What was oil initially used for

Increasing sales of gasoline first for automobiles and then for airplanes in the early s came as oil discoveries across the United States mounted. The oil industry had a vast new market for what had been for many years a useless by-product of the distilling process.

As soon as the internal combustion engines created demand, refiners sought better methods to produce and improve gasolines. Before its entry into World War I , the United States contributed oil to the Allies, and in the oil companies cooperated with the Fuel Administration. Although the U. Judging from government surveys, many producers believed that a major oil shortage would soon occur.

These firms invested in the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and South America and searched for oil everywhere while they continued to export quantities of oil from the United States. Joiner became convinced that some flatlands in an East Texas basinlike structure contained oil. He obtained a lease near Tyler, Texas, and on October 5, , after having drilled two dry holes, struck perhaps the largest oil pool ever found in America.

It lay beneath , acres and contained 5 billion barrels. In a sense the Joiner strike came at an inopportune time; it was the onset of the Great Depression. The price of oil plummeted to ten cents a barrel in , creating chaos in the industry.

But some New Deal measures restored a modicum of prosperity, and then World War II stimulated the oil business enormously. The various oil strikes focused attention on a legal situation unique to the United States.

This right of capture continued for years despite the efforts of such industry giants as conservation-minded Henry L. Doherty of Cities Service Oil Company, who sought to institute oil field unitization. The right of capture ensured early exhaustion of oil fields and tragic waste of a valuable energy source. Wallace E. Pratt, a geologist and longtime Jersey Standard leader, has estimated that by releasing the natural gas that often underlies petroleum pools and by using poor production techniques, oil producers have wasted at least 75 percent of the oil and natural gas found to date in the United States.

World War II made the oil industry a key American resource. Oil company research and executive leadership played major roles in the conflict. Research increased the number of products made from petroleum and natural gas, including the explosive tnt and artificial rubber. The Jersey-Dupont jointly owned product, tetraethyl lead, upgraded gasoline to improve airplane speed. Oil tankers supplied gasoline for the Allies at great risk from submarine attacks.

The government rationed gasoline and controlled prices during the war. In the last analysis the war ended the delusion that American supplies of crude were unlimited, so that the industry and the securing of oil became a top priority for both foreign and domestic policy. When the war ended, the United States faced the problem of stabilizing the peace. Over the next forty-five years numerous major crises occurred, in many of which oil played a key role. Europe underwent a coal shortage, the first energy crisis, immediately after the war.

The Marshall Plan , created to solve that and other problems, was hampered by the first Iranian crisis of The United States sought to balance support for the new state of Israel against the pressures of the oil producers, mostly Arab, united in as the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries opec. This proved increasingly difficult as the United States became steadily more dependent on imported oil.

In the United States the standard of living based on cheap oil continuously rose and the public, accustomed to this way of life, resisted all conservation measures. Oil should be considered the keystone of the standard of living in the United States and to a large degree its rank as a world power. Part of the energy problem after resulted from the depletion of domestic oil reserves during World War II—around 6 billion barrels. In the Vietnam struggle experts contend the United States supplied about 5 billion barrels of oil, although great quantities of that came from Middle Eastern properties owned by American companies.

Atmospheric emissions are not the only issue, as the destruction of land used during extraction and the possibility of an oil spill can destroy potentially significant ecological areas. Oil is used extensively worldwide, and the graph below can be used to determine which regions use the most or least oil products.

Fossil Fuels. Nuclear Fuels. Acid Rain. Climate Change. Climate Feedback. Ocean Acidification. Rising Sea Level. A pump jack is used to extract oil from a well. Figure 2. Edwin Drake, the driller of the first productive oil well.

June 5, Burton and Humphreys had tried and failed to extract more gasoline from crude by adding chemical catalysts, but then Burton had an idea and directed Humphreys to add pressure to the standard heating process used in distillation. Under both heat and pressure, it turned out that heavier molecules of kerosene, with up to 16 carbon atoms per molecule, "cracked" into lighter molecules such as those of gasoline, with 4 to 12 carbons per molecule, Thermal cracking, as the process came to be called, doubled the efficiency of refining, yielding 40 percent gasoline.

Burton was issued a patent for the process in , and soon the pumps were keeping pace with the ever-increasing automobile demand. In the next decades other chemical engineers improved the refining process even further.

In the s Charles Kettering and Thomas Midgley, who would later develop Freon see Air Conditioning and Refrigeration , discovered that adding a form of lead to gasoline made it burn smoothly, preventing the unwanted detonations that caused engine knocking.

Tetraethyl lead was a standard ingredient of almost all gasolines until the s, when environmental concerns led to the development of efficiently burning gasolines that didn't require lead. Another major breakthrough was catalytic cracking, the challenge that had escaped Burton and Humphreys.

In the s a Frenchman named Eugene Houdry perfected a process using certain silica and alumina-based catalysts that produced even more gasoline through cracking and didn't require high pressure. Successful drilling sites can produce oil for about 30 years, although some produce for many more decades. Other methods are necessary to extract this petroleum, a process called secondary recovery. Vacuuming the extra oil out was a method used in the s and early 20th century, but it captured only thinner oil components, and left behind great stores of heavy oil.

Water flooding was discovered by accident. In the s, oil producers in Pennsylvania noticed that abandoned oil wells were accumulating rainwater and groundwater. The weight of the water in the boreholes forced oil out of the reservoirs and into nearby wells, increasing their production. Oil producers soon began intentionally flooding wells as a way to extract more oil. The most prevalent secondary recovery method today is gas drive.

During this process, a well is intentionally drilled deeper than the oil reservoir. The deeper well hits a natural gas reservoir, and the high-pressure gas rises, forcing the oil out of its reservoir.

Oil Platforms Drilling offshore is much more expensive than drilling onshore. It usually uses the same drilling techniques as onshore, but requires a massive structure that can sustain the tremendous strength of ocean waves in stormy seas. Offshore drilling platforms are some of the largest manmade structures in the world. They often include housing accommodations for people who work on the platform, as well as docking facilities and a helicopter landing pad to transport workers.

The platform can either be tethered to the ocean floor and float, or can be a rigid structure that is fixed to the bottom of the ocean, sea, or lake with concrete or steel legs. More than 70 people work on the platform, in three-week shifts. The platform is meters feet tall and is anchored to the ocean floor. About , tons of solid ballast were added to give it additional stability. The platform can store up to 1. In total, Hibernia weighs 1. However, the platform is still vulnerable to the crushing weight and strength of icebergs.

Its edges are serrated and sharp to withstand the impact of sea ice or icebergs. Oil platforms can cause enormous environmental disasters. Problems with the drilling equipment can cause the oil to explode out of the well and into the ocean. Repairing the well hundreds of meters below the ocean is extremely difficult, expensive, and slow.

Millions of barrels of oil can spill into the ocean before the well is plugged. When oil spills in the ocean, it floats on the water and wreaks havoc on the animal population. One of its most devastating effects is on birds. Oil destroys the waterproofing abilities of feathers, and birds are not insulated against the cold ocean water. Thousands can die of hypothermia. Fish and marine mammals, too, are threatened by oil spills.

The dark shadows cast by oil spills can look like food. A massive oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico, the Deepwater Horizon , exploded in This was the largest accidental marine oil spill in history.

Eleven platform workers died, and more than 4 million barrels of oil gushed into the Gulf of Mexico. More than 40, barrels flowed into the ocean every day. Eight national parks were threatened, the economies of communities along the Gulf Coast were threatened as the tourism and fishing industries declined, and more than 6, animals died. Rigs to Reefs Offshore oil platforms can also act as artificial reefs.

They provide a surface substrate for algae, coral, oysters, and barnacles. This artificial reef can attract fish and marine mammals, and create a thriving ecosystem. Until the s, oil platforms were deconstructed and removed from the oceans, and the metal was sold as scrap. Now, oil platforms are either toppled by underwater explosion , removed and towed to a new location, or partially deconstructed. This allows the marine life to continue flourishing on the artificial reef that had provided habitats for decades.

The environmental impact of the Rigs-to-Reefs Program is still being studied. Oil platforms left underwater can pose dangers to ships and divers. Fishing boats have had their nets caught in the platforms, and there are concerns about safety regulations of the abandoned structures. Environmentalists argue that oil companies should be held accountable to the commitment they originally agreed upon, which was to restore the seabed to its original condition.

By leaving the platforms in the ocean, oil companies are excused from fulfilling this agreement, and there is concern this could set a precedent for other companies that want to dispose of their metal or machinery in the oceans. Petroleum and the Environment: Bitumen and the Boreal Forest Crude oil does not always have to be extracted through deep drilling.

If it does not encounter rocky obstacles underground, it can seep all the way to the surface and bubble above ground. Unfortunately, because bitumen contains high amounts of sulfur and heavy metals, extracting and refining it is both costly and harmful to the environment.

Bitumen is about the consistency of cold molasses, and powerful hot steam has to be pumped into the well in order to melt the bitumen to extract it. Large quantities of water are then used to separate the bitumen from sand and clay. This process depletes nearby water supplies. Releasing the treated water back into the environment can further contaminate the remaining water supply. Processing bitumen from tar sands is also a complex, expensive procedure. It takes two tons of oil sands to produce one barrel of oil.

A small percentage is used for roofing and other products. The Athabasca Oil Sands are the fourth-largest reserves of oil in the world. Unfortunately, the bitumen reserves are located beneath part of the boreal forest, also called the taiga. This makes extraction both difficult and environmentally dangerous. The taiga circles the Northern Hemisphere just below the frozen tundra, spanning more than 5 million square kilometers 2 million square miles , mostly in Canada, Russia, and Scandinavia.

It accounts for almost one-third of all of the forested land on the planet. Every spring, the boreal forest releases immense amounts of oxygen into the atmosphere and keeps our air clean.

It is home to a mosaic of plant and animal life, all of which depend on the mature trees, mosses, and lichen of the boreal biome. Surface mines are estimated to only take up 0. Refining Petroleum Refining petroleum is the process of converting crude oil or bitumen into more useful products, such as fuel or asphalt. Crude oil comes out of the ground with impurities, from sulfur to sand. These components have to be separated. This is done by heating the crude oil in a distillation tower that has trays and temperatures set at different levels.

Propane, kerosene, and other components condense on different tiers of the tower, and can be individually collected. They are transported by pipeline, ocean vessels, and trucks to different locations, to either be used directly or further processed. Petroleum Industry Oil was not always extracted, refined, and used by millions of people as it is today.

However, it has always been an important part of many cultures. The earliest known oil wells were drilled in China as early as CE. The wells were drilled almost meters feet deep using strong bamboo bits. The oil was extracted and transported through bamboo pipelines. It was burned as a heating fuel and industrial component. Chinese engineers burned petroleum to evaporate brine and produce salt. On the west coast of North America, indigenous people used bitumen as an adhesive to make canoes and baskets water-tight, and as a binder for creating ceremonial decorations and tools.

By the 7th century, Japanese engineers discovered that petroleum could be burned for light. Oil was later distilled into kerosene by a Persian alchemist in the 9th century.

During the s, petroleum slowly replaced whale oil in kerosene lamps, producing a radical decline in whale-hunting. The modern oil industry was established in the s. The first well was drilled in Poland in , and the technology spread to other countries and was improved. The Industrial Revolution created a vast new opportunity for the use of petroleum. Machinery powered by steam engines quickly became too slow, small-scale, and expensive.

Petroleum-based fuel was in demand. The invention of the mass-produced automobile in the early 20th century further increased demand for petroleum.

Petroleum production has rapidly increased. In , the U. By , that number was million barrels per year. Today, the U.