Good read. Mr Bean!
there’s nothing in a barrel of oil that can’t be replicated by other means.
A biologist friend who has worked in a handful of biotech startups made this point to me many years ago. He added that the problem is cost, but he then added that the petroleum industry is highly optimized, but the biochemistry of making these things could increase yield ten fold and even a thousand fold is not out of the question for many processes. So his belief was that in the long run, it was inevitable that petroleum could be replaced, but the problem was moving up the timeline.
>>buy an old one and use it as little as possible
This is basically my wife's observation. If we get a PHEV, it makes not sense to spend the embodied energy to get an electric car when we drive so little. As it is now, we force ourselves to drive the old truck once a month just the battery won't die. So she thinks the best thing environmentally is to get the new PHEV and then drive the old gas car to death, which will likely be about 1000 miles per year, just to keep it functional.
