Gasoline on Scadrial

[Argent he/him]

Something in Shadows of Self made me wonder how Scadrial has gasoline (it is explicitly mentioned that motorcars run on it). We obviously don't have a timeline for the Cosmere, but I got the impression that the Shattering of Adonalsium happened thousands (perhaps hundreds of thousands) years ago, not millions. Does anyone know how long it takes for organic matter to turn into something that could be turned into gasoline?

[natc]

Coppermind says that the Way of Kings epilogue occurs about 4500 years after Aharietiam. I would think Scadrial's life can't be younger than all of Roshar's recorded history.

[Argent he/him]

Aharietiam was only the last Desolation. There are hints that there have been dozens, if not hundreds of Desolations before that one. And there was obviously life during those.

[natc]

Thanks for . . . further proving my point?

The last big historical thing on Roshar is literally that old. Honor vs Odium has been going on for a while before that, and Odium only showed up recently, relatively speaking, because he spent time splintering people elsewhere. Meaning Sel in its current seon-populated state predates even that, and civilization on Sel as a whole even more so. Ruin makes "since time immemorial" comments regularly as if he doesn't even remember how long he's been at this whole anti-Preservation gig.

The Shattering can easily be pretty storming ancient.

[Argent he/him]

Hmm. Maybe.

[Yata he/him]

There is a Wob about the "time" passed by the Shattering to the WoK's Prologue. And it passed "quite" 6000 years (but Brandon stated that could change this a little) therefore we had thousand of years but not millions.

[Titan Arum]

What if it's more of a biofuel gasoline? I imagine, based upon the yields of crops in The Village, there would be a consistent source of vegetable matter to create biofuel.

 

One can also use ethanol completely in some vehicles as gasoline. I have a feeling, though, that this simply was something he didn't even consider, nor did the beta readers. 

[Argent he/him]

What if it's more of a biofuel gasoline? I imagine, based upon the yields of crops in The Village, there would be a consistent source of vegetable matter to create biofuel.

 

One can also use ethanol completely in some vehicles as gasoline. I have a feeling, though, that this simply was something he didn't even consider, nor did the beta readers. 

 

The word in the book is gasoline though. As in, the one that comes from petroleum. 

[Kaymyth she/her]

Huh.  I'd think that diesel would be a more logical fuel source.  Refinable from a multitude of methods, including biodiesel.

[Titan Arum]

The word in the book is gasoline though. As in, the one that comes from petroleum. 

Sure, but you can have biobutonol, aka biogasoline, which is equivalent to gasoline. In fact, you can put biobutonol directly into a gasoline engine without any modifications to the vehicle. 

[Argent he/him]

Yes, I know and I agree. But I think that's making the data fit the conclusion, not deriving a conclusion from the data. When Wax is complaining about "motorcars that run on gasoline" - not an exact quote - I don't think it's plausible that what he really meant was "motorcars that run on biogasoline, which we call gasoline for convenience." It's possible, certainly (I find some merit in the argument that since Scadrial never had gasoline, dropping the "bio-" from "biogasoline" makes sense), I just don't find it likely.

[Titan Arum]

I agree with you as well. I think it was just a slip up in the writing. It's a stretch to go with it as biogasoline as is. I was just trying to come up with possible justification to the scene, however unlikely it may be. 

 

However, if there is gasoline on planet, as Wax claims, I'd be more inclined scientifically (at least using our own Earthly science) to believe it would be bio-based than petroleum based. As you stated, I doubt there has been enough geological time for petroleum to be created...unless for some reason Preservation and Ruin put some in the planet when they created life. Again, seems like a stretch given what we know. 

[dendrophobe he/him]

Harmony completely rearranged the planet, and changed a lot of things after his Ascension.  With his Preservation-given power to see the future, as well as instinctive knowledge (like how Rashek all of a sudden knew about Hemalurgy) he could have seen that they'd need crude oil, and put some in the ground for their use.  Heck, he could have even put actual gasoline in the ground, without any need for further refinement.

 

It could also be a remnant of Rashek's reign, since the increased heat and pressures from being too close to the sun could have changed the time required for crude oil to form.

 

Or, it could be as simple as a translation error.  Brandon has said that the English we read is translated from whatever language they're actually speaking. Perhaps gasoline is simply our closest word to describe what they're using?

[Argent he/him]

The "it's a translation" argument is probably the best one I can accept. I try to use it as a bit of a last resort though.

[Mestiv he/him]

I don't remember correctly, but didn't Brandon say that there was life on couple of shardworlds before the Shattering and before Shards came there? Maybe there was some life on Scadrial millions of years ago.

 

However, I think that most probably Harmony put some oil in the ground to boost the development of humanity, as a counteract of TLR slowing it down for a thousand years.

[Yata he/him]

During the Final Empire we had a lot of ash in the area. With bacteria designed to dispose the cinder.
Therefore we had an huge amount of raw material and a catalyst for its reactions.

Virtually may be in that way.

[Argent he/him]

I don't remember correctly, but didn't Brandon say that there was life on couple of shardworlds before the Shattering and before Shards came there? Maybe there was some life on Scadrial millions of years ago.

 

However, I think that most probably Harmony put some oil in the ground to boost the development of humanity, as a counteract of TLR slowing it down for a thousand years.

 

I am pretty sure Scadrial was started from scratch. There were some WoBs about that.

[Oudeis he/him]

The "it's a translation" argument is probably the best one I can accept. I try to use it as a bit of a last resort though.

 

While I agree with you, I see the whole gasoline thing as fairly ancillary to anything relevant to the plot. This is one of the cases where I could see "lengthy explanations about what I technically meant" or even "make up a word and not explain it" as doing more to detract and distract than advance the story; like a pun that wouldn't make sense in context, I see something like this as "the story is better served if we just use a word that's inaccurate but will give you the right sort of idea."

 

Basically, under most circumstances I try to use it as a last resort. In a case like this, I think it was a valid narrative tool.

[Blaze1616 he/him]

Well, if we feel like digging into the issue a bit, do they ever mention kerosene for lamp oil? Gasoline is a natural byproduct of the production of kerosene, and so perhaps clues lie in kerosene and not gasoline.

 

Of course, I don't recall them ever discussing kerosene, nor where the crude oil came from, so this is likely a dead end as well.

[Cadmium he/him]

Without delving too deeply into Earth religions, many "Young Earth" Creationists support the theory of "Creation with Apparent Age."  i.e. What if the world were formed with strata of rock (and petroleum deposits) in situ as if it had been there for ages?  This allows for reservoirs of fossil fuels ages for "millions of years" on Day One of a planet... or year 1,000, 1,300, etc.

Regardless, it stands to reason that if Harmony included documents that indicated internal combustion engines are possible that he would also see to it that they understood how to locate and produce the required fuels.

If we apply Occam's Razor, the solution that is the simplest and requires the fewest assumptions is that:

1. The word "gasoline" is similar to the refined petroleum product that we call by that name on Earth.
2. Sazed/Harmony included fossil fuel and petroleum reservoirs in the reshaping of Scadrial.
3. Amongst the Words of Founding are instructions for the exploration, drilling, and production of crude and its refinement into petroleum products.

 

Regarding the source of the fossil fuels there are yet more options.

1. He could have merely preserved the already present Fossil Fuel Reservoirs (More likely)
2. Or He could have created new reservoirs from existing carbon sources and introduced extreme heat/pressure to advance the time table.
3. Or he could have forced them to be, ex nihilo, though that doesn't line up with the abilities of Preservation & Ruin as easily. (Least likely)

I've been thinking this over for awhile now since I work in the Oil & Gas Industry, but didn't posit the question to the board yet as it seemed rather specialized and doesn't have a lot of bearing on the greater cosmere.

Edited October 29, 2015 by midnightyell

[Shardbearer he/him]

Does WoB indicate that Scadrial itself was started from scratch, or just human life on Scadrial? I'm pretty sure it's the latter, though I could be wrong.

 

So, it's entirely possible that the planet, and non human life, existed well before the Shattering, allowing for petroleum.

[Lazarus52980]

Could it have been put in place by Harmony?  We know that he changed a lot of the makeup of the world, and knows about tech and future tech (e.g. radio).  Mabye this was put there to help the tech development along?

[Cadmium he/him]

So, it's entirely possible that the planet, and non human life, existed well before the Shattering, allowing for petroleum.

As suggested elsewhere, we also know that Rashek/The Lord Ruler created microorganisms that decomposed the ash.

Many forms of liquid crude oil are largely derived from anaerobic decomposition of algaes, phytoplankton, and zooplankton. If these ash-decomposing organisms are buried under sedimentary rock or hardened ash, then exposed to pressure, they could naturally(?) become fossil fuels, though that would be on a much accelerated time-table compared to the formation that occurs/occured on Earth. Those organisms were there only for about a millennium.

 

There's potential there, though it is more complicated than the "They were always there, even before TLR or Harmony" answer.

Tangent: If these elevated pressure scenarios exist, wouldn't there be a higher incidence of diamond where all the coal supplies were compressed?

[The One Who Reads he/him]

Ok let's first look at the production of hydrocarbons.

 

1) Small organic lifeforms die in the upper levels of deep water low energy conditions, fall to the anoxic sea floor and are covered by fine-grained sediment.

2) Continual deposition of sediments and organics builds up a layer of organic rich mud called sapropel.

3) The paleoenvironment changes (e.g. an outbuilding landmass) and deposition of coarser sediment (which will form a porous and permeable reservoir rock) begins burying the sapropel. (increasing temperature and pressure and beginning the transformation to a source rock)

4) An impermeable layer is added to the top, the cap rock.

5) Faulting, folding and other tectonics creates a structure that will intercept and concentrate oil into economically viable reserve as it migrates upwards.

 

Hydrocarbon production is reliant on the enviroments of deposition not really timescale, we get lots of oil formed in the Jurassic at 180Ma-140Ma (or rather the source rock is that age) in the North Sea because that was when we had the right conditions in the right order not because 'oil takes 180Ma to form'.

 

steps 1-4 aren't that hard to imagine happening at some point in Scadrial's history, but when Harmony rearranged the geography of the landscape it would have been one hell of a job to not only preserve and move Kms of strata but position near to what would become Elendel. You also have to keep in mind this was also Sazed's first use of the shards and we know from past experience that the first time is the not always easy for a Shard-holder.

 

 

Tangent: If these elevated pressure scenarios exist, wouldn't there be a higher incidence of diamond where all the coal supplies were compressed?

Diamonds come from deep down brought up in mantle plumes, the difference is (mostly) pressure but the pressure is on a different order of magnitude. If scadrian coal seams generally formed under higher pressure than Earth's we would see a greater proportion of higher grade coal however.

[DeadFencer]

The gasoline being biofuel seems even more likely if we're going with the Occam's Razor method.