# Unlimited clean cheap fuel **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [December 4, 2015, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unlimited-clean-cheap-fuel/739413 "2015-12-04T15:39:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![HoneyBadgerDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/honeybadgerdc/32/1033_2.png) [@HoneyBadgerDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HoneyBadgerDC)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2015, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unlimited-clean-cheap-fuel/739413/1 "2015-12-04T15:39:30Z")
Reading this morning about soome kind of silicon oil derived from sand. If it did actually turn out to be as cheap and clean as they are saying it will be how could this change the earth? The first things than come to mind for me include food production methods, the pumping of water over long distances and general transport issues. We could set up communities virtualy anywhere on the globe. Locations for large manufactures would not be all that important. It seems like it would effectively make the earth a lot smaller place. ``` Is the silicon oil thing for real?? ``` ---
**Author:** ![boffking](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/858c86/32.png) [@boffking](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/boffking)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2015, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unlimited-clean-cheap-fuel/739413/2 "2015-12-04T15:41:47Z")
Are you thinking of silcone oil? > **[Silicone oil](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicone_oil)** > > A silicone oil is any liquid polymerized siloxane with organic side chains. The most important member is polydimethylsiloxane. These polymers are of commercial interest because of their relatively high thermal stability and their lubricating properties. > Like all siloxanes (e.g., hexamethyldisiloxane), the polymer backbone consists of alternating silicon and oxygen atoms (...Si−O−Si−O−Si...). Many groups can be attached to the tetravalent silicon centres, but the dominant substituent is methyl or... It’s not flammable, although it makes a great lubricant. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2015, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unlimited-clean-cheap-fuel/739413/3 "2015-12-04T15:42:40Z")
Do you have a link to the story you’re referring to? Because offhand, I can’t see how you could derive energy from sand. ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2015, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unlimited-clean-cheap-fuel/739413/4 "2015-12-04T15:46:31Z")
> [@boffking](#): > > Are you thinking of silcone oil? > [Silicone oil - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicone_oil) > It’s not flammable, although it makes a great lubricant. I don’t think so, here is a link: [Turning Sand into fuel - Silicon oil as an energy carrier - Sepp Hasslberger](http://blog.hasslberger.com/2010/03/turning_sand_into_fuel_silicon.html) ---
**Author:** ![HoneyBadgerDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/honeybadgerdc/32/1033_2.png) [@HoneyBadgerDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HoneyBadgerDC)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2015, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unlimited-clean-cheap-fuel/739413/5 "2015-12-04T15:51:36Z")
> [@kanicbird](#): > > I don’t think so, here is a link: [Turning Sand into fuel - Silicon oil as an energy carrier - Sepp Hasslberger](http://blog.hasslberger.com/2010/03/turning_sand_into_fuel_silicon.html) That is one of the articles I read. Another was a long winded advertisement looking to sell investment opportunities. It just boggles the mind how dramaticaly earth would change if the concept of efficiency and non polluting was no longer relevant. ---
**Author:** ![Ignotus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/ecc23a/32.png) [@Ignotus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ignotus)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2015, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unlimited-clean-cheap-fuel/739413/6 "2015-12-04T15:54:17Z")
> [@kanicbird](#): > > I don’t think so, here is a link: [Turning Sand into fuel - Silicon oil as an energy carrier - Sepp Hasslberger](http://blog.hasslberger.com/2010/03/turning_sand_into_fuel_silicon.html) According to the article, it’s proposed as an energy _carrier_, not an energy _source_. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2015, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unlimited-clean-cheap-fuel/739413/7 "2015-12-04T15:57:33Z")
How convenient for the people flogging the investment opportunity that their cites are a Flash-based site in German, a PDF image of an article also in German and a book in German. In other words, cites that an English-only speaker can’t use Google Translate to read. ---
**Author:** ![HoneyBadgerDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/honeybadgerdc/32/1033_2.png) [@HoneyBadgerDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HoneyBadgerDC)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2015, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unlimited-clean-cheap-fuel/739413/8 "2015-12-04T16:00:41Z")
The long winded advertisement I was looking at is part of the AOL news stories that they rotate every few seconds, news mixed with adds trying to give the impression it is all news. Sounds like it was just to good to be true. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2015, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unlimited-clean-cheap-fuel/739413/9 "2015-12-04T16:08:50Z")
Sounds like using silanes as fuel. That seems workable except for the parts about being unlimited, clean, and cheap. Also a little problem might be that silanes ignite in contact with air. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2015, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unlimited-clean-cheap-fuel/739413/10 "2015-12-04T16:09:50Z")
> [@HoneyBadgerDC](#): > > The long winded advertisement I was looking at is part of the AOL news stories that they rotate every few seconds, news mixed with adds trying to give the impression it is all news. > **Sounds like it was just to good to be true.** Bolding mine. IMO there’s not much more you need to know to evaluate a clickbait teaser on a garbage website. That’s the one place on Earth I would expect \*not \*to have real news of real breakthroughs. ---
**Author:** ![ZipperJJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zipperjj/32/211_2.png) [@ZipperJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZipperJJ)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2015, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unlimited-clean-cheap-fuel/739413/11 "2015-12-04T18:17:50Z")
There is a “[Deadly, Global War For Sand](http://www.wired.com/2015/03/illegal-sand-mining/)” going on (because it is the main ingredient in cement) so I would not be too quick to say that anything derived from sand would be cheap or easy to come by. Unless it’s mostly the sort of sand that is not needed for cement, and the mining of it would not cause villages and towns to wash away.