We're interested in your comments. How do you see the petroleum industry evolving over the next 20 years? Is it realistic to think that existing alternatives can replace petroleum?
"The Age of Petroleum is Over!"
Dan J. Tearpock, Chairman/CEO of Subsurface Consultants & Associates, LLC
"In the past 6 months over 25% of the giant oil fields that provide the world with significant volumes of crude oil and gas have begun to rapidly deplete. Oil futures have soared to over $250 dollars per barrel, around the world; the stock markets are crashing and life as we have known it is coming to an end.”
Wow, what a headline. But don't worry, YET! It is not real, but someday such a headline may be real and with it will come an end to life as we have known it on planet Earth for the past 100 years. Nearly every day we see various radical groups protesting and demanding an end to the use of petroleum or crude oil and a push to turn to green products like ethanol, made from corn, to replace petroleum.
Have you ever wondered just how much does the average person on the street understand about the story of petroleum and petroleum products and its importance to our daily lives? A survey quickly indicates that most people relate petroleum to a few important products, namely gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, engine oil, home heating oil and maybe a few other products. But in reality the population depends on petroleum for thousands of products that we use each and every day in our modern world.
Petroleum is feedstock for just about everything under the sun. Petroleum, also called crude oil, is refined into numerous chemical parts and separated into gasoline, lubricants, asphalt, yep –asphalt and into so many other products, it could take weeks to discuss them all.
One 42-gallon barrel of oil creates only 19.4 gallons of gasoline; 49% of the barrel of oil becomes gasoline. The remainder of the crude oil, slightly over half, is turned into over 6,000 different items. I'll bet your jaw just hit the floor – 6,000 different items!!!! Before you read this article any further, see if you can name 25 different petroleum based items that are in common use on a daily basis?
One 42-gallon barrel of oil creates only 19.4 gallons of gasoline; 49% of the barrel of oil becomes gasoline. The remainder of the crude oil, slightly over half, is turned into over 6,000 different items. I'll bet your jaw just hit the floor – 6,000 different items!!!! Before you read this article any further, see if you can name 25 different petroleum based items that are in common use on a daily basis?
Once petroleum is produced from reservoirs several thousand feet below the earth's surface, at a cost of millions of dollars, it is refined into thousands of different products. I am confident that most of you never realized how much of your everyday life depends on that dirty, polluting product known as crude oil. Yes, most of us relate crude oil to the gasoline that we use to fuel our automobiles, but that is only part, a very small part of the petroleum story. Without crude oil our world, as we know it, simply would not exist.
One of the major products made from crude oil is “Plastic”. In fact, based on the amount of plastic we use, we could say that we live in the “Age of Plastic” as well as the “Age of Petroleum”. In 1951 Phillips Petroleum research chemicals radically changed the world by revolutionizing the world of plastics. Prior to their discovery, plastic was made in small quantities and came from gutta-percha, shellac and the horns of animals, yes, the horns of animals. Then came the first synthetic plastic made from the plant material cellulose. Plastic was considered cheap and was used to make a lot of toys, eyeglass frames, combs, buttons, dentures, etc.
With the discovery of polypropylene and polyethylene, the two plastics discovered by Phillips Petroleum, the world of plastic exploded. And the source of today's worldwide use of plastics is "Crude oil or petroleum”; you know that dirty, polluting hydrocarbon that some people want banned from use.
With the discovery of polypropylene and polyethylene, the two plastics discovered by Phillips Petroleum, the world of plastic exploded. And the source of today's worldwide use of plastics is "Crude oil or petroleum”; you know that dirty, polluting hydrocarbon that some people want banned from use.
We could talk about a number of stories of the importance of crude oil in today's world, but for simplicity, let's just stick with one product– plastic. Imagine what our world would be like without the plastic we use each and every day. If we could go back 100 years we would immediately realize what that world would be like. There would be no cars, telephones, televisions, computers, airplanes and literally thousands of other items that we are accustomed to using every day would not exist.
What about the thousands of other products you and I depend on each day to live in this modern world? How would you go about your day without such items as cell phones, dresses, CD players,shampoo, tires, paint, sweaters, cortisones, antihistamines, food preservatives, dishwashers, vitamin capsules, electricians tape, epoxy glue, insect repellent and literally thousands of other products used every day?
Let us not forget about “Fashion and Beauty Products” that are made from guess what? Yep, crude oil. These products include clothing, nylon, polyester, socks, buttons, underwear, jeans, earrings, bracelets, necklaces, sunscreen, body lotion, shampoo, hair conditioner, face powder, lipstick, breath mints, eyeliner, hair gel, perfume, face powder, foundation and even tampons. Wow, what a list, and we have not even gotten warm. Remember, earlier in the article I mentioned that over 6,000 products use crude oil, in one way or another, in their production. See this link for additional listings.
Can you now imagine what our world would be like without petroleum? As the headline in the beginning of this article indicated, we will some day run out of significant volumes of petroleum. We need to be working furiously to identify replacement products. But until then, petroleum is here to stay. I guess that we will have a significant dependency on crude oil for at least the next 100 years. So for the young scientists around the world, there are endless opportunities to work on finding the replacements for the products we use today that are dependent upon crude oil.
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