Although the largest uses for petroleum are energy/transportation, which would be replaced by LENR, there are numerous other uses for petroleum which will not be replaced by LENR, so there will always be some market for it. Here are some of those other uses:
Agriculture One of the most important uses of petroleum is in the production of ammonia to be used as the nitrogen source in agricultural fertilizers. In the early 20th century, Fritz Haber invented a process that allowed for industrial scale production of ammonia. Prior to that, ammonia for fertilizer came only from manure and other biological processes. Agriculture also depends on the use of pesticides to ensure consistent, healthy crop yields. Pesticides are almost all produced from oil. Plastics Plastic is a staple of modern life. From computer monitors to nylon to Styrofoam, plastics are integral aspects of many manufactured products. Polystyrene, from which Styrofoam is made, and polyvinyl chloride (PVC) were both products of post-World War II industrialization. Nylon, which is in everything from stockings to mechanical gears and even in car engines, is the most successful petroleum-based plastic to date. Most plastics come from olefins, which include ethylene and propylene. Tires Tires are made of rubber. Until 1910 all rubber was produced from natural elastomers obtained from plants. The need for synthetic rubber was relatively small until World War II, which resulted in embargos on natural rubber from South America and the need to produce synthetic rubber on a large scale. Rubber is primarily a product of butadiene. Pharmaceuticals Mineral oil and petrolatum are petroleum byproducts used in many creams and topical pharmaceuticals. Tar, for psoriasis and dandruff, is also produced from petroleum. Most pharmaceuticals are complex organic molecules, which have their basis in smaller, simpler organic molecules. Most of these precursors are petroleum byproducts. Dyes, Detergents, and Other Petroleum distillates such as benzene, toluene, xylene, and others provide the raw material for products that include dyes, synthetic detergents, and fabrics. Benzene and toluene are the starting materials used to make polyurethanes, which are used in surfactants, oils, and even to varnish wood. Even sulfuric acid has its origins in the sulfur that is removed from petroleum. Partial List of Unexpected Products Made from or Containing Petroleum: Ink Upholstery CDs Vitamin Capsule Denture Adhesive Putty Guitar Strings Heart Valves Anesthetics Cortisone Toilet Seats Crayons Pillows Artificial Turf Deodorant Lipstick Hair Coloring Aspirin Makeup Candle wax -mark From: Jed Rothwell [mailto:jedrothw...@gmail.com] Sent: Sunday, March 13, 2016 6:41 PM To: vortex-l@eskimo.com Subject: Re: [Vo]:NY Times, "How Saudi Arabia Turned Its Greatest Weapon on Itself" Axil Axil <janap...@gmail.com> wrote: That opinion is an overreaction. It will take 20 to 30 years before any fraction of transportation is converted over to LENR. The time it takes to convert is not so important. An economist friend of mine explained to me that markets respond to likely future events, either short term or long term. If it becomes generally known that over the next 30 years most of the market for oil will vanish, that will have an immediate effect on the price today. Producers will want to sell off their inventory as quickly as as they can while it still has value. When every producer does that, the price will plummet. They will rush to dig more wells to get as much oil out of the ground and sold as they can before it becomes worthless. "Rushing" to dig a well means you do it in 3 to 5 years. It is a slow business. In the context of building an oil extraction infrastructure, 30 years is a fairly short time. Once the writing is on the wall the price will collapse and never recover. I think it is starting to do that with coal, because natural gas, wind and solar have taken a large fraction of the coal market, and there is no reason to think they will not take the rest of it away over the next 30 years. They are getting cheaper every day, and there is growing public pressure to reduce carbon emissions. The biggest coal producer is China. They peaked in 2011 and will soon begin dropping rapidly. See p. 14 here: https://www.iea.org/publications/freepublications/publication/KeyWorld_Statistics_2015.pdf - Jed
