[MUSIC] Skip thanks very much for the talk I, I hope we know a little bit more about petroleum now and where it comes from. I noticed that on one your slides when, when you were listing all the, the, the different densities, I, I think of it that at the very bottom were tar sands, or tar, right? And I know, and, and, and some of our viewers will know that tar sands were actually the number one hydrocarbon imported into this country. Why are importing tar, you know, into this, into this country? What do we do with it? >> Well, we do with it what we're doing with the oil, we're trying to create more gasoline. And so, in order to bring that into the country, we're taking those tar sands and we're chemically reacting them so that we can get them into a pipeline. And then we're just transferring them to a refinery. And then we're taking those really heavy long chains in the tar sands, and we're just breaking them down through a lot of cracking, until we get back to gasoline. >> Okay, so in the end we're just one hydrocarbon broken down into smaller carbons that, that we, we eventually put in our cars. Okay, so I, I also know that in the, you know, the very first stage, the, sort of the first cars that were run, they were run on ethanol. >> Mm-hm. >> Some on peanut oil, but, but, but ethanol was a fuel, and then very quickly, that changed over to gasoline. You know, I, I, I think, you know, why, you know, what happened that made gasoline so popular, and why did we, we get rid of ethanol? Well, when John Rockafella was refining petroleum from kerosene for lamps, he realized electricity was on the forefront, and he also needed a new industry, gasoline was a fraction, he was literally throwing away, so he convinced Henry Ford to redesign the engines to burn the gasoline. That actually, through manufacturing, the gasoline was cheaper than the ethanol was at the time. And in addition, gas has a couple really important nice properties. Water doesn't mix with it, so you don't have to worry about getting water in your gas tank. And the other thing is it's stable and, and free of microbial degradation. Unless, you've got really aggressive conditions, so it will stay still for a long period of time, and not foul up your engine. >> So chemically, it was a better fuel? >> [CROSSTALK]. >> And then, and then because we're mining it, it was actually cheaper to make [INAUDIBLE]. >> Than ethanol. >> Than ethanol, okay. So for those two reasons. We, we here a lot you know, about bio crude. And, and I, and I see reports now that we can get crude oils that are made from biological sources. You know, al, algae and [UNKNOWN], two that, that we've mentioned here. So, how is crude oil, or biological oils different from petroleum? >> Really not very much, I mean, you're taking the same, you're taking biomass, and you're basically heating it in an absence of oxygen. So, that that was very much just like we did with the petroleum that was formed from the biomass that got to the bottom, was covered by sediments, no oxygen, increasing heat and pressure. We basically now do the same thing artificially. There are small differences in that there's going to be some more oxygen and nitrogen in those, those compounds, but by and large, they're pretty much the same molecules. And so those things can go right to the refineries as well. >> So the refineries that we have can take either crude oil, or they could take bio crude and, and in either case, put out gasoline. >> Absolutely. >> Okay, so, so, along those lines then, in, in, in this country we primarily have gasoline engines. In Europe it's much more common to have diesel. Diesel's becoming, you know, more popular here. So I guess the question is, chemically, what's the difference between the two? Can I, you know, obviously I can't swap diesel for gasoline in my existing engine but maybe overall, we could. Well, all the difference is, is the length of the hydrocarbon chain. So diesels are diesel fuel is a longer hydrocarbon chain. And as a result, it has a higher flash point. Now in a diesel engine, which is a high compression engine, then you get the auto combustion at the real high temperatures and pressions, pressures inside that diesel engine. Diesel engines are really the thermally best of engine that you have operating a high compression. So, in Europe, they use subsidies to make sure that the diesel is at lower price so that's why they have more of it over there. But in essence, they're really the same thing, just different chain length. Different, and then as a result, then different engines. >> So, so, chemically, slightly different, and therefore have different engines, but really, more or less doing the same thing. >> Absolutely. >> Liquid, put em in. >> Absolutely. >> Turn, turn that liquid fuel into energy. >> That, that thing we refer to as fit for purpose fuel, right? So that it's safe to use, got a good range, good energy density. Doesn't blow up. >> Yeah. One of the other things I noticed in your talk is that you, you, you had the map of the world showing where the different oils come from. You know, why is it that, for example, in West Texas or Brant, we have light, sweet oils, and then in Russia, we have, you know, more heavy, sour oils. What, what's the difference in geography there that makes the fuels, the, the crude oil, different? >> It has to do with what sort of biomass was used and laid down into the rock formations, but it also has a lot to do with how long it's been in the ground. The longer it's been in the ground, the heavier the oils tend to get, and so the, the, the lighter ones are probably younger ones. >> Okay. And then obviously the heavier they get, the harder they are to get out of the ground. >> Harder. Therefore more expensive. So we're. >> Well, they're actually, have less value on the market. >> As well. >> And so you pay less for them, but that's because you have to make up for the cost you're going to have to use in refining. >> Okay. >> So, so the, the most expensive raw material would be the Brent sweet crude, because it will yield you the most bang for the buck. >> Right. >> The other ones that are going, you buy them at a lower price. Okay, I, I, so I understand that. And then, I guess also, you know, what, what one of the things that we'd like to think about is, you know, in the future, how are we going to get renewable fuels to replace the fossil fuels that we're running out of. So what do you see, I think, from, from a chemistry point of view, maybe, or from your point of view, what's the important things that we're going to need to work on so that we can get renewable biofuels to replace fossil fuel? >> Biofuels have two issues, and one is that you have to, in many cases, you have to clear land, which is a loss in carbon as you burn and clear that land, and then the other part is there's the energy and use in the process of turning Those materials into workable fuels. And so, the other thing is they're, all those operations are very water-intensive, which is a previous resource. In some cases, they're food commodities, and so, I think we need to find ways where we're not affecting the price of food and we're not using substantial amounts of water or good, arable land. And then burning crops in order to clear that land. The last part I think was the research has to be and how do we recover and recycle the key nutrients like phosphorous and nitrogen. If we don't really find a way to do that, we can't have sustainable renewable fuels because we, you know, we're just going to be taking petroleum, one limited resource. And substituting it for another one phosphorous. >> But, but in the case of fuels which are only hydrogen and carbon obviously, we have the opportunity to recycle hydrogen and phosphate molecules because they're not consumed fuel. >> They're not consumed fuel. >> All right, well thanks very much for the talk and best of luck on your research here. >> All right, thank you very much.
