I think the point is that a world with renewable electricity wouldn't need as much oil, thereby making smaller sources of carbon sufficient.

You don't have to get carbon from oil extracted from underground and you don't have to get oil from the middle east. That's merely where the bulk of it happens to come from at present for price and historical reasons.

Yes, but all those things, combined, are 20% of the usage. I'd say if you remove about the 50 % used for cars, that's a pretty large improvement.

> it wouldn't solve the problem of needing a supply of carbon atoms to make the carbon-based substances in the list.

How many of that could be substituted with biomass? We're already making natural gas replacements using feces, food and agricultural waste, and we're making diesel fuel replacements - in case of doubt, at least older diesel engines can burn straight olive, sunflower or rapeseed oil, just modern ones will possibly incur expensive damage in the high-pressure fuel distribution section.

> You can't make insulin, brake fluid or PVC out of electricity alone.

Insulin is made with GMO bacteria these days, so all we need is something to feed the bacteria with, IIRC it's glucose which you can easily create from any sort of starch-containing plant.

Nothing here challenges the assertion of the parent comment.

Fossil fuels are why climate change is occurring. Reducing FFs to near-zero would slow or stop climate change and allow the finite supply of oil to be used for the things you mention.

That would require some super effective anti air. Otherwise such a pipeline is an easy target.

And even the most anti air protected place on earth - Negev plant near Dimona city got hit with a warning shot. And they have 3 or 4 layers of anti air, most of them doubled (both US and Isreaeli). It's impossible to protect multiple pipelines to that extent.

And Isreal just said that they will keep attacking Iran no matter any peace deals or armistice.

The only logical course of action for Iran is to go down swinging, taking the rest of the world with them.

As if those can’t be blown up with $300 FPVs or $10k Shahids…

Oil isn't magic, you can just make it, and the reason we don't is merely that it's expensive to do that, whereas it's just there under the ground - as a fossil fuel.

But because you can just make it from ingredients everybody already has, this puts a ceiling on its actual price if you have energy independence. If you need to burn oil, you can't make oil because that's a vicious circle which would need even more oil. But so long as the only you want oil is for its other properties that's fine.

Hydrocarbons are incredibly simple, the clue is in their name, a bunch of Hydrogen (literally the most common element in the whole universe) and Carbon (also extremely common). The only reason not to make any particular hydrocarbons you need (e.g. to make JetA for a airliner) is it'd be very energy intensive and instead you can just distil some crude oil to get the hydrocarbons you want...

Strictly speaking, the oil in the Earth's crust is both finite and more than 50% already extracted.

However, a closed cycle of renewable-powered vehicles and processing sites growing crops for biorefineries which are then hydrocracked into the various petrochemical additives to maintain the infrastructure with surplus left over for the rest of society has been proven to be viable going back to the early 2010s.

Leong et al has a great survey of how the entire market of irreplaceable petrochemical uses (e.g. medical grade plastic) and their upstream steps (e.g. metal smelting for making agricultural vehicles) can theoretically be made to work from wind alone, with total immunity to peak oil when it does eventually happen. Although the carbon molecules are essential, having a no-oil well industrial civilization is just a matter of long and arduous implementation and negotiation with vested interests.

Did you read the comment you replied to?

> This is, on the high end, 20% of the use of fossil fuels. We overwhelmingly burn oil and gas. If we displaced the burning, Hormuz would not matter (or would minimally matter for a few molecules) and the world would be awash in abundant supplies.

Don't forget that we need cadmium for batteries, asbestos for brake pads, and mercury for lightbulbs.

You missed the point of my comment.

> It isn’t going to happen. Planes don’t run on solar. Boats don’t run on renewables. The lubricant needed for wind turbines comes out of the earth. Dams need the same lubricant. Building roads, oil. Installing renewable infrastructure, oil. Running combines to harvest vegetation, oil. Building renewables requires massive amounts of oil.

All of this? About 30% of oil usage on the high end. You are listing the small uses for oil.

May some oil always be needed? Yes. But nowhere near as much as we produce today.

Ships are starting to become electrified. Currently for fixed routes.

You can, and should, over the entirety of europe apart from the northern parts of the nordic countries electric heat pumps are now simply more efficient than gas powered furnaces. This is true even if powered by gas based electricity - but obviously makes it possible to power them via renewables as well.

People in Quebec (Canada), which is colder than just about all of Europe, have been providing heating in winter using renewables for decades (thanks to an excess of renewables).

Wot?

Solar makes a fair bit where I am. Hydro works fine. Geothermal works fine. Wind works fine. Aircon is very efficient.

This is harder in plenty of regions but a blanket ‘can’t be done’ is way off the mark.

My wood pellet stove begs to differ.

...you can? Electric heaters exist?