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submitted 2 days ago by fossilesque@mander.xyz to c/science_memes@mander.xyz

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[-] ryedaft@sh.itjust.works 44 points 2 days ago

According to Wikipedia only around 15% of artificial vanilla flavour is made from wood. The other 85%? You've guessed it - oil.

[-] Catoblepas@piefed.blahaj.zone 33 points 2 days ago

From what I can find it sounds like plant oils, not petroleum, for anyone else that was confused.

[-] ryedaft@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 day ago

Today, approximately 15% of the world's production of vanillin is still made from lignin wastes,[11] while approximately 85% is synthesized in a two-step process from the petrochemical precursors guaiacol and glyoxylic acid.[12][13]

[-] jaybone@lemmy.zip 8 points 2 days ago

Isn’t petroleum technically a plant oil?

[-] Catoblepas@piefed.blahaj.zone 9 points 2 days ago

It was plant oil, being fermented anaerobically and heated for millions of years chemically changes it.

[-] theunknownmuncher@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago

It was not plant oil. Plankton and algae aren't plants.

[-] xylol@leminal.space 3 points 2 days ago

Have we tried speed running oil creation like we did with diamonds?

[-] ryedaft@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 day ago

As atomicbocks points out, a major obstacle for sustainable fuels for combustion engines is that there isn't enough biomass around. Also why the new sustainable ship engines run on ammonia.

[-] atomicbocks@sh.itjust.works 12 points 1 day ago

Yes, we have even made bacteria that excretes fuels. But nothing that competes with just pulling hydrocarbons out of the ground at scale like we have with diamonds.

The main scaling issue is that the constituent carbon still has to come from somewhere, and one of the main carbon sources we have is... oil.

The best solution is to move away from carbon based fuels.