Petroleum
Petroleum is a naturally occurring liquid oil normally found in deposits beneath the surface of the earth. It is a type of oil composed of rock minerals, making it different from other kinds of oils that come from plants and animals (such as vegetable oil, animal fat, or essential oils). The word petroleum comes from the Latin words petra (rock) and oleum (oil), and so literally means rock oil. Despite this, petroleum is an organic compound, formed from the remains of microorganisms living millions of years ago. It is one of the three main Fossil fuels, along with coal and natural gas.
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[edit] Petroleum is a Fossil Fuel
Long before the dinosaurs, oceans covered most of the earth. They were filled with tiny sea animals and plants. As the plants and animals died, they sank to the ocean floor. Sand and sediment covered them and turned into sedimentary rock. Millions of years passed. The weight of the rock and heat from the earth turned them into petroleum.
Petroleum is called a fossil fuel because it was made from the remains of plants and animals.The energy in petroleum came from the energy in the plants and animals. That energy came from the sun.
[edit] Petroleum is Nonrenewable
The petroleum we use today was made millions of years ago. It took millions of years to form.We can’t make more in a short time. That’s why we call petroleum nonrenewable. The United States doesn’t produce enough oil to meet our needs. We import more than half the oil we use from other countries.
[edit] We Drill Oil Wells
Petroleum is buried underground in tiny pockets in rocks.We drill oil wells into the rocks to pump out the oil. Some wells are more than two miles deep and can stretch more than eight miles sideways. Texas and Alaska are the states that produce the most oil.
A lot of oil is under the oceans along our shores. Oil rigs that can float are used to reach this oil. Most of these wells are in the Gulf of Mexico.
After the oil is pumped to the surface, it is sent to refineries. At the refineries, it is separated into different types of products and made into fuels. Most of the oil is made into gasoline. The oil is moved from one place to another through pipelines and by ships and trucks.
[edit] We Use Petroleum Every Day
What would we do without petroleum? Our country would come to a stop. Most of our cars, trucks, and planes are powered by fuel made from oil.
Our factories use oil to make plastics and paints, medicines and soaps. We even burn oil to make electricity. We use more petroleum than any other energy source.
[edit] Petroleum Economy
Petroleum, like all fossil fuels, primarily consists of a complex mixture of molecules called hydrocarbons (molecules containing both Hydrogen and carbon). When it comes out of the ground, it is known as crude oil, and it may have various gases, solids, and trace Minerals mixed in with it. Through refinement processes, a variety of consumer products can be made from petroleum. Most of these are fuels: Gasoline, jet fuel, diesel fuel, kerosene, and propane are common examples. It is also used to make asphalt and lubricant grease, and it is a raw material for synthetic chemicals. Chemicals and materials derived from petroleum products include Plastics, pesticides, Fertilizers, Paints, solvents, refrigerants, cleaning fluids, detergents, antifreeze, and synthetic fibers.
The modern petroleum industry began in 1859 in Pennsylvania, when a man named Edwin L. Drake constructed the first oil well, a facility for extracting petroleum from natural deposits. Since then, petroleum has become a valuable commodity in industrialized parts of the world, and oil companies actively search for petroleum deposits and build large oilextraction facilities. Several deposits exist in the United States. However, around 1960 oil production in the country began to decline as oil in the deposits was being used up and fewer new deposits were being discovered. Demand for petroleum products continued to increase, and as a result the United States came to rely more and more on oil imported from other countries. In 2001 the amount of petroleum extracted from deposits in the United States was estimated to be only one-third of the amount demanded by U.S. consumers. A similar pattern exists in other industrialized countries, and some, like Japan and Germany, import almost all of the oil they use.
[edit] Petroleum can pollute
Petroleum keeps us going, but it can damage our Environment. Burning fuels made from Oil can pollute the air. Pollution from cars is a big problem in many parts of the country. Oil companies are making cleaner gasoline and and diesel fuel every year.
Oil can pollute soil and water, injuring the animals that live in the area. Oil companies work hard to drill and ship oil as safely as possible. They try to clean up any oil that spills.
[edit] Environmental Pollution
Petroleum-derived contaminants constitute one of the most prevalent sources of environmental degradation in the industrialized world. In large concentrations, the hydrocarbon molecules that make up crude oil and petroleum products are highly toxic to many organisms, including humans. Petroleum also contains trace amounts of Sulfur and nitrogen compounds, which are dangerous by themselves and can react with the environment to produce secondary poisonous chemicals. The dominance of petroleum products in the United States and the world economy creates the conditions for distributing large amounts of these toxins into populated areas and Ecosystems around the globe.
[edit] Petroleum-Contaminated Soil
Not all oil released from land sources is quickly washed away to sea, however. Pipeline and oil-well accidents, unregulated industrial waste, and leaking underground storage tanks can all permanently contaminate large areas of soil, making them economically useless as well as dangerous to the health of organisms living in and around them. Removing or treating soil contaminated by petroleum is especially urgent because the hydrocarbons can leach into the underlying groundwater and move into human residential areas. The engineering field of bioremediation has emerged in recent decades as a response to this threat. In bioremediation, Bacteria that feed on hydrocarbons and transform them into carbon dioxide can be applied to an affected area. Bioremediation has in many cases made cleaning up petroleum-contaminated sites a profitable real-estate investment for land developers.
[edit] The Future of Petroleum
The world's reliance on petroleum is expected to grow, despite widespread environmental, economic, and political consequences. The U.S. oil extraction industry continues to aggressively search for new oil deposits and lobby the federal government to open up restricted areas to drilling. The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska has been on the oil industry agenda for several decades, creating a long-standing environmental controversy. Advances in oil well technology have allowed extraction in the deep ocean beyond the continental shelf, but these have not been enough to reverse the trend of declining production in the United States.
There are many compelling reasons to decrease society's dependence on petroleum for energy, and the most obvious place to begin is in the transportation sector. Energy-efficient engines and hybrid gas/electric cars can help to reduce some of the need for oil, providing higher gas mileage and less demand. A variety of alternative fuels have also been developed, such as ethanol, biodiesel (made from vegetable oil), and hydrogen. Each of these would produce little or no exhaust pollutants or Greenhouse gases, and each derives from plentiful renewable resources. The United States is now in fact actively researching Hydrogen as a viable alternative to Gasoline, and the Hydrogen fuel cell as a substitute for the internal combustion engine.
Petroleum is a useful chemical substance for many important purposes. But it is also a nonrenewable resource with a highly toxic composition, and it poses significant problems when used in huge volumes throughout the industrialized world.
