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Comment by pfdietz | Hacker News Reader

> Petrochemical products aren't going away any time soon. Unless we want to go back to hunting whales for things like lubricants.

Synthetic lubricants (like Mobil-1) are a thing.

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"Synthetic oil is a lubricant consisting of chemical compounds that are artificially modified or synthesised. Synthetic lubricants can be manufactured using chemically modified petroleum components rather than whole crude oil, but can also be synthesized from other raw materials. The base material, however, is still overwhelmingly crude oil that is distilled and then modified physically and chemically. The actual synthesis process and composition of additives is generally a commercial trade secret and will vary among producers."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthetic_oil

Polyalphaolefins (PAOs), the most common synthetic oil, are produced from ethylene. In the US, this overwhelmingly means being produced from natural gas, as US fracked gas is rich in ethane, the feedstock for ethylene production.

https://www.cpchem.com/what-we-do/solutions/polyalphaolefins...

Penzoil is at least upfront that they make their synthetics from natural gas.

Mobile-1 is happy to tell you that they dont use natural gas.

But that doesn't mean that they dont use hydrocarbons pumped from the ground to make it. Synthetic is just a marketing term: http://xtremerevolution.net/a-defining-moment-for-synthetics...

Lots of options if someone is willing to pay 5x as much. Most options are better as well, but not 5x the price better.

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