PART 2 Amount of oil used in transportation is 16.8 billion barrels out of 27.3 billion barrels, which is around 61%. Due to technological advancements, many cars have come out with different prices attracting more and more people to buy it. This is one of the main reasons why so much oil is being consumed, because a lot of petrol is used to make a car move, so if more and more cars come in, then more and more petrol is being used up. Compared to transportation, only about 5% of oil and gas is needed each year to make petrochemical products. This is a very small amount of oil consumed compared to transportation. About 7-8% of oil is needed for plastics which are very small amount compared to the amount used by transportation but more oil is needed for plastic compared to petrochemicals. The world’s commercial energy supplied by oil is around 40%. This is a big amount as we get 40% of our needs only by using oil. Oil is a very useful source of energy, but one problem is that it is a non-renewable source of energy as one day we are going to run out of oil and it takes millions of years for oil to form.
PART 3 Some advantages and disadvantages of oil
Advantages:-
- Freely available. Currently it is very easy for people to buy oil. Edible oil can be bought from the grocery stores and the car oil can be bought from any mechanic or at a petrol pump.
- Good source of energy. Can be burnt to get energy, and you can do anything else to it to get energy. That’s the reason oil is so much in demand.
- Good fuel for internal combustion engines. The main reason why it is used in cars to make them move.
Disadvantages
- Non-renewable source of energy. This means that we are going to run out of oil after some time as it takes millions of years to form.
- Causes pollution. When burnt, causes a lot of pollution. A main cause of global warming.
- Carbon monoxide emissions. When burnt, it lets out carbon monoxide, which is harmful for the environment.
When a ship carrying oil sinks or is damaged, it can cause a big problem. To start off with, people loose a lot of oil. This is because as ships carry a lot of oil and it sinks, so oil is lost. Then also, life in the sea is also harmed, the living things inside the water such as fish, suffer. Then a lot of money is lost as the mess has to be cleaned up. The people who had to receive oil for any purpose would not be able to complete their work on time, so that place might suffer too, as they won’t have enough oil. These are some disadvantages that might take place when a ship sinks or is damaged.
PART 4 The world’s commercial energy supply by oil is around 40%. And when we run out of oil, we will have to look for a solution to fill in the gap of the remaining 40%. Most of our needs are being fulfilled by oil. The researchers have estimated that the world consumes 85 million barrels of oil per day and we have 3.74 trillion barrels of oil left. And if we keep using oil at this rate, it will last only for the next 122 years. Oil, is one of the main resources that we use directly or indirectly in our day to day lives. It is used to make food, used to generate electricity and it is also made to make your car move. Future without non-renewable energy would be hard to imagine. We would have no oil (petroleum), fossil fuels and no coal. Our future would be really dark. We would not have enough electricity as renewable sources of energy cannot produce such an amount to produce electricity for the whole world. So we need to think thrice before using any non-renewable source of energy.
Pollution is the introduction of contaminants into an environment that causes instability, discomfort, harm or disorder to the ecosystem. An oil spill/pollution is the release of a liquid petroleum hydrocarbon into the environment due to human activity, and is a form of pollution. An oil spill can take months or even years to clean up. These human caused activities can be very hazardous for the environment. It pollutes the water, it can also kill the sea creatures present underwater and if we eat those creatures, it can also harm us indirectly. Even a lot of money has to be spent to clean it up as the sea is huge, so a lot of time will be taken to clear the mess. Industrial waste is a type of waste produced by industrial activity, such as that of factories, mills and mines. Most of the industrial waste is not hazardous or toxic. These are the 2 activities caused by oil that are harmful for the environment.
There are 2 types of energy resources, renewable and non-renewable energy. The renewable sources of energy are:-
- Biomass
- Geothermal
- Hydropower
- Solar energy
- Wind energy
- Tidal energy
- Wave energy
The non-renewable sources of energy are:-
- Oil
- Natural gas
- Coal
- Nuclear energy
- Biomass
I think people in the next 50 years should only concentrate on using renewable sources of energy and only use the non-renewable sources of energy as back-up in an emergency. These days we rely heavily on fossil fuels and not on energy sources like geothermal, hydropower, solar energy and wind energy which is a mistake we are making. Using renewable sources of energy would be an advantage for us as if they get over, they can be replenished in a very short period of time. We have a limited amount of non-renewable energy in the nature and it takes a lot of dead organisms and millions of years to make oil and coal. And by the time we get used to the renewable sources of energy, we will also cause less global warming as most of the renewable sources of energy do not cause any type of pollution or global warming. So using renewable sources of energy would be an advantage for us.
This is a chart showing the usage of non-renewable and renewable sources of energy:-
GWth stands for Growth.
Bibliography
Nature of oil- Information available from- (Accessed December 31, 2009)
Refining crude oil- information available from- (Accessed December 31, 2009)
Fractional distillation- Picture available from- (Accessed December 31, 2009)
Cracking- Picture and Information available from- (Accessed December 31, 2009
Amount of oil used in transportation- Information available from- (Accessed January 1, 2010)
Amount of oil used in petrochemicals- Information available from- (Accessed January 1, 2010)
Amount of oil used in plastic- Information available from- (Accessed January 1, 2010)
Amount of oil used in energy supplies- Information available from- (Accessed January 1, 2010)
Oil reserves- Information available from- (Accessed January 1, 2010)
Pollution- Information available from- (Accessed January 1, 2010)
Oil spill and industrial waste- Information available from- & (Accessed January 1, 2010)
Earth in oil- Picture available from- (Accessed January 1, 2010)
Oil spill- Picture available from- (Accessed January 2, 2010)
Oil spill 2-Picture available from- (Accessed January 2, 2010)
Energy chart- Information available from- (Accessed January 2, 2010)
