has very strong incentives to be almost boringly well-contained

by KolibriFly

5/2/2026 at 4:29:13 PM

If people from Houston in this thread are to be believed, those incentives don't seem to be strong enough in some places.

by BigGreenJorts

5/1/2026 at 6:26:38 PM

Impressive. I had to perform a site survey at a refinery for an engineering firm I worked for in the US. It was situated outside of a poor/working class, predominantly minority town. The smell hit us in the car as we got off the interstate. The windows were rolled up and the A/C was blasting (it was the middle of summer). The air was hazy miles from the plant and stank of petroleum. It looked like a dystopian video game with a sepia-toned filter over what felt like a deserted town. The noises on site went from bad to horrific (with signage indicating permanent hearing damage if you spent any time in the area for more than a minute to traverse the space while wearing earplugs and headphones). And the suddenly sweet smell of benzene from the (apparently broken for a number of undisclosed years) recovery system when the wind shifted.

by htek

4/30/2026 at 6:18:43 PM

My father actually works at the Jamnagar refinery. I was bought up in there seeing and visiting the refinery as families are allowed for some trips every now and then. I learnt a lot of this process of refining out of curiosity of what my father did and it was just so cool. The refinery in context is the world's largest since more than a decade and seeing it with your own eyes, it feels like a wonder of the world for real. Truly marvellous outcome of perseverance and engineering. Loved to see this blog on the HN homepage, its very well written

by diginova

5/1/2026 at 6:23:08 AM

It’s worth mentioning here - the founder (Dhiru bhai) of Reliance used to pump gas in Dubai and that’s where he got the dream to start his own refinery one day. Dream one side, but just going about setting up such a giant production facility at an enormous scale is nothing short of an extraordinary achievement. Pretty sure he had overflow of grit, commitment, and all around strength, and of course high dose of highest level of talent.

by mandeepj

5/1/2026 at 10:35:11 AM

Nah, he did it the old-fashioned way - by corruption and dirty dealing, then his family suppressed the people reporting the truth:

https://archive.ph/i3FWt

by damnitbuilds

5/1/2026 at 2:35:10 PM

They're still playing above the law and read anti-corruption regulations as "how to" manuals.

by caminante

5/1/2026 at 10:22:15 AM

Any source for this claim that Ambani started his career as a gas pumper? Or are do you mean someone else?

by Gud

5/1/2026 at 3:05:56 AM

My father worked in the HPCL refinery in Chembur. I got to go visit on Republic day when I was a kid, but they stopped doing visits. He worked in the distillation tower at first, but then moved into diesel desulphurization. I wish it wasn't but its a dangerous job, and he narrowly escaped several accidents, including a horrible naphta fire that took many lives.

by spot5010

5/1/2026 at 2:52:47 AM

Wow, I contracted in Jamnagar for Reliance building software back in 1999-2000. It was fun building a web interface to report on their IoT (not called IoT back then) devices - sensors, meters and whatnots through a CORBA/C++ interface. That was very advanced for those days.

by throwaway7783

4/30/2026 at 6:54:33 PM

Would love to hear stories about it. Reliance is working on replicating the Jamnagar refinery approach in America [0] now as well.

It's interesting to both see Asian majors and EPCs increasingly dominating the petrochemical chain as well as see an industry that the US used to lead in increasingly become dependent those partners.

What a massive shift in just 25 years.

[0] - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-03-11/reliance-...

by alephnerd

5/1/2026 at 1:29:02 AM

Not really a big deal. The numbers are cumulative. The Reliance Brownsville Texas facility will only process 60 million barrels per year. That's 1% of annual US refining capacity.

> It's interesting to both see Asian majors and EPCs increasingly dominating the petrochemical chain

You really don't want downstream in your backyard, though. The environmental oversight in these countries is...less. Meanwhile, it's a hyper competitive industry with low margins so adding new capacity only works in places with cheap labor and less red tape.

by caminante

5/1/2026 at 10:17:42 AM

[flagged]

by alephnerd

5/1/2026 at 5:15:29 PM

“especially given that a net new refinery hasn't been built in the US in 50 years.”

Existing large refineries have done some massive expansion projects in the last couple of decades, adding the equivalent of a several new refineries. It is often easier to do this than build a new grass roots refinery.

Example projects:

MPC Garyville +180 MBD (2009) Motiva Port Arthur +325 MBD (2012) XOM Beaumont +250 MBD (2023)

by flumpmaster

5/2/2026 at 12:10:38 AM

There are many topics where you come across as an over confident plank too.

So I agree - delete your account. Ciao

by eiee

5/2/2026 at 2:21:06 PM

[dead]

by rmunn

5/1/2026 at 12:07:59 PM

Hey.

You're obviously having a bad couple days, which seems to have nothing to do with this discussion or HN. I hope you can recover and feel better.

My point remains that Reliance isn't investing 300B in a refinery as you so claim.

>India's Reliance is also investing $300B

That's a cumulative offtake figure used in hyperbolic, Trump-style headlines.

by caminante

4/30/2026 at 11:46:56 PM

When all you can produce are finance bros this is the result.

by mlinhares

5/1/2026 at 1:23:37 PM

Wow, I had seen the inside of the refinery still partly under construction way back in 2003 when I was barely out of my teens.

by newyankee

5/1/2026 at 6:45:10 PM

That must be an incredible place to grow up around

by KolibriFly

4/30/2026 at 3:38:04 PM

As someone with no real-world petrochemistry experience, but much gaming experience, I was very surprised how familiar the crude oil processing diagram looks. Factorio and GregTech are two prime examples of fairly realistic oil processing lines (probably as accurate as any game would reasonably try to be).

by shhsshs

4/30/2026 at 4:27:54 PM

I was thinking the same thing! Having played through Factorio and a fair amount of GregTech really reframed my viewpoint on energy production that a huge part of the benefit of fossil fuels is the byproducts, not just raw energy output.

by FumblingBear

4/30/2026 at 5:14:31 PM

All the more reason to save fossil fuels instead of burning them for energy.

by triceratops

5/1/2026 at 1:05:48 AM

>triceratops

Hurry up and become crude oil.

by protocolture

5/1/2026 at 10:41:50 AM

Very good.

Why I still come here.

by damnitbuilds

5/1/2026 at 6:03:35 PM

Lol

by triceratops

5/1/2026 at 6:52:35 PM

Factory games are weirdly good at teaching the "shape" of these systems

by KolibriFly

5/1/2026 at 4:07:14 PM

ABSOLUTELY first thing that popped into my head, too.

Fantastic read.

by addybojangles

4/30/2026 at 3:14:11 PM

The article is quick to point out the huge role of oil in the modern energy mix. It also fails to note that most of the energy ends up us waste heat. The so called "Primary energy fallacy". Other than that, it's a great read.

by t_tsonev

4/30/2026 at 3:54:01 PM

To me (as someone who has worked on oil rigs, oil pipelines, oil refineries, and chemical plants), crude oil seems far more valuable as a material than as an energy source. It feels like a damned shame that we're still combusting so much of it for heat rather than reserving it for physical materials.

I understand the ways that economics are very important, and that the economics still currently favor burning a large fraction of the crude oil. But I also know that the right kinds of investments and a bit of luck can often change those economics, and that would be nice to see.

by nerdsniper

4/30/2026 at 4:54:37 PM

We can always make polymers and HydroCarbons in general from other sources if we have energy abundance. We literally can just capture the CO2 we emitted from burning fossil and make it plastics.

Of course this does not make sense in a world where we do not have enough energy to even keep datacenters open.

Edit: To clarify, I do not propose burning fossils to capture CO2 and make plastics. I am a Thermo Laws believer.

by whatever1

5/1/2026 at 2:59:56 AM

Methane >> carbon dioxide as a polyethylene/linear polymers feed stock. Double bonded oxygens are hella higher affinity than four loose hydrogens. Also as pointed out, even in a concentrated combustion effluent stack CO2 is low concentration at atmospheric pressure.

I don’t know about methane as an aromatic/hybridized ring building block. Anything is possible with chemical synthesis but is it energy feasible.

There’s always plant hydrocarbon feed stocks but I think using arable land to make plastics is dumb and also carbon intensive. (I do wear cotton clothing tho because you need to make trade offs).

by ok_computer

4/30/2026 at 9:30:38 PM

That sounds like a hack from late-game Factorio: pollute enough that you can just pull iron filings right out of the air. Everyone wins! Except the meatbags who need to breathe the air …

by sonofhans

4/30/2026 at 11:37:20 PM

Assuming the damn rain does not throw your iron down to the ground before it reaches its destination. But then again you have rivers as a plan B.

by whatever1

5/1/2026 at 1:49:24 AM

The problem with carbon capture from air is the low carbon concentration. Try to do the math for how much air you need to process to get even one barrel of oil worth of hydrocarbons from a DAC process.

by adrianN

5/1/2026 at 4:04:21 AM

The answer to this problem as it's currently being pursued is renewable carbon feedstocks. Growing things like canola on marginal land, harvesting it and turning it into biofuels and LCLFs (low carbon liquid fuels) using renewable solar/wind energy.

It's not a solved problem, though. Truly renewable carbon feedstocks have to source their carbon from the air, not the soil, which has to be continually measured. Land selection for carbon feedstock projects has to ensure it doesn't induce land-use change in other locations due to displacing other things like food production, etc. Otherwise the emissions and environmental harm from those downstream effects have to be included in the carbon positive/negative calculations for the project.

by aethr

5/1/2026 at 1:27:08 PM

Remarkable amounts of carbon are available in waste streams, even if you exclude from the count plastics and other petrochemicals. Paper, cardboard, wood, natural fibers, carbon in sewage and waste food, and especially farm waste (parts of plants not otherwise consumed). Some of the latter is needed for soil conditioning, but most of that is from decay of roots, not stuff left at the surface.

All this can be extended by addition of hydrogen. Naively, if you process a carbohydrate into hydrocarbons, about half the carbon is lost as CO2. Adding hydrogen allows the oxygen to be carried off as water rather than CO2 (or, the CO2 to be converted to hydrocarbons and water in a second step.) Hydrogen currently comes from natural gas but that will have to change anyway, with the hydrogen being produced by (for example) electrolysis of water.

by pfdietz

4/30/2026 at 11:36:09 PM

There is way more carbon in the ground as rocks than as oil. If you have plenty of energy, the difference is quite manageable.

Besides, as somebody already pointed out, there is that CO2 on the air that we actually want to get rid of. It's nothing compared to the rocks, and a little harder to get, but getting it first would improve things a lot.

by marcosdumay

5/1/2026 at 2:51:16 AM

The carbon isn’t valuable elementally as much as it is structurally and molecularly. I mean that as aromatic rings and other ready made building blocks that conveniently can be fractionally separated with pressure and temperature conditions in a column as a gross generalization. All of this is energy intensive but much less so than building up from three atom molecules with strong bonds. And much much less energy intensive than separating a trace % molecule from the atmosphere at low atmospheric pressure and translating that to complex molecules.

There needs to be more appreciation for the laws of thermodynamics when discussing technology. Everything is not a 1-dimensional reduced abstraction.

by ok_computer

5/1/2026 at 5:50:28 AM

[flagged]

by idiotsecant

5/1/2026 at 1:30:24 PM

The density of carbon in seawater is also higher much than it is in air. The relative concentration of bicarbonate in seawater is a few times lower than in air (as % by mass), but because water is nearly 1000x the density of air the true amount of bicarbonate there per volume is much higher.

by pfdietz

5/1/2026 at 5:04:25 AM

> there is that CO2 on the air that we actually want to get rid of

For this reason I have long been slightly baffled that development of compostable/biodegradable bio-based plastics is such a priority in materials research. Sure, it's interesting in the very long run, but for the foreseeable future, converting atmospheric CO2 (via plants as an initial step) into a long lived, inert material that can just be buried after an initial use seems like a benefit.

by tesseract

5/1/2026 at 7:38:01 PM

Biodegradable is only one type of degradation. Some of those compounds break down over time, or with exposure to uv or random stuff in the ground, into nasty compounds that you certainly don't want entering the water cycle or food cycle. An additional attribute of biodegradable therefore is: keeps (non CO2 pollution down).

In addition, things that biodegrade don't immediately just turn into CO2. Things like biomass (that is everything alive and dead that isn't decomposed) use a lot of that carbon. A significant fraction of the carbon in rotting stuff doesn't end up in the atmosphere for decades or longer. The carbon cycle isn't just "CO2 becomes plants which become CO2"... there's a lot more steps in between (for example, next time you eat... you are a direct next step!). Some of those steps take a very, very long time.

by sophacles

4/30/2026 at 4:02:54 PM

> It also fails to note that most of the energy ends up us waste heat.

I've heard the statistic that 40% of the total oil pumped out of the ground just to transporting oil. We use almost half just to move it to and fro before even using it.

Is this accurate?

by throw0101c

4/30/2026 at 6:45:30 PM

This can't be accurate.

Let's say a barrel of oil travels 15,000 km from Saudi Arabia to Texas, gets refined, gets shipped another 10,000 km to Europe, then the last 1,000 km overland by truck.

This reasonably well sourced Reddit post [0] says big oil tankers burn 0.1% of their fuel per 1,000 km, smaller ones a bit more. Say 0.2% on aggregate, that's 5% for the whole journey, 10% because the ship is empty half the time.

From the same source, a truck burns about 3% per 1,000 km. This seems too high: for a 40,000 kg loaded truck that's less than 1 kmpl or 2.5 mpg. But let's believe it, double it for empty journeys, and we still only get 16%.

I used very conservative estimates here: surely most oil doesn't travel anywhere near that far.

Alternative thought experiment: look at the traffic on the highway. If this were true, even neglecting oil burnt for heating or electricity or aviation, you'd expect 40% of the vehicles to be tanker trucks.

[0] https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2jozd7/e...

by dmurray

4/30/2026 at 9:43:52 PM

> Say 0.2% on aggregate, that's 5% for the whole journey, 10% because the ship is empty half the time.

Fuel saves from slow steaming and being empty are massive.

> If this were true, even neglecting oil burnt for heating or electricity or aviation, you'd expect 40% of the vehicles to be tanker trucks.

The US has a lot of domestic pipelines [1], and a lot of the remainder is done by train [2] because trains are the most efficient way to transport bulk goods over extremely long distances.

[1] https://www.bts.gov/geography/geospatial-portal/us-petroleum...

[2] https://www.aar.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/AAR-US-Rail-C...

by mschuster91

4/30/2026 at 7:18:15 PM

> you'd expect 40% of the vehicles to be tanker trucks.

I’d expect tanker trucks to carry far more fuel than the typical vehicle.

by sokoloff

5/1/2026 at 9:51:10 PM

The energy may go into net processing of the oil, and measures such as EROI or EROEI give some indication of this. But transporting oil itself is ridiculously easy. A supertanker can move a cargo halfway around the world for roughly 1% the energy contained in that cargo.

Much more energy expenditure comes from refining itself, or in the case of shale and tar sands, in heating vast volumes of rock or sand to liberate the (usually very heavy, thick, and "sour") tar-like oil contained within.

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EROEI>

by dredmorbius

5/1/2026 at 1:17:38 AM

Say a tanker truck has a roughly 300 gallon fuel tank and a 10,000 gallon payload tank (per google). Thats roughly 3% loss to cross a lot of the US, which is by no means insignificant but assuming ships are not any worse and the pipeline to the ship is minimal, around a manageable 6% loss.

by porknubbins

5/1/2026 at 9:52:06 AM

Trucks need a lot more infrastructure in a lot more places than ships, though. I guess that's not often factored in.

by ygra

4/30/2026 at 10:02:31 PM

I also don’t have a source, but I have heard that 15% of global energy is dedicated to handling petroleum (extracting, transporting, refining) which feels like a plausible number.

by 0cf8612b2e1e

5/1/2026 at 7:56:18 AM

I very much doubt that number. Maybe it was referring to 40% of the price of oil for consumers comes from the stages after pumping?

by victorbjorklund

4/30/2026 at 6:33:16 PM

This doesn't math out to me just based on what I know of energy consumption numbers.

by foota

4/30/2026 at 6:00:05 PM

It must be way higher if you really got into it

i.e. A friend that works on rigs is flown to and from rigs from anywhere on earth every month, then choppers out to the rig and back. Same for everyone that works on the rigs.

by testing22321

5/1/2026 at 7:59:30 AM

The helicopter fuel is a drop in the oil ocean. You can just check this but checking how much oil that rig produces per month. How many flights the helicopter does every month and the amount of oil needed for it. It’s gonna be a drop in the bucket. Otherwise it would not be profitable to drill for oil.

by victorbjorklund

4/30/2026 at 6:36:49 PM

And? Given how much typical oil rig produces this would not be a serious part of its production.

by matkoniecz

4/30/2026 at 6:34:35 PM

Sounds really dubious to me. Tankers and pipelines are really efficient.

I would not believe it at all without source.

Maybe someone got confused by "transportation" altogether being major consumer?

by matkoniecz

5/1/2026 at 10:12:02 PM

Most of any fuel used for motive power ends up as waste heat simply due to the inherent (in)efficiencies of the Carnot cycle: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnot_cycle>.

Where liquid hydrocarbons (not necessarily petroleum, but also biofuels and synfuels) have clear wins are:

- Overall energy density. By both mass and volume, little short of nuclear power exceeds this. Battery storage is roughly 1/10th the density of liquid hydrocarbons by mass.

- Handling ease. Liquid hydrocarbons, particularly kerosene (jet aviation fuel), diesel, and fuel oil are quite mild-mannered. Even the rather more rambunctious petrol is safe enough for ordinary civilians to dispense, store, and handle, for the most part. Liquid hydrocarbons can be stored at ambient conditions in simple containers, are largely non-toxic, and can be piped or flowed readily between locations.

- Storage stability. There are very few energy options which are as stable in storage for days to years or more.

- Ease of utilisation. Electric motors are arguably simpler, but other options, including direct (as in on-board) nuclear are not. Again, untrained civilians can use small to large internal combustion engines readily.

In particular, there are usage modes, most notably air, marine, and mobile / remote-location applications, where liquid fuels are quite difficult to substitute for. Ground-based and inland-waterway transport can be electrified, but long-distance freight and passenger travel whether by sea or air not so much. Efficiency considerations pale next to the handling and utilisation characteristics.

I'm not defending fossil fuels, and again the arguments apply equally to liquid hydrocarbons of any origin. But given the properties, prevalence, and low cost (however illusory that may be) of petroleum-derived hydrocarbon fuels, they're not trivially substituted for in all applications.

by dredmorbius

5/1/2026 at 7:01:28 PM

Primary energy comparisons can make fossil fuels look more "irreplaceable" than they are, because so much of the input energy is lost as heat before it becomes useful work

by KolibriFly

5/1/2026 at 10:12:16 PM

It also fails to point out the temporal fallacy, that energy that is available only at certain times, and not reliably so, is a substitute for energy that can be reliably and safely stored for decades and used when needed, not when generated.

by tuatoru

4/30/2026 at 3:45:59 PM

[flagged]

by tmellon2

4/30/2026 at 5:26:48 PM

I find it amazing how "naphtha" can mean crude oil, diesel, kerosene, gasoline or kind of white spirit.

EDIT: oh and it comes from Akkadian! how many Akkadian words do you know?

by yread

4/30/2026 at 11:23:06 PM

And RP-1 Rocket Fuel and Jet-A Jet Fuel are both Kerosene!

by TheJoeMan

5/1/2026 at 1:33:37 PM

That etymology is fascinating, thanks.

by pfdietz

4/30/2026 at 4:02:20 PM

The article does a good job of showing how a typical barrel of oil is converted into a dozen or more distinct usable products.

It would be helpful to also have a chart that shows how much gasoline or diesel as a percentage of each barrel is produced. It would be a bit variable, since not all crude oil is the same, but I think it would be close for most of it.

Some people think when diesel and regular gas prices diverge, that they should just be able to produce one at the expense of the other; but the distillation process shows that they are fundamentally different.

by didgetmaster

4/30/2026 at 4:17:17 PM

You can to vary the split of the output by cracking heavier hydrocarbons into lighter. So it's not a fixed fraction, but driven by both demand and cost of processing.

by kryptiskt

5/1/2026 at 1:46:06 PM

And also by isomerization and alkylation. Some of the processes involved in that involve rather heroic chemistry, using things like superacids to ionize hydrocarbons.

by pfdietz

5/1/2026 at 5:57:15 PM

>how much gasoline or diesel as a percentage of each barrel is produced. It would be a bit variable, since not all crude oil is the same

It is extremely variable, crude oils are amazingly diverse.

by fuzzfactor

4/30/2026 at 8:07:19 PM

I remember driving by a refinery years ago and it had two or three towers with big flames that were just burning off waste gas. This seemed wasteful to me. If it can burn, then it seems like it could be used for something productive.

Do they still just burn off that gas?

by didgetmaster

4/30/2026 at 8:43:17 PM

Usually, when refineries flare something like that it's because what they are burning is not suitable for use, and making it suitable would cost more than the product would sell for.

Often methane as a by-product of oil production is flared, because the amount is small enough that it's not worth setting up processing plants and supply chains for. Other times, the fluid is heavily contaminated by e.g. sulfur compounds, and would be costly to purify. Still other times the production of the fluid is unreliable or intermittent, and cannot sustain a continuous production process.

Although, flare gas recovery systems exist nowadays to make use of these waste gases, commonly for local power production for the refinery itself.

by sushibowl

4/30/2026 at 8:51:46 PM

That's why plastic bags are so cheap -- ethanol is a byproduct, but you earn more if you discard it and sell only oil.

But the burned up ethanol would be perfectly suitable for products.

Nowadays there are some regulations to prevent that, so they may sell up ethanol at negative prices sometimes.

UPDATE: Ethene, not ethanol.

by deepsun

4/30/2026 at 9:32:40 PM

You wrote ethanol (C₂H₆O), but do you mean ethylene/ethene (C₂H₄)? Polyethylene (PE) is a very common plastic, such as HDPE, LDPE, PET.

by nayuki

4/30/2026 at 9:33:34 PM

Yea while $ viability is true, it's better to think of as

1) using some potentially useful products as fuel to burning off things you don't want and

2) the buffer to keep non-steady inflows in a suitable ready condition for steady-state processing. (When real world steady-state is less than ideal.)

Number 2 is really what dominates the equation, as shutting in gas sources or even just turning off pipelines is incredibly more complicated than just an 'off' switch.

And turning back on is even more complicated. In the case of wells, once you shut in, turning back on may never result in the same level of production as before.

by beerandt

5/1/2026 at 1:37:42 PM

There are large storage facilities for natural gas (underground, often in depleted gas fields or solution mined from salt formations) that buffer changes in consumption. These enable pipelines to operate efficiently even when demand is going up and down with the seasons.

by pfdietz

5/1/2026 at 1:35:52 PM

> Although, flare gas recovery systems exist nowadays to make use of these waste gases, commonly for local power production for the refinery itself.

Cogeneration like that is huge. When PURPA was passed in 1978 requiring utilities to buy cogenerated power it was a major reason for the end of the first wave of nuclear power plant construction in the US.

by pfdietz

4/30/2026 at 8:37:25 PM

It's usually a small amount of waste, and handling gas is very different from distillate.

You'd need to either liquify that gas or collect it to a pipeline in order to make it useful. I remember reading that modern refineries make use of the gases instead of flaring them though I'm not sure how.

by the-grump

5/1/2026 at 1:40:50 PM

One place where gas is flared off is landfills. Methane is produced by anaerobic decay and must be burned to reduce its climate impact.

One unfortunate consequence of this is bird injury, particularly raptors. They like to perch on the flare stack, and when it flares to life... if they are lucky, only their feathers are damaged and they can be rehabbed. This can probably be ameliorated by design of the stack to avoid perching, but that isn't always done.

by pfdietz

5/1/2026 at 2:15:31 PM

I know biogas digesters exist, but I am unfamiliar with the economics of such systems. It seems like a better way to deal with the methane than flaring it off, but cheap natural gas in the US might make it uneconomical to do so. I’d be curious if anyone has any insight into that.

by quickthrowman

5/1/2026 at 2:20:51 PM

People have looked at microturbines to burn landfill gas. It's not something one could just put into a natural gas pipeline as it's about 1/2 CO2. Even in microturbines it requires cleanup because of cosmetics. In a landfill, cosmetics decay to produce volatile organosilicon compounds, and when these burn they deposit silicon dioxide slag on turbine components.

by pfdietz

5/1/2026 at 5:20:36 PM

Renewable natural gas / bio gas is alive and growing in the US. The economics are supported by California Low Carbon Fuel Standard credits.

Sources include captured landfill gas and bio digesters processing animal manure.

Captured bio gas is injected into adjacent natural gas transmission pipe lines and commingled with chemically identical fossil natural gas.

by flumpmaster

5/1/2026 at 5:26:32 PM

The CO2 has to be scrubbed out. This is not necessarily all negative, since if the CO2 is injected underground for sequestration it makes biogas carbon negative.

by pfdietz

4/30/2026 at 8:50:14 PM

They flare to quickly burn off excess gases as a safety mechanism rather than anything else. Venting gas into the air would be much worse.

by JohnKemeny

5/1/2026 at 4:30:37 AM

Can't that burning be converted into energy like boiling water to turn a turbine to generate energy? Or not worth the payoff?

by noisy_boy

4/30/2026 at 8:33:27 PM

the way it was explained to me is if you see the flares then something is wrong. It may not be catastrophic or anything serious but something isn't going according to plan. Because you're right, why burn it off when you can sell it?

by chasd00

4/30/2026 at 9:37:59 PM

It generally means something is out of balance, which doesn't necessarily mean something is wrong. Usually not.

But if something is wrong, yea you can bet they will be burning off with big flares.

by beerandt

4/30/2026 at 4:09:43 PM

If you're interested in how the oil industry as a whole operates and why, Oil 101 is an interesting read.

by noer

4/30/2026 at 11:47:48 PM

By Morgan Downey?

by gf263

4/30/2026 at 6:11:24 PM

Highly recommend

by balderdash

4/30/2026 at 11:02:15 PM

This doesn't explain anything, but it's a drive-around tour of a now-demolished refinery in Lockport IL in 1989 that operated for 80 years. It's also interesting because it's vintage VHS footage with a quirky French soundtrack. To me it scratches the itch of found footage and backrooms (sorta), plus shows just how massive these operations are.

https://youtu.be/QAkzUAM_ylA?si=VPQuoe7qM_XbbCTh

by gosub100

4/30/2026 at 2:27:05 PM

This is a really good overview of oil refining. I'll add a few things.

1. The light and heavy distinction is covered by a measure called API gravity [1]. The higher the API gravity, the lighter the crude;

2. Refiners mix different crude types depending on what kind of refined products they want to produce;

3. Heavy crude tends to be less valuable although it's essential for some applications. Lighter crude produces generally more valuable products like gasoline, diesel and avgas. But heavy crude goes into construction (eg roads) and fuel for ships (ie bunkers));

4. Most refineries in the US are very old and are very polluting. They don't need to be this way. A new refiner would produce vastly less pollution but they're almost impossible to get permission to build now. One exception is the Southern Rock refinery currently being built in Oklahoma [2], which will be powered by largely renewable energy and produce a lot less emissions than an equivalent older refinery with the same capacity;

5. There are different blends of gasoline that the US produces. The biggest is so-called summer and winter blends. What's the differene? Additives are added to summer blends (in particular) to increase the boiling point so less of the gasoline is in gas form because that produces more smog;

6. California uses their own blends so in 2021-2022 when CA gas went to $8+, it wasn't just "gouging". It doesn't really work that way. CA requires a particular blend that only CA refineries produce so it's simple supply and demand as no new capacity gets added to CA refineries and demand goes up with population growth.

The reason for the CA blend goes back to the 80s and 90s when smog was a much bigger problem. Better vehicle emissions standards since then as well as improvements in the blends the rest of the country uses have largely made the CA blend obsolete so CA is really paying $1+/gallon more for literally no reason; and

7. California doesn't build pipelines so is entirely dependent on seaborne oil imports (~75%) despite the US being a net energy exporter. Last I checked, ~20% of that foreign oil comes through the Strait (from Iraq, mostly) so, interestingly, CA is more vulnerable to the Strait of Hormuz closure than the rest of the country.

I guess I'll add a disclaimer: I'm very much pro-renewables, particular solar. I think solar is the future. But we currently live in a world that has huge demand for oil and no alternatives for many of those uses (eg diesel, plastics, construction, industrial, avgas) so we should at least be smart about how we go forward.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/API_gravity

[2]: https://www.oklahoman.com/story/news/2023/05/24/5-6-billion-...

by jmyeet

4/30/2026 at 3:24:49 PM

> they're almost impossible to get permission to build now

While I do agree there's a ton of regulatory hurdle to cross to build a new refinery, lots of interviews with oil executives have stated the economics of building a new refinery aren't always great. The reasons why they aren't building isn't necessarily because the regulatory hurdles are too high, its that they don't think they'll end up making any money building them. The future demand of many refined products are uncertain, adding a lot of new capacity is quite a capital risk.

I'd love to see a lot of our ancient refineries shut down and replaced with far more modern designs, but the oil industry isn't going to do it because it probably won't be profitable.

It will be interesting to see the economics of these few new refineries coming online actually play out in the coming years.

by vel0city

4/30/2026 at 4:08:51 PM

Well-meaning legislation (eg CEQA in CA) is effectively weaponized by NIMBYs who have outsized power to add years if not a decade or more to something getting built. There is also an overly naive, even performative opposition to anything fossil fuel related without having a substitute (again, I say this as a particularly pro-solar person). This adds significantly to costs.

I'm also anti-nuclear because it's too expensive, not as safe as advocates make out and the waste problem is not even remotely solved despites all the claims to the contrary. But it's also true that the same kind of anti-development tactics used against refineries are effectively used against nuclear plants such that it takes 15+ years to build a nuclear plant and the costs balloon as a result.

But there's also strong direct evidence contrary to your claim: the new refineries in Oklahoma and Texas. Why are they getting built if "the oil industry isn't going to do it"?

I'll go even further than this: if private industry won't build new refineries, the government should. In fact, that's my preferred outcome anyway.

by jmyeet

4/30/2026 at 4:20:29 PM

> if private industry won't build new refineries, the government should. In fact, that's my preferred outcome anyway.

maybe in some non-literal sense of financing them, which is what the government can (or will) offer to energy development generally. also there are numerous credits and tax favors for energy concerns.

on the flip side, how much demand for oil products is driven by ordinary consumers? some estimates say about 40% of extracted oil - it all eventually get refined, right? so the refining distinction is meaningless - in the US is refined into gasoline that goes directly into light duty vehicles (90% of all gas is light duty!), i.e., joe schmo public driving around.

if you are looking for government levers, your instincts seem right to reach for CEQA and NIMBYs. in the sense that you are looking at the bigger picture at A level of abstraction, but i disagree it is the right level of abstraction. fundamentally US oil consumption (and therefore refining) is about the car lifestyle, which is intimately intertwined with interest rates, because interest rates decide, essentially, how many americans live in urban sprawl and are obligated to use the car lifestyle as opposed to being able to choose.

so your preferred outcome, if we take it to its logical conclusion is, a non-independent fed. and look, you are already saying some stuff that sounds crank, so go all the way. the US president is saying a non-independent fed! it's not a fringe opinion anymore. but this is what it is really about. the system has organized itself around the interest rate lever specifically because it is independent, so be careful what you wish for.

by doctorpangloss

4/30/2026 at 4:18:09 PM

> the new refineries in Oklahoma and Texas.

Two truly new refineries in 50 years despite lots of growth of demand throughout most of those decades. The fact there's only been two in fifty years and neither is anywhere near operational is proving my point. These are largely aberrations compared to the last fifty years, and its extremely notable the larger one is being built largely by a foreign oil company wanting to diversify internationally. It hasn't even broken ground yet and you're acting like its already here.

> if private industry won't build new refineries, the government should.

Personally I'd prefer our tax dollars to be spent feeding our kids and providing healthcare instead of continuing to give handouts to billionaires, but hey lots of people have different opinions.

by vel0city

4/30/2026 at 6:15:36 PM

You ignore all the upgrades existing refineries have had. They pollute much less these days than when built. In 10 years your new refinery will also be old and not up to modern standards. It too will need upgrades.

by bluGill

4/30/2026 at 6:59:24 PM

I fully see the improvements and say awe to the incredible achievements they've done. I live with the people who work such plants, I know what they do. I also see the ancient plants that live with such outdated designs and and overall suck environmentally. I see there's been a lot of improvement to many plants, don't get me wrong. There's far more to know than when the plant was first established, I agree.

All of my life has been around the oil industry, I'm well bathed in it.

by vel0city

4/30/2026 at 3:54:19 PM

>While I do agree there's a ton of regulatory hurdle to cross to build a new refinery, lots of interviews with oil executives have stated the economics of building a new refinery aren't always great. The reasons why they aren't building isn't necessarily because the regulatory hurdles are too high, its that they don't think they'll end up making any money building them. The future demand of many refined products are uncertain, adding a lot of new capacity is quite a capital risk.

This is a circular statement.

The regulatory hurdles are a large part of what drive cost.

I know a venue that wants to pave a dirt lot so they can better use it for stuff. It doesn't pencil out because of stupid stormwater permitting crap that'll add $250k to the project. It'd never pay off in a reasonable timeframe. So it just continues to exist in its current grandfathered in capacity when even the most unfavorable napkin math shows that what they want is an improvement.

A few weeks ago I was party to the installation of a perimeter railing on a flat commercial roof. The railing cost more than the rest of the job it was there for. Something tells me they won't be pulling permits for petty electrical work ever again.

Oil and most other heavy industry is faced with the same sort of problems with more digits in front of the decimal.

by cucumber3732842

4/30/2026 at 4:03:00 PM

> This is a circular statement.

Its not if you get the context.

> The regulatory hurdles are a large part of what drive cost

I agree, they are a large part. The things they have to do to meet the standards are expensive.

The claim was "impossible to get permission to build now". As in, the government won't let them build it. That the standards are just technically impossible to meet. They can get the permission to build it any day. Its possible to meet these standards. They just don't think it'll be worth it when they have to do it right.

by vel0city

4/30/2026 at 4:51:27 PM

"It's impossible to get permission to build something with specifications that is financially viable."

There, better?

These agencies have all sorts of discretion to waive this or enforce that or interpret some third thing and yet they leverage all of it in a manner that stalls progress.

I know a guy who has a textbook perfect situation for a septic in MN. MN won't permit it not because of some law or rule or code, but because the agency has decided that they just don't do septics anymore, mounds only and are exercising their discretion to only permit those. The cost difference is a lot, but less than suing them so guess what got installed?

Commercial permitting of every kind is like that but worse because the public will tolerate way more abuse of business than abuse of homeowners.

by cucumber3732842

4/30/2026 at 5:10:30 PM

You mean to tell me the land of 10,000 lakes might have a shallow water table that might require mounds more often to prevent people poisoning groundwater with their literal shit? The horror. Without hard data about the site I'm probably going to side with the county on that one.

As for your friend wanting to improve the lot but needs to do a lot of drainage fixes, he should lobby his community for property tax abatement to support the drainage improvements. If the people really want the improvement they'll be willing to help pay for the drainage. But things like failures to account for drainage leads to massive floods hurting everyone in the community. It's something we've ignored in a lot of our planning for a long time.

Both of your major examples are probably selfish takes that harm their neighbors to save someone some money.

by vel0city

4/30/2026 at 9:02:45 PM

This sort of surface level ivory tower "nothing that proclaims to be positive for the environment" attitude underpins so, so much of the bullshit that makes us all poorer and worse off.

>You mean to tell me the land of 10,000 lakes might have a shallow water table that might require mounds more often to prevent people poisoning groundwater with their literal shit? The horror.

The "land of 10k lakes" doesn't get it's water from the ground like a desert municipality. They have surface reservoirs and protected watershed areas to keep those clean enough.

The "ground" is effectively the filter. You want it to be full of shit. That's how a septic works. That's how basically all runoff cleansing measures (sand traps, grass buffers, etc, etc) work. You're basically using "nature" as the settling tanks of a water treatment plant. A septic is the same but underground.

The problem is high water table. But as long as the water table permits a septic is great.

>Without hard data about the site I'm probably going to side with the county on that one.

Did you ever think that maybe the reason the dude applied for the septic was because the engineer said "this property is great for a septic, let's do a septic"

Surely this government you think so highly of is capable of exercising judgement.

If not then why give them discretion in the first place?

What about the licensed engineer that must stamp the plans? Surely he is trustworthy? If not then why does the government enforce his license monopoly and force people to do business with him?

>As for your friend wanting to improve the lot but needs to do a lot of drainage fixes, he should lobby his community for property tax abatement to support the drainage improvements

Are you insane or just lying through your teeth. Nobody is gonna add a political advocacy side quest to an already overpriced minor improvement. They'll just bend over and take it and hope to make it up rent or resale.

>It's something we've ignored in a lot of our planning for a long time.

This used to be municipally managed. Landowners built drainage as they saw fit. Municipalities managed stuff like streams and culverts and ditches and whatnot, build flood control dams and holding ponds and the like.

Making it part of the permitting/development process is mostly an exercise in financial engineering (gets the obligation off the municipality) and is worse because you get patchwork of minimum viable solutions (that work poorly) instead of systems that are planned at the municipal or higher level to work well.

>Both of your major examples are probably selfish takes that harm their neighbors to save someone some money.

And peddling things that drive up the viability floor of development so you can feel good about saving the environment isn't.

Enjoy your $3k rent for a 500ft slum. Make sure you complain about "landlords" while you're at it.

You're competing with the person who isn't renting my buddy's ADU because the ADU never happened because the septic upgrade killed it, the minimum viable mound system got put in to save $$ and it has the capacity for the house and nothing more Y'all really served the public interest on that one.

by cucumber3732842

4/30/2026 at 10:14:46 PM

> They have surface reservoirs

Sure sounds like potential issues for septic systems

> protected watershed areas

And they're protected by things like being choosy about approving septic systems I'd imagine

> The "ground" is effectively the filter.

And it requires so much "ground" to properly "filter", hence the mounds.

> The problem is high water table

So we both agree there's a high water table, and high water tables can give challenges for properly operating a septic system without poisoning your neighbor's water and lands

> why does the government enforce his license monopoly and force people to do business with him?

Because your runoff poisons the ground of the people around you. I'm sure they'd be singing a far different tune if their neighbors were dumping cancer causing chemicals on the ground right against their property line. Oh but this is their right to dump their wastes...

> Nobody is gonna add a political advocacy side quest to an already overpriced minor improvement

Sounds like nobody really cares about that overpriced minor improvement.

> This used to be municipally managed. Landowners built drainage as they saw fit. Municipalities managed stuff like streams and culverts and ditches and whatnot, build flood control dams and holding ponds and the like

And then we've realized after 100 years of this its led to extremely bad outcomes of nobody actually paying attention to flooding issues and we get children washed down rivers and billions of dollars of damages on random thunderstorms.

> it has the capacity for the house and nothing more

Probably true, and should probably be connected to proper sewer systems to expand and have more density instead of just poisoning their neighbors.

by vel0city

4/30/2026 at 11:12:56 PM

Gotta love that ivory tower smarmy attitude.

>And it requires so much "ground" to properly "filter", hence the mounds.

There is no point in building up if the ground is sufficient.

MN has basically decided they're not gonna bother considering what that means and just make everyone do mounds at great expense.

>So we both agree there's a high water table, and high water tables can give challenges for properly operating a septic system without poisoning your neighbor's water and lands

That's tangential. Go tee up your dishonest strawman somewhere else.

>Because your runoff poisons the ground of the people around you. I'm sure they'd be singing a far different tune if their neighbors were dumping cancer causing chemicals on the ground right against their property line. Oh but this is their right to dump their wastes...

If people are dumping cancer causing chemicals on the ground that's a separate problem than organic waste.

Forcing everyone to manage runoff (which is a seperate issue from septics) like it's a problem by default when 99% of it is clean (seriously, how dirty is the average concrete sidewalk or shed roof or whatever other impermeable surface) wastes money.

Resources are not infinite. If you actually gave a shit about the environment you'd understand that there's other more effective stuff that money could be spent on.

>Probably true, and should probably be connected to proper sewer systems

At. What. Cost.

> to expand and have more density instead of just poisoning their neighbors.

Once again you don't get how it works. The whole point of a septic is that it's fine as long as you don't sink your well pipe through the leech field.

I'm not gonna bother picking your comment apart any further. It's a waste of my time.

I hope someday you buy property and seek to further develop it so that you may reap what you have sown in ignorance.

by cucumber3732842

5/1/2026 at 3:04:16 PM

> MN has basically decided they're not gonna bother considering what that means and just make everyone do mounds at great expense.

This isn't even a factual statement.

> The majority of SSTS permitted in 2024 were Type I systems; approximately 43% were mound systems.

https://www.pca.state.mn.us/sites/default/files/wq-wwists1-6...

> Forcing everyone to manage runoff...when 99% of it is clean

Speaking of the drainage topic, its usually less about if its clean or not, it probably is generally "clean". Its about managing the proper flow and holding to make up for the new impermeable structures in place. Which I agree, should also be related to overarching plans of the city/county/state about where that water should go. It shouldn't just be a patchwork of little independent designs, but that's a part of that whole approval process. But just building more impermeable structures and expecting everyone else to deal with the issues they cause is quite a selfish take.

by vel0city

5/1/2026 at 10:23:35 AM

> Gotta love that ivory tower smarmy attitude.

When did, "I don't want people poisoning my water," become ivory tower smarmy attitude?

by jyounker

5/1/2026 at 1:32:34 PM

It was the tone of the reply, I would imagine.

by throwaway173738

5/1/2026 at 11:04:56 PM

I didn't really see anything smarmy about it. It seems to me that the reply was way off kilter.

by jyounker

5/1/2026 at 4:12:45 PM

> MN has basically decided they're not gonna bother considering what that means and just make everyone do mounds at great expense.

Wrong. We just had a septic tank installed at a property in Crow Wing County.

Here are the MPCA rules for septic tanks: https://www.pca.state.mn.us/business-with-us/registered-sewa...

And lastly, I recommend not posting authoritatively about things you do not understand or grasp, thanks. Your posts about permitting and construction in Minnesota are full of errors.

Stormwater runoff is poisonous and stormwater systems are designed to handle a certain amount of water. When you pave a massive dirt lot that soaks up rainwater, that water has to go somewhere. You don’t understand what you’re talking about.

by quickthrowman

5/1/2026 at 12:12:07 AM

> There is no point in building up if the ground is sufficient.

Sure sounds like it isn't, at least according to the county.

> we both agree there's a high water table

> That's tangential

Its fundamental to the decision of septic design, not tangential. Its not a dishonest strawman to bring up the core, fundamental concept at issue here.

> dumping cancer causing chemicals on the ground that's a separate problem than organic waste

Yeah that's right, my waste is fine, their waste is a problem. Who cares if my neighbors have to drink my shit?

> you don't get how it works.

I sure do.

> The whole point of a septic is that it's fine as long as you don't sink your well pipe through the leech field.

If the ground water is too high, you'll have more problems. Like, say, potentially some random property in the land of 10,000 lakes.

> I hope someday you buy property and seek to further develop it

I already have, and I haven't purposefully flooded out or poisoned my neighbors to do it.

> I'm not gonna bother picking your comment apart any further.

I'd potentially have a different opinion if I actually had some real facts about the property other than just some random property in a place known to have a high water table having an issue getting septic permitted. You even said yourself its got a high water table at the property! It honestly doesn't seem surprising to me to see a place like that having an issue with septic systems. But just a "trust me bro gubmit bad" attitude doesn't really change my opinion.

Cool beans buddy. Have a good night.

by vel0city

4/30/2026 at 6:18:07 PM

[dead]

by bluGill

4/30/2026 at 2:44:18 PM

> Most refineries in the US are very old and are very polluting

India's Reliance is also investing $300B [0] in a Texas megarefinery [1] in specifically for cleaner and more efficient shale refining.

This is deeply technical and complex but low margins work (semiconductor fabrication falls in the same boat) which saw this industry leave for abroad in the 2000s and 2010s when other states like China and India subsidized their refinery industries to build domestic capacity for a number of petroleum byproducts with industrial applications.

This is the same strategy Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan used in the 1960s-90s as well.

[0] - https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2026-03-17/ambani...

[1] - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-03-11/reliance-...

by alephnerd

5/1/2026 at 6:20:11 AM

"The reason for the CA blend goes back to the 80s and 90s when smog was a much bigger problem. Better vehicle emissions standards since then as well as improvements in the blends the rest of the country uses have largely made the CA blend obsolete so CA is really paying $1+/gallon more for literally no reason"

California cities still struggle with smog. The valley geography capped by inversion layers are unique factors to LA, central valley cities, and some parts of the bay that really do necessitate unique solutions if we don't want to choke. There's sources that back this claim you're welcome to Google. Lastly, based on the overall tenor of your points, I'd invite you to question whether someone with an agenda is driving the incorrect facts you receive in your media diet.

by itsmek

5/1/2026 at 1:58:19 PM

There's a site that summarizes bad air quality days in LA from 1980 to 2025 [1] and I would encourage you to compare 1985 to 2025. Note: LA numbers are skewed by wildfire too. In the 2020s, "Very Unhealthy" days was basically 1 (with 1 9 that might or might not be wildfire related). 1980-1985 had 250-290 *Very Unhealthy" days.

Here's another chart showing air quality improvements [2].

I found a 1985 LA Times article that claims technology was responsible for a massive improvement in smog [3], particularly compared to 1973. And 2020-2025 is so much ridiculously better than then.

California was among the first states to adopt stricter vehicle emissions standards and to change fuel composition (eg removing lead) but the rest of the nation las largely caught up. National emissions standards and national summer fuel blends mean the gap between what CA has and does and what the rest of the nation has and does is now pretty small. That's was my point.

And if you think smog in the last decade was comparable in any way to any period 1960-2000 then you should really educate yourself about just how bad it was.

Lastly, coming on HN and alleging some kind of political bias without demonstrating how anything someone said is wrong really does nothing but betray your own biases. I looked through your comments and you so rarely add data but way more often level accusations of bias. That's not really welcome here.

[1]: https://www.almanac.com/environment/ev01b.php

[2]: https://www.kget.com/news/local-news/graph-shows-how-much-be...

[3]: https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1985-11-05-me-4588-s...

by jmyeet

4/30/2026 at 9:14:31 PM

A few corrections. Credentials: I am a Chemical Engineer in a Senior Tecnical Leadership position at a refinery with over thirty years of experience.

1) API gravity is the density of the crude oil. Higher API = lower density. We use this unit of measure because it magnifies the differences in densities vs. using conventional units of measure.

2) Refiners in the US mix different crude types to maximize the objective function ($) of a set of constraints including crude grade pricing and availability, product demand volume and pricing, refinery unit constraints and product quality specifications. This is done using a linear program model.

3) light and heavy crude contain the same molecules but in different ratios. For example they all contain gasoline, jet fuel, diesel boiling range material and all contain some amount of material that could be turned into ship fuel or asphalt for paving roads. Heavy crude tends to sell at a discount to light crude because of the laws of supply and demand - refiners will buy a mix of whatever makes them the most money.

4) “Most refineries in the US are very old and are very polluting”While US refineries sites are old - some site have been in operation for over 100 year, the units and configuration of the refineries has evolved continuously over the years. The technology used in the refining units has evolved as well - this is not a static industry. The pollution standard for refinery operations and fuel emissions have been raised multiple times. So “Very Polluting” vs. new refineries does not pass muster. US refineries have been retrofitting wet gas scrubbers and selective catalytic reduction units to reduce emissions of SOx and NOx for decades. These technologies reduce emissions of both pollutants by over 90%. Most of the emissions come from burning the fuel that refineries produce and both legacy US refineries and new ones have to meet the same fuel quality specifications and hence produce equivalent emissions.

5. “There are different blends of gasoline that the US produces. The biggest is so-called summer and winter blends. What's the differene? Additives are added to summer blends (in particular) to increase the boiling point so less of the gasoline is in gas form because that produces more smog;”

Summer gasoline contains less butane than winter gasoline. That is the main difference. Butane is added to winter gasoline so cars start in cold weather. There are no additives added to raise the boiling point in summer - just less volatile light material added.

As an aside, Mvodern gasoline vehicles have carbon canisters to capture vapors (such as butane) from the gas tank when not in service. These are then regenerated by sweeping air through them when the vehicles are running.

6. “ California uses their own blends so in 2021-2022 when CA gas went to $8+, it wasn't just "gouging". It doesn't really work that way. CA requires a particular blend that only CA refineries produce so it's simple supply and demand as no new capacity gets added to CA refineries and demand goes up with population growth. The reason for the CA blend goes back to the 80s and 90s when smog was a much bigger problem. Better vehicle emissions standards since then as well as improvements in the blends the rest of the country uses have largely made the CA blend obsolete so CA is really paying $1+/gallon more for literally no reason;”

There is some out of date information here. California is a net importer of gasoline since refinery closures in California have outpaced reduced demand from increased fleet fuel efficiency / BEV adoption. There are refineries in Asia that export California and some other US refineries can also make California grade gasoline but this requires shipping via the Panama Canal on Jones act ships that are scarce and expensive.

P66 / Kinder Morgan are planning a pipeline / pipeline reversal that would bring refined product into California including California gasoline.

by flumpmaster

4/30/2026 at 11:08:15 PM

[off topic] Given your background,I was wondering if you could offer some clarification if I'd read some Bs or just misunderstood. Long ago I had read something in a petrochemical book, maybe I got wrong, but one little section I skimmed over seemed to point out a modern refinery cracking plant could use vegetable input stock with I think was a caveat in regard to cleaning or addition by-products. Is this feasible or done, or was I reading a fluffy passage that wasn't fact checked properly?

by anenefan

5/1/2026 at 12:04:07 AM

Yes, Hydroprocessing units at refineries can either co-process vegetable oil with hydrocarbons or run 100% on vegetable oil after some modifications.

Vegetable oils are tri-glycerides. These molecules can be cracked into three long chain paraffins and a propane molecule by reacting them with hydrogen at high temperature and pressure over a catalyst. This makes a raw diesel fuel that then needs to be isomerized to lower the cloud point (basically when it begins to freeze). The end result is a drop in replacement for fossil diesel fuel that burns smoother and cleaner.

Two refineries in the SF Bay Area have converted from fossil fuel operation to manufacturing this renewable diesel.

Fun fact: over 70% of diesel sold in California is now renewable or bio diesel. Both types start with tri glycerides - either vegetable oil, waste cooking oil or animal fats.

by flumpmaster

5/1/2026 at 12:57:13 AM

Started my career working in AI for a company that had a couple large refineries (I didnt dare refer to what we were doing as statistics because those guys had all been fired a decade before after attempting to perform some back magic they called six sigma), pipelines, a fleet of ethanol plants (at the time) and a couple biodiesel bets, including one that attempted to convert corn oil into biodiesel.

I was blessed to have a leader who wanted us to spend a lot of time on the field, working turnarounds doing, whatever I could to be helpful, etc. to learn the business and build relationships.

Working around the refineries, especially during turnaround, was a crash course in constraint theory and economics.

Good times.

At any rate, all of that was to qualify that most people would not believe how much time and money has been wasted trying to find innovative new ways to serve and capitalize on the CA biodiesel market.

by 7thpower

5/2/2026 at 4:36:50 AM

" ... most people would not believe how much time and money has been wasted trying to find innovative new ways to serve and capitalize on the CA biodiesel market"

I am curious as to what is meant. Refinery side innovation or marketing or other?

In Australia over the years there's been a heavy focus on bio fuels and not any mention of renewable diesel or jet fuel. News items focus on modern vehicles, and not older diesels that of course could run on peanut or coconut oil without any chemical modification.

My locale (Northern Central Queensland Aust) bio-diesel is often produced small scale by individuals and not enough to be a statistic that I can find as a percentage of use in the state. Scaling up shouldn't be a problem in itself, it's just reluctance to use the present food oils as stock.

by anenefan

5/1/2026 at 1:24:14 AM

Thank you so much for that. I had tried searches various times and got little information.

Bio fuel is what most people think of when it comes to renewable - though by way of proper refinery processes, none of the issues or perceived issues would exist especially for more modern fuel injection pumps.

by anenefan

5/1/2026 at 5:54:01 PM

I'm glad you're here :)

This is the kind of top engineering tech info that you sometimes get on HN, but much more often in the field of software than the less-abstract types of projects being built.

I like to build laboratories that use research instruments and techniques to get engineers and traders the results they need.

I've seen a few misconceptions with more discussion of the oil crisis appearing lately and figured I would add something sooner or later myself.

Anyway I was the early adopter of digital densitometry all those decades ago, and this is one of those rare times when you see API it has nothing to do with software, it means the American Petroleum Institute :)

But turns out their gravity scale is far more abstract than most people imagine.

>We use this unit of measure because it magnifies the differences in densities vs. using conventional units of measure.

Exactly. I've had research people stumble over this.

Well for oils & fuels going in & out of the refinery, they naturally can be quite consistent but always have significant variations in density with each batch and this is normal. API gravity is an excellent measure of density for this reason above all, it depends completely on density (not viscosity at all [0]) and you want these everyday minor differences (in the same feedstock or product stream) to have their numerical density reading show more easily-noticeable meaningful variation than you get from plain kg/m3 or specific gravity numbers. Plus actually end up with two significant figures being adequate most of the time in the real world, and more memorable across a wider range compared to 3 or 4 figures using conventional units.

Now how did the API gravity number end up getting bigger when the density is less? What's up with that?

It's a physical workflow thing. Density of liquids has been measured using simple glass hydrometers since like forever. Same kind used by beermakers to estimate alcohol content based on density, using hydrometers calibrated against liquids having known specific gravity.

IOW, the lighter the density, the deeper the hydrometer sinks, then you take a reading from the unsubmerged portion of the stem. If the scale is calibrated in density or specific gravity, you read increasing numbers starting from the top of the calibrated glass stem. For oils & fuels you also need to know the temperature that the gravity reading was recorded at, so there's also a thermometer in the test sample along with the hydrometer. And people always read a thermometer from bottom-to-top as they count the little graduations in between numbered major divisions. "Everybody knows" the biggest numbers are at the top of the glassware, without any training. But as mentioned, you read a specific gravity hydrometer from top-to-bottom, where the smallest marked numbers are at the top of the glassware. Plus major divisions are fewer and further between than a thermometer. Ruh-roh. For busy people it's too easy to take both readings from bottom-to-top and get wildly or subtly incorrect results. But that's how you are supposed to read (the exact same glasssware) when calibrated using the API scale, which is mathematically inverted and expanded.

So you get °API where 10.0 is the gravity of water, and 100 is less density than you normally get without it being a pressurized product like LPG. 100 is not the limit, and negative °API is also meaningful but anything below 10 and it's usually the kind of tar or asphalt that sinks even in fresh water.

But that's not abstract enough yet. "Specific" gravity however, is basically a unitless number since it is always relative to something else, usually water. Which you are supposed to specify whether the reference material is water or not but it's so seldom documented that the only professional approach is to assume so without question. Provided that's as decent an assumption as it usually is, then for hydrocarbons the recorded specific gravity is supposed to also specify what temperatures both the test material and reference material values were obtained at. This qualification is not nearly as documented as often as it should be, then you pretty much have to assume it's 60 Fahrenheit for oils & fuels plus the reference water too. Looks like being unitless is supposed to carry a lot more metadata that it doesn't always show up with. Oh well. In petroleum it's still pretty strict about 60 F though, but the 15 C crowd has been on the rise for decades, from what I can tell it's because there is no metric integer equal to 60 F :\

The cool thing about specific gravity being unitless is that (considering temperature) you can use any accurate units of measure for weight and volume when taking raw density readings in the field. Grams, pounds, stones, liters, gallons, etc in any combination of weight per volume. Just has to be consistent between the test sample and reference material. So everything cancels and you get the same numerical rating from anywhere in the world at any time over the centuries. Once grams came along, and were standardized equal to one mL of water (under conditions!!) then it just so happens that specific gravity closely resembles the numerical density when the density is expressed in units of grams/mL. In these nearly-ideal metric units though the deceptively similar values are still significantly different from true specific gravity, and the differences often completely neglected along with the buoyancy of air. Which can have obvious significance if you're talking about a ship as big as a blimp.

So the density that the product actually behaves with in the real world, is imagined as if it were handled in a vacuum instead, while being held at some ideal well-known temperature, then converted to a unitless number, before being inverted and scaled to numerically better match the application.

Making the °API "almost like a bogus phenomenon", while still being based strictly on density, rather than °API being as much of a physical property itself.

But it works so much better than the real numbers the physical property is measured in, and the hydrometer does the same thing either way :)

Any more abstraction and the workflow could have gotten worse not better, you've got to stop as soon as you can or you could end up with no trail leading back to the underlying solution needed ;)

With digital densitometry you're not supposed to still need a plain old glass hydrometer, and naturally it's not so simple :0 Don't get me started on that ;)

[0] Although someone familiar with a particular oil field may accomplish some pretty good estimation of API gravity as a result of long term correlation between apparent visual thickness and measured density over the years.

by fuzzfactor

4/30/2026 at 3:19:25 PM

Looking at the chart in the article I was kind of surprised at how small wind and solar are globally and that coal is still ~25%.

by criddell

4/30/2026 at 6:59:57 PM

I believe that it's a physical plant thing. We have spent over a hundred years building hydrocarbon-based energy infrastructure. Much of that is still out there. Wind and solar have made a ton of progress in the last 15 years or so, but it's only really become substantially better financially in the last 5 or so years maybe. It's still going to take decades to actually replace most of that stuff, just as a matter of how fast we can build and install hardware.

Note also that it's a worldwide chart, so it includes developing countries that may not be so quick to jump on projects that are expensive right now even though they'll save a bunch of money in the long term. Though to be fair, some may have a leapfrog effect when it comes to building brand new infrastructure.

by ufmace

4/30/2026 at 8:32:13 PM

I would like to think that the switch to renewables is inevitable, but could a continuous series of administrations similar to the current US admin be enough to curtail it?

by dylan604

5/1/2026 at 1:10:07 PM

Seems unlikely to me. I always thought the only engine that could actually accomplish transition was capitalism. We will transition at a time and to an extent that renewables are actually cheaper and better, no sooner and no later. Government action can encourage technological development, but it can't force the transition when the technology is not ready yet, and it can't stop it either once it's actually better. Note that we are actively building out a lot of that stuff now, even though the current administration is at best indifferent towards it. It all fits with the bottom line that we transition when the technology is ready, and the opinion of activists and Government officials isn't relevant.

by ufmace

5/1/2026 at 1:49:07 PM

> a hundred years building hydrocarbon-based energy infrastructure

One consequence of that is the enormous of amount of scrap steel that will become available as that infrastructure becomes obsolete. It will noticeably perturb the world steel industry.

by pfdietz

5/1/2026 at 2:33:09 PM

The amount of steel in a refinery is tiny compared to what the world uses. Even if we could scrap them all in single day (as if it wouldn't take months to tear it down) it is a drop in the bucket of recycled iron.

by bluGill

5/1/2026 at 2:44:22 PM

Global fossil fuel infrastructure (which is much more than refineries) is estimated to be 1.34 billion tons of steel (and 10 million tons of copper). That's a bit less than 1 year of output of the world steel industry.

by pfdietz

4/30/2026 at 10:28:34 PM

Coal is dirt cheap, to the point where most of the cost is in transporting it and the infrastructure to convert it to power is simple and not very capital intensive to it’s the first thing developing countries reach for when they don’t have strict environmental regulations. It also doesn’t require as much precision manufacturing so a lot can be done domestically even in less developed industries, which is important when foreign currencies are in short supply.

by throwup238

4/30/2026 at 3:43:53 PM

That’s because of the primary energy fallacy: https://medium.com/@jan.rosenow/have-we-been-duped-by-the-pr...

TL;DR: the efficiency of converting fossil energy resources into something useful is poor.

by rollulus

4/30/2026 at 4:19:34 PM

That chart is measuring joules of energy. I'm not sure efficiency comes into play here, does it?

Coal provides 175,000,000 TJ of energy. Solar and wind provide 21,000,000 TJ.

I was mostly surprised at how critical coal still is.

https://www.iea.org/world/energy-mix

by criddell

4/30/2026 at 4:55:53 PM

The problem is where it's measuring joules of energy. To use cars as an example:

It measures joules of energy as in "how much heat the gasoline we burn produces", some of which we convert to mechanical energy to drive the car, but the majority is just waste heat going out the tailpipe.

By comparison an electric car powered by solar has no tailpipe. There's still a bit of waste heat from electrical resistance, but nowhere near as much.

If we measure like this, by converting a gasoline car to electric (powered by solar for the sake of ignoring some complexity), and driving the same distance, we somehow managed to cut our "energy demand" in half. Despite the fact that we're demanding the exact same thing from the system.

If we measured "joules delivered to the tires of the car" we wouldn't have the same issue. At least until someone starts arguing about how their car is more aerodynamic so joules delivered to the tires should count for more in it.

Edit: We could also go in the other direction. Instead of reporting it as 1kw of solar energy (electricity) it could be 4kw of solar energy (the amount of sunlight shining on the solar panels)... No one does this for obvious reasons, but it's more similar to that primary energy number for fuel in many ways.

by gpm

5/1/2026 at 1:52:32 PM

> but the majority is just waste heat going out the tailpipe.

It's my understanding that waste heat in a car is about 50/50 the tailpipe and the radiator.

by pfdietz

4/30/2026 at 4:54:00 PM

The total energy supply figure is a primary energy mix - for the fossil fuels it represents the thermal energy of the fuel. You can look at the final energy consumption section a bit lower to get a different picture taking into account conversion losses.

by icegreentea2

4/30/2026 at 4:50:34 PM

That is still subject to the primary energy fallacy. Those reports are in terms of primary energy, i.e. how much heat is released by combustion of fossil gas. But in order to replace fossil gas in a chemical plant, you need much less electricity than the primary energy of the fossil gas suggests.

by jeffbee

4/30/2026 at 7:07:24 PM

The IEA says[1]:

> For all energy sources, the IEA clearly defines energy production at the point where the energy source becomes a “marketable product” (and not before).

Doesn't that mean if you are burning coal to make electricity, you wouldn't count the heat output because the generated heat is not a marketable product.

[1] https://www.iea.org/commentaries/understanding-and-using-the...

by criddell

4/30/2026 at 7:29:48 PM

I interpret "marketable product" to mean gas at the wellhead, coal at the mine terminal.

by jeffbee

4/30/2026 at 7:39:09 PM

I didn't interpret it that way because of this line from that page:

> [Total Final Consumption] shows the energy that is actually used by final consumers – the energy used in homes, transportation and businesses.

I'm not buying coal at the terminal to power my television.

by criddell

4/30/2026 at 7:49:31 PM

Indeed, but were we not looking at TPES before?

by jeffbee

4/30/2026 at 8:03:00 PM

Yes we were.

Looking at the chart for TFC, the wind and solar case looks even worse. Wind and solar supplies 2 million TJ compared to 36 million for coal.

All I was really trying to say from the outset is that I'm surprised at how important coal still is and how little we use renewables. I see articles here all the time about the massive advancements in solar (and wind to a lesser degree) and I had it in my head that renewables were a much larger part of the energy mix than they are.

by criddell

5/1/2026 at 1:55:57 PM

There is lag created by sunk capital costs. Coal is still producing considerable electric power in the US, but the last time a new coal-fired power plant came online was more than a decade ago, and there are none under construction (although Trump was trying to get one built, to considerable skepticism and inertia). The average age of a coal-fired power plant in the US is 40+ years.

by pfdietz

4/30/2026 at 11:53:14 PM

> an astounding 90% of chemical feedstocks are derived from oil or gas

What I often wonder is, as the demand for oil declines, the economies of scale in oil production should, too. If that is the case, will not the price of everything with oil byproduct inputs go up? In other words, will the transition to other energy sources actually be highly inflationary?

by next_xibalba

5/1/2026 at 1:36:21 PM

Maybe. It might also require not using as much disposable stuff in favor of reusable things. The culture we’ve built around disposable plastics and such is less than 100 years old. Our great grandparents lived considerably differently.

by throwaway173738

5/1/2026 at 12:37:50 AM

Crikey we have got so far to go with energy production.

Thankfully, the top consumer China, is building nuclear reactors at an unfathomable rate.

by exabrial

4/30/2026 at 9:42:51 PM

Good read. Just sadly all temperature measurements are in Fahrenheit. Really makes it hard to grasp for the other 99% of the world

by kerlekarle

5/1/2026 at 2:17:14 AM

What if everyone complained whenever someone linked to spiegel.de?

Have Claude make you a browser plugin that does the conversion and quit whining.

by tjwebbnorfolk

5/1/2026 at 3:37:29 AM

Let me help.

He's not whining, he's saying that the people who insist on using Fahrenheit are oblivious, ignorant, backwards, uneducated, closed minded, conservative morons and since no one like that would understand, let alone appreciate, the article then why bother using antiquated units of measure that the other 8 billion people besides Americans have abandoned decades ago. The use of imperial units degrades from the overall quality of the article and limits its audience for no reason.

by russellbeattie

5/1/2026 at 4:14:33 AM

ok so your response is to continue whining even more.

some people start at freezing, some people added 32 * 1.8 for some odd reason. great now chill out

by tjwebbnorfolk

5/1/2026 at 9:09:01 AM

Hah... Your response proves my point quite well, thanks!

by russellbeattie

5/1/2026 at 4:39:19 AM

And your response is to be an asshole about it.

I made the extension, thanks for the suggestion. It is still dumb having to do that.

by noisy_boy

5/1/2026 at 7:41:39 AM

If you’re capable of doing basic math in your head you should be able to handle it.

Even if you do a rough conversion - subtract 30 and divide in half you’re close enough.

by refurb

4/30/2026 at 7:11:18 PM

if you liked this and the history of the industry, "The Prize" is a fantastic read!

by lasermatts

5/1/2026 at 10:51:08 AM

The prize is a great book, you just have to keep the author's point of view in mind. (He's got a few blind spots with respect to the downsides of oil.)

The book does an amazing job of explaining the strategic structure of WWII in a simple and clear and way.

If you want to understand modern history, you can't skip it. It's also a just a riveting read full of wild characters.

by jyounker

4/30/2026 at 9:39:55 PM

I read it right now. It was awesome to have this article by the side to understand the mechanics and not only the history and the power play

by kerlekarle

5/1/2026 at 2:40:32 AM

The whole idea of processing gain blows my mind that more volume comes out than goes in.

Also the fact that that oil is different colors (green, red, etc) and not black is always amusing.

by balderdash

5/1/2026 at 6:26:05 PM

What always strikes me about refineries is how "simple" some of the core ideas are in isolation

by KolibriFly

4/30/2026 at 10:09:51 PM

Sadly more examples of how an oil refinery not works lately

by cachius

4/30/2026 at 10:12:23 PM

What is its weakest link, from a defense point of view?

by amelius

5/1/2026 at 9:17:30 AM

The supply of crude, from across the oceans.

by thelastgallon

5/1/2026 at 11:59:56 AM

And in Russia?

by amelius

4/30/2026 at 3:16:49 PM

Cool to see how when people talk about “transitioning off oil” it's more than replacing gasoline in cars. It's replacing this entire global machine.

by arlobish

4/30/2026 at 4:01:57 PM

Cars are the most familiar to the everyday user, which is why it's the most common in perception. It's also actually one of the easier ones to solve (ie it's basically done).

Trucking is technically not to hard but logistically difficult. Aviation is extremely technically challenging. Shipping is economically difficult. Electricity generation has lots of factors, there's a lot of generation that can and has been changed easily, but some generation which is harder to switch.

If you get outside of oil into CO2 generally, there's even thornier issues. Concrete production, for example.

If you are seriously interested in these issues, I highly recommend https://www.youtube.com/c/EngineeringwithRosie

by advisedwang

4/30/2026 at 3:46:54 PM

Oil is cooked. BYD is filing 52 patents every single day and has a 700 km in 9 minutes vehicle available TODAY ! Charging by Solar is going to be the norm. Watch : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgCYYrhL-kE

by tmellon2

4/30/2026 at 7:37:28 PM

You seem to be copy-pasting this around this thread a lot, what's the deal with that?

I would agree that electric is the future, but even if all that works as advertised and we keep making more progress, it's still going to take decades to manufacture the billions of them that will be needed to seriously displace oil. I believe oil will continue to be necessary and relevant for the lifetime of everybody old enough to write posts on this thread.

by ufmace

4/30/2026 at 3:59:02 PM

> Oil is cooked. BYD is […]

By "vehicles" do you mean "cars"?

Because airplanes are also a type of vehicles. So are container ships. Neither of which are very practicable with pure electric AFAICT, and are integral to modern life. (Though more marine hybrid could be practical.)

I think there should be more of a push for BEV/hybrid cars (and transport trucks), and think more home electrification would be good (though air sealing and insulation are more important, relatively speaking). But let us set reasonable expectations of what is possible at various timeframes (and not let the perfect be the enemy of the good/better).

by throw0101c

4/30/2026 at 6:05:43 PM

> Neither of which are very practicable with pure electric

Yet.

The surge in electric cars is a driving force for new tech - higher energy density batteries, faster charge rates, longer life, etc etc.

For shipping it’s only a matter of when.

Planes are harder, but just today electric choppers started flying in NYC. It’s coming.

by testing22321

4/30/2026 at 8:07:50 PM

I'm not against hoping that things will improve, but there's a lot of handwaving here, and an indeterminate path to "oil is cooked".

Remember that oil/petroleum is used in things like plastics, fertilizer, lubrication, non-natural-rubber seals/gaskets, LNG extraction has helium extraction has a by-product.

Reduction in oil-for-transportation can be reduced (thus reducing climate change effects), with oil-for-other-things still being a thing.

by throw0101c

5/1/2026 at 2:03:38 PM

The entire US jet fuel consumption could be more than adequately covered by fuel produced from the carbon in US waste streams.

by pfdietz

4/30/2026 at 8:10:54 PM

[dead]

by richwater

4/30/2026 at 8:49:48 PM

* Ukraine has entered the chat *

by phplovesong

5/1/2026 at 11:09:49 AM

[dead]

by mfgadv99

4/30/2026 at 3:45:14 PM

[flagged]

by tmellon2

5/1/2026 at 6:27:26 AM

We have to urgently stop doing this of course, to mitigate the climate catastrophe. Wars are peanuts compared to the death toll.

by fulafel