Organic chemistry (chemistry involving carbon) is fascinating. It's not always economically feasible, but you can basically transform any carbon based molecule into any other carbon based molecule. It was always very suspicious to me that because of some grand coincidence the refiners were producing exactly what the market demanded. Its clear that they have an ability to adjust output based on demand. Bottom line is that any statement from the oil industry has to be taken with a big grain of salt. Their creativity in finding ways to justify their existence is boundless.

Mendeleev, the father of the periodic table of the elements, was asked once what he thought about burning petroleum. He said he supposed you could also keep warm by burning banknotes in the kitchen stove...That's the point I make constantly- that petroleum's highest value uses are NOT as fuels. And if we waste less petroleum by burning it, we'll have MORE of this precious, finite resource available to future generations to use for truly high value applications.

This was a good one, Dave. Your guest was excellent. Thanks for fighting against the lies of the fossil fuel industry.

Far from being mortified, I think your restraint is admirable!

An agonizingly slow process but those who have seen the light are grasping the opportunity to move forward! Thanks Dave this was an excellent video.

I heard Conference of the Parties will be renamed from COP to Keep on Polluting KOP to better reflect the progress being made. By KOP 32 they hope to reach the target of doubling our CO2 emissions in just 50 years.

That was a pretty good overview of a modern petroleum refinery. I worked at the Conoco Refinery in Westlake, LA back in the 1980s as a plant engineer once I got my BS in Chemical Engineering. BTW, the gunk at the very bottom is used as asphalt to pave roads!

Another banger from you Dave. May I suggest something? A video series called 'Climate Forensics'(or something better) where you take a country and take it's climate policies apart and see what they are doing right and wrong, are the policies backed by actions or are they just words. Would be both educational and click-worthy ;)

I remember a conversation I had with a mechanical engineer in Detroit years ago, discussing electromotive products, including my disdain for the Petroleum Industry as a Profit driven, ultimate authority that disregards the health and wellbeing of others. It was he that reminded me that the best avenue to confront our “betters”, was the banking industry directly…. I have come to realize the truth of that, and with your commentary concerning what CAN be done at “great expense”, my faith in the possibility of actually correcting the problems at hand is being renewed… Thank you for that 🤔😎

We just dumped our gas heating and installed a heat pump. As we drive electric and don‘t fly at all we are prepared for the desperately needed changes outlined in your excellent video. Politicians, please proceed!!!

Great vid and graphics. Very informative. I worked at a refinery years ago and have limited knowledge of the subject. Oil industry claims you need them. If I was running a scam, that is what I would say. Organic plant based oils work well for all of these things. We would be better off if those oils were used for medicine than popcorn. High temp autoclave can break down these left overs.

The polite next-level trolling in this is truly great. Greater. Greatxcellent.

Thanks for sharing your chat. Good to know that there are options for the fossil fuel industry. Too bad they didn’t start building towards it sooner, but here we are 😒

A thought that has occurred to me lately, seeing the reduction in fossil fuel industry's investment in renewables, is that many may actually want to go bankrupt. For a while FF companies were showing signs of beginning the switch to renewables - however pathetically small that was. But the problem with remaining viable is they will continue to be on the hook for all the lawsuits and government demands for compensation and cleaning up their mess. It is estimated that the the Tar Sand in Alberta alone have an unfunded liability of over $250 Billion to restore the area into something that doesn't even match the nature it destroyed. Just something that isn't an ongoing environmental catastrophe. And that doesn't even include its contribution to air pollution global warming. I'm concerned that the higher ups will begin quietly divesting leaving dupes and taxpayers with all the costs.

To quote the famous philosopher, Pogo, “we have met the enemy, and he is us”. If we wouldn’t buy stuff, then they wouldn’t make it. If they didn’t make it, then we wouldn’t have pollution. We cannot continue on the assumption that we can continue to have everything that we do, and also reduce pollution of all kinds to any meaningful extent.

Thank you for the insight Dave, fascinating as always. Might be worth exploring at some stage (or again?) the other myths the industry is using to try to derail the transition we must go through? Those myths such as plant food for CO2, societal collapse will follow the end of fossil fuel combustion etc. etc. ? I know other online sources cover them to some extent, but a good summary might be handy...

Dave, no need to apologise. You're one of my favourite ultracrepidarians! At least you admit it; honesty is the best policy. If only those big oil spokespeople could be as honest with the public and with governments. Thanks for this most informative video.

This has been a question in my mind for a long time. Thanks for providing such a complete review of the subject and information on what is possible.

Courageous of you to stare down the mouth of the Canadian Fossil Industry Dragon :D Important insights, though. Well done!

Thank you for continuing releasing videos of such a high quality!

Very good video. By the way I love your dry British humor in the beginning. There was much surprise for me on the petrochemical industry. You also opened up a real can of worms with over consumption and using the earth as an open sewer. I can't say enough about this video , a truly great job.

All your vlogs hold fascinating news/info, thank you!

We weren't ignorant. We just didn't care. We haven't changed much.

The comment your guest makes at the end of his presentation starting at 10:32, he concludes "right now we have these giant gas networks that distribute gas over hundreds to thousands of kilometers and every pipe leaks a little bit, every joint, every flange, leaks a little bit and that will have to be taken care of, but, again, the gas industry is mostly a self fixing problem because the way we'll fix those problems is by not using natural gas anymore." Which is simply incorrect, as natural gas is often a byproduct of drilling for oil in the first place. Getting rid of the market for natural gas doesn't get rid of natural gas. It just makes it worthless, and if it's worthless it is much more likely to be flared off...

Eliminating methane use is hard because of civilian use. Way too many people rely on it for home heating. Even if electric or heat pump is much cheaper to run. Most simply do not have the money to swap. Even if gov paid 2/3 of it.

Excellent as always. Its worth noting that flaring is extremely destructive to air quality and causes cancers in people who live near where this happens. So its definitely something worth investing in.

Probably the most important thing to note from that is the adaptability of modern hydrocarbon refineries. Perhaps in a future video you could explore the variety of usable feedstocks? What's currently used is compressed & heated compost - that compost doesn't have to be either compressed or heated, it can just as easily be grass clippings, food waste, abattoir waste, trees, anything carbon-based.

Very interesting ....great graphics to help follow the processes 👍

Excellent work that keeps me informed & broadens my knowledge. Thanks for all your efforts,

Thanks for another great vlog topic. One thing not mentioned was the use of fossil fuels in agriculture (fertilizers, pesticides & herbicides etc) - agriculture is one of the top users of fossil fuels and emissions sources. In industry, ammonia is a very important chemical product, and heavily reliant on fossil fuels. The top natural alternatives to fossil fuels include fungi, hemp, rattan, algae / seaweed, bamboo & cork - all must be sustainably & ethically harvested of course. Palm oil is also extremely useful, but cultivation, harvesting & distribution is extremely problematic at this time. We do seem to making incremental progress in the industries producing the most emissions (except for agriculture - unsure what progress is being made here if any) - electricity & heating (moving to clean tech and energy & thermal storage) - fuels for transportation & freight including shipping (moving towards electrification & battery storage) - steel (new processes) - cement (new processes) - industrial heating (moving towards electrification and thermal recovery & storage) - producing chemicals, dyes, paper & plastics (use of alternative materials & processes) - waste from landfills & human waste processing (expanding the circular economy) - clothing & fashion (???) - agriculture (???) Scientists, engineers & academics are working very hard to decarbonise these sectors, despite the incredible push back from governments, dirty industries, vested interests, economic oligarchs and the misinformed. Hopefully it won't be a case of too little too late - we certainly are leaving it to the last last last minute. Agriculture is the only sector that seems to have fallen through the cracks. We must also remember that the climate crisis isn't solely about the increasing concentration of GHGs in the atmosphere (most notedly CO2 which is at 420 ppm (vs the safe 350 ppm), methane & nitrous oxide (mainly from agriculture)) - which is very serious & needs to be reduced very quickly very very soon. The flip side of the climate breakdown coin is the destruction & degradation of GHG sinks, such as the oceans, kelp & mangrove forests, seagrass meadows, tropical forests & soils etc. All these critical GHG sinks might have reached their max capacity for GHG drawdown so any increase in GHG concentrations from now on is going to exacerbate the climate crisis very very significantly going forward.

Thank you! We need more of this on all platforms!

Dave once again thanks, particularly for the input of the very clear explanation from the oil refinery technologist.

Thanks Dave! My brother works revamping the control systems and other requirements for these plants down in Houston. This is the lifeblood of Houston, so something has to be done to keep the jobs and change our ways, away from greenhouse gas emissions and towards renewables. I'm glad you mentioned a bit of the thinking being given to transitioning towards a green future. Your guest is amazingly astute in this area, and I recon that the industry simply has to move towards changes and renewables, which the owners obviously won't like to do, but even they live on planet earth. 🌎. Sure it's expensive to deal with the changes, but planet B is a long ways off, so we'll have to keep planet A in good shape. 😊 These industries have branches that make the ultra pure silicon and on up to modules, so they need to grow those sectors and shift the economic levers in that direction, they could even make more insulation boards and other products to max out the performance of building envelopes. ✉️ 🌄

I recall my college organic chemistry 🧪 textbook 📕 had “profile of a chemical: carbon monoxide, an industrial feedstock”. It’s all nice juicy reactive carbon-oxygen bond. 👍

Fascinating subject. I far prefer discussions that cover the problems as well as the solutions when it comes to energy challenges.

Best video you have done, almost no hectoring and lots of useful information.

Thank you for the vid, best moment of the week when these drop. Great work

Excellent material - thank you. I've been wondering about that question myself.

My knowledge of oil refining was at level "I think I've heard something about manipulating the length of carbohydrates" which to me means they can make anything out of everything in oil. Thank you for confirming and deepening this knowledge.

"Need" is a weird word. Things are only "needed" until they're not. Where's the expense of things and where's the profit? THAT tells one what's up with "needs". The folks that sell things will tell you ANYTHING to keep you buying things. Good vid. I doubt most folks understand what's up with these processes.

Very informative, thank you

Interesting education in refinery design. I have heard that German industry had been using natural gas as feedstock for large swaths of industrial products, not just for energy. So I’d be interested in learning more about how that worked as a follow on.

I think your video title should be; Why are we burning this valuable commodity when it is an essential ingredient in pharmaceuticals, electronics, fertilizers, plastics, etc. I think the fact that oil will become scarce and thus force up prices on essential items and we should be burning other less valuable and scarce chemicals.

Probably the best titled You Tube channels. Makes me think!

We can produce it via, 'Precision Fermentation ' technology.

This should be taught in schools and universities

A great, succinct presentation as always. Love your stuff. Keep it up!!!

"It will be costly, and would require reworking the refinery." Yeah, assuming said statement about requiring no new technology is true.. kinda pointless when the world still needs combustible fuel.

Thanks for another informative video!

Thanks Dave. Your Sunday sermons are one of the highlights of my week. Keep preaching the good word.

Great video. Thank you so much for creating and posting.

Great work on an important topic!

What a brilliant take on the madness.

The Fossil Fools keep telling us that we can't, but… WE CAN. I'll bet the whalers claimed that we couldn't do without whale oil either. Don't drink the Fossil-Fool Aid, folks!

I’m one of those employed in a down stream fossil fuel business, that would need to be redeployed if the world was to move significantly away from hydrocarbons and hydrocarbon based commodity products. But even though things have been changing, new polyethylene plants have opened up in just the last few years and more are on the drawing boards. We would need an absolutely major and seriously colossal paradigm shift in the way we live life to do away with poly ethylene derived products that a shift to renewable energy simply doesn’t deliver. Ever seen how much plastic is involved in EV’s? Solar PV? Or Irrigation? Medical industry? Clothing? Food? Packaging? Power distribution? Furnishings? Toys? Etc. Society would need to be redesigned. This goes well beyond removing plastic bags from supermarkets. For what it is worth, the little we heard from your guest was genuine and transparent, he wasn’t gilding the Lilly in any way. Excellent video.

Truly excellent and insightful content as always. Thankyou so much. We do really heavily on petroleum products, and although it's been obvious we don't need so much of it - the waste issue is huge - we still need to use it. It's incredibly positive that there are already ways to do this technically, even with the costs and the problems. Government regulation is really what is required now to push changes... unfortunately.

Hi Dave, thanks for this. I didn’t know it was possible to only refine the things you want and leave the rest unrefined. I’m also very happy that you talked about the need to reduce consumption. That often gets left out. The only thing I’m unclear on is what we do with the unrefined oil. Am I misunderstanding something? We have to pump the whole barrel of oil to get the parts we want, so we still have the parts we don’t want out of the ground. Do we pump that part back into the ground or what? Maybe I missed something? Can you please explain? Thanks.

Thank you Dave. You have a talent for taking complex subjects and making them easier to understand. I have a suggestion for you. I just finished reading Michael Mann’s new book titled “Our Fragile Moment”. You could take this excellent book on climate science and summarize it for your followers.

Thank you for this one in time for COP 28 in Dubai. Tried to get invited where a solar/wind well h2o pump filtration device, and vertical farming units would have been the highlight of my presentation along with my novel healthcare nutrition biomedicine protocol, modeled using traditional Chinese medicine diagnosis and treatment for chronic and some acute diseases. Darn, guess it is up to you, Dave Borlace and your videos. Love them!

I've been following this channel for a long time now. It provides a good scientific background to support its arguments, as well as, gives a great update of the latest publications. So, I'm not gonna lie, this title scared me a bit as I wasn't sure what to expect. However, I'm glad it turned out to be the great one (again)! Thank you!

Oil industry seeing their fuel demands begin to 'evaporate', finally, but sadly ironically right as El Nino and additional effects really start to cook up. Seems like we human just have to see it .....to believe action is needed. I kinda cringe at better late than never, because just how late really?. Intervention and time will tell!

We could have phased out oil at the least in most of transportation and large sections of manufacturing with solar panels. Especially if we invested heavily in the technology starting in the 70s

Here in Queensland Australia we hit a record 200mt of coal production last year and India can't get enough It's just none stop and production is set to exceed 300mt in the next 10 years So apparently Coal is the king of commodities that we just can't do without Coal mining provides wealth, jobs and an incredible amount of disposable income that has for generations built a political system that is a behemoth dedicated to it's own insatiable appetite

Great video as always. Thank you for your effort.

Thank you dave for this information. I am trying to be practical. As far as i understand global warming is a fact of life. What im curious about is how industry and governments are planning to handle the changes forseen?

Hemp can help with a lot. The big oil lobbied the governments to ban it because they knew how much of a wonder plant it is. You can make almost everything with hemp from clothes to dinner plates etc.

Brilliant video as usual. Your excellent presentation skills, combined with a pinch of dry humour with having to resort to theatrics is so professional. I never thought that I would watch a video explaining the refining of fossil fuels as I am an ardent believer in renewable energy but when I saw that it was Dave questioning the mantra of the fossil fuel industry I knew the answer would not only be possible but good! Thank you!

A very useful and comprehensive video giving an insight into the complexity of an effective transition to a non carbon based economy, I am a 92 year chemical engineer who was trained to deal with an oil and coal based world and the production of all its products, however I felt reluctant to burn what had taken millions of years to create. I feel today that no government is able to administer the details of how thousands of necessary products must be sourced, produced and distributed, this has to be left to the markets through the price mechanism where oil and coal is charged and constantly increasing tax at source on an absolutely world wide basis. Thereafter, it is to each individual user, small or large, to decide whether it is worthwhile for themselves to burn it by flaring, or in cars, etc.. or products worth $thousands per kg. This could provide for a gradual transition over the next 25 years . 😊

That damn “empty hospital add” pisses me off. “Oh no how will we make things without fossil fuels” Straight up False Dilemma logical fallacy. Even without any major changes, algal ponds and Hydrothermal Liquefaction can make a *Drop In Replacement for Crude Oil* (The only changes *maybe* needed are Desalters (basically just mix with water then remove water, existing designs) and *maybe* Hydrodemetallization for Iron Contamination (i can grab the paper, but salt and iron were the main contaminants of HTL Biocrude if i remember correctly) similar to Hydrodesulferization, although i have read less on this so it may need more catalyst work etc) Then one can mention Power-to-X processes, and/or Gasification then “Gas-to-Liquids” processes. (Shoutout to my favorite Dimethyl Ether (DME). “Pyrolysis” also exists, and works better with Cellulosic Biomass etc, and can be used for “Thermal Recycling” or Plastics and other RDF. Granted separating the Pyrolysis Oil (often called “Bio-Oil” which gets confusing with Pure Plant Oil and HTL Biocrude) and Char in it can be difficult. *THEN* you have the precision fermentation realm where you can use the Familiar (Sugar and/or Cellulosic) Ethanol to make things such as Ethane etc. *Also* with genetic engineering one can make microbes that produce Bio-Butanol or all sorts of other interesting compounds. I’m rambling, but between all the possibilities, and also *high Technology Readiness Level Studies / Pilot Plants* the only limit is really investment + public interest, here’s to hoping…

Gradually transitioning from a gas household. The stove is induction. The hot water is a heat pump (as of last week), the main room heater is a heat pump. The clothes dryer is a heat pump and the main power source to the house is a Tesla battery and solar panels. I have a hybrid car at this stage.

Thanks again for your work.

Excellent and clear. Thank you.

I'm thinking we'll always need petro-derived products. I'd like to know what those might be ? Over the short term and long term. Cost ? Nah, there's always a cost. My simple mind can't collate all the data Dave has presented us over the years so I need help big time to find out an answer.

It's going to be interesting to see how people will react when they realize what a corner we've painted ourselves into.

2:47 Dave's best 'I have no idea what you are talking about, but will keep nodding' face :-)

Fascinating information. Great to take a moment to hear from people who actually know what they are talking about.

producing products FROM oil isnt the same as BURNING oil.

that petro chemicals flowchart is really sexy, I just recently looked for something like it! Very much appreciated how well your sources are cited in every video btw, so helpful!

Years ago I read a book based in the 1700s called follow the river. About a family settled in Virginia. The village was raided by Indians and the woman and children were tooken hostage. It describes the beautiful forest and rivers from Virginia, Kentucky to Ohio. Before the railroads, the iron age and the industrial complex. Then I read about the industrial revolution. The 1800s the abuse of the people and the command of super rich. What Standard Oil did in Cleveland Ohio making kerosene and dumping the byproduct of gasoline in the Ohio river. Not starting the destruction but continuing the end of what used to be pristine land of nature and bliss. Resulting in the land, rivers and skies of today. Very few people got all they dreamed for. The rest of the people, the wildlife and the earth paid the price.

the fact that we need it for other things is literally an argument AGAINST burning it

Brilliant. We just need politicians with spines to bring the changes about. Unfortunately they seem very few and far between at least in the UK.

Aren't we already replacing a lot of polymers from petroleum with polymers from cellulose? Agricultural wastes, etc? Of course we can also just stop using a huge proportion of those things entirely - see recent bans on things like shopping bags that the plastics industry screamed we'd never do without. But lo and behold, the deadline to stop selling them rolled around and they disappeared from our supermarkets and nobody even noticed. This just seems like a non-problem to me.

Thanks for yet another thoughtful presentation.

I love it, Dave! So well presented. I sense that some of the oil giant bigwigs themselves will be checking out this video for the overview.

11:10 I would translate such CO2 figures into something more meaningful for people. These figures a meaningless to 90% of all people. Sure it sounds big, but I have no idea how it compares. I would prefer something like "outputs as much CO2 as X average people" or "X% of the total global CO2 output" I calculated it and according to this number flaring creates 1.1% of all CO2 output or as much as 90 million people.

Great video. Leaving a like & a comment for the algorithm because of your previous videos and work 👍

I have noticed an increase in news articles against electric car, battery, and environmental technology lately. It's almost like the oil and auto industry have come to an understanding that they need to work together to keep up the status quo. There was such optimism and hope a year ago. There is still tons of advances and positive news, but if you don't like to dig for it, you would never know it. Thankyou for your informative and entertaining show. Carl from Washington state, usa

Y'know, its ALMOST like we've spent TRILLIONS of dollars and more than a century developing chemistry and industrial processes to manipulate petrochemicals at will...🤔

So big oil to shrink to a quarter of its current size. No problem just quadruple the price of every thing they provide with other increments due to the loss of economies of scale. Quick fix no sweat.

Advanced refining processes are fully capable of taking what would become gasoline, jet fuel, diesel, and natural gas, and convert with the help of catalysts and cracking, into non-fuel products like synthetic coal, hydrogen, plastics, bio-degradable oil-based plastics, carbon dioxide, and explosives. Of course, this advanced processing costs extra energy.

Thanks Dave. This is such an important question yet there has been such a dearth of attention paid to the issue. I was delighted to see that you have given it some exposure. Needless to say, your treatment of the subject is as thorough and insightful as I've come to expect from you. Thank you. The notion of a genuine transition away from fossil fuels is complex and fraught with very, very serious questions. None of these questions are being discussed by our media or politicians and the prevailing narrative (which regards the green transition as a mere replacement of 'dirty' sources of energy with a'clean' ones) is simplistic and naive. We have difficult decisions to make as a species and our politicians are (at best) ignorant of these complexities or (at worst) deceiving their populations into believing that our current way of life can be sustained without the need for grave sacrifices. This question is, of course, a subset of a larger question; 'can a finite planet sustain infinite economic growth?' The assumption of the majority of politicians is 'yes', the reality almost certainly 'no'. We need to raise awareness of the concerns of the 'no' camp such that the prevailing narrative is more thoroughly interrogated.

The fact still remains that we a currently in the longest sustained coldest period in earths history since life began. We are also suffering the lowest levels of CO2 over the same period. Dropping to dangerous levels over the period of an ice age cycle when plant life stops growing. What the world need most of all is much higher levels of CO2 we need to get to 1000ppm as a minimum to get the plant back to normal levels. Any attempts to reduce CO2 is complete madness...

Does anybody else have the little thought that when ever an oil company or their minions speak, they lie? Just a little thought. It gets tiresome!

Great presentation

Your humor is often the high point of my week. :) Thanks, yet again, for a good commentary.

I was mortally uplifted by this content. Thanks Dave, great guest.

Hi. A level headed summation. Thanks Dave. Cheers, P.R.

Thanks for the video!

Great work Dave, thanks

Excellent overview.