User:Nick J Avis

The Future of Petroleum

Have you ever thought of the future? The hover cars, robots doing all the work, living on the moon, and having your life rely on computers? That is how most people see the future, but through the eyes of some, it’s a barren wasteland.

There is one thing in this world that everyone, especially those in developed countries need. One thing that without, life as we know would be changed drastically. This thing is petroleum.

Petroleum, also know as crude oil is a naturally occurring liquid found in many different parts of the Earth. Petroleum is used for many things, such as fuel oil, petrol (gasoline) and plastic. 84% of petroleum is converted into energy-rich fuels. For example, petrol, diesel, jet fuel, heating, and other fuels. The other 16% is used for raw components in chemical products, including solvents, fertilizers, pesticides and most importantly, one compound oil makes that we use all the time, plastic.

About 84 million barrels of petroleum are used daily, with roughly 31 billion barrels of oil used yearly. This is a large amount, but the amount of oil in known reserves are estimated around 1.2 trillion barrels, with one at 3.74 trillion barrels in it. Now, this sounds like a large amount, one that could last for decade upon decade. But the horrible truth is, we only have around three decades, or thirty years left. Around 2039, all usable oil is predicted to be gone. Most of us will only be in our mid-forties.

As oil is a natural occurring substance and a fossil fuel, we cannot create it the way nature has, or reuse it. There a few ways to create artificial oil. One way, uses coal to produce oil, or to be more precise, the various hydrocarbons found in oil created in Nazi Germany when oil imports were restricted by the war. The method was extracting oil from coal, another fossil fuel. About one ton of coal produced 100 litres of oil. The problem was that coal would run out if humans began this method.

The other way is to simulate nature using pressure and heat, long chain polymers of hydrogen, oxygen, and carbon decompose into short-chain petroleum hydrocarbons. In theory, this method can convert any organic waste into petroleum.

What can possibly be bad about running out of oil? We can make oil out of coal, we have renewable energy sources, so what can be bad about it? For starters, we will run out of coal, and renewable energy sources aren’t all they claim to be.

All of the renewable energy sources depend on an underlying fossil fuel economy. Wind turbines use metal, and to manufacture the turbines, you cannot use wind energy, you need a fossil fuel. The lead-acid batteries for solar electric systems don’t get manufactured by solar energy. Fossil fuels cannot be replaced, therefore the things they do and make cannot all be replaced.

Hydrogen is believed to be a replacement for oil. But could it replace all the trucks and automobiles in the world? No, hydrogen could replace a thing here and there, but not the way people thing it could. We could not produce and use enough hydrogen to make it worthwhile.

Active solar power could not work without fossil fuels. Even if it was possible to make solar cells, it would not be able to produce enough energy for our economy. It takes many barrels of oil to manufacture deep-cycle batteries and solar panels. Sure, they themselves do not produce pollution, but the factory does.

Wind turbines could make synthetic methane, but the economy could not run off of it, not even a tiny fraction. Wind turbines lead back to the same problem as solar cells, could they still be manufacture without oil? No, the metals, transportation, and factories need fossil fuels.

Even nuclear energy will not work. Many more power plants would have to be built, which uses fossil fuels. The uranium would have to be transported, which uses fossil fuels. Even if we did manage to build these power plants, the need for uranium would go up, therefore using machines to mine it, which uses fossil fuels, and with more uranium in use, the sooner it will run out and the more radioactive substances we have to take care of. With more power plants, it also makes a greater chance of explosions. If you know of the power plant explosion in the former Soviet Union, you know of the effects.

With so many hardships when we run out of oil, many deaths will also come. Wars will most likely happen over who has control of the last bit of oil. Stores like Wal-Mart will be forced to close, as they import their goods. These building will be taken over by those whose houses have been ransacked by those who are in need of food, clothing, wood, or just about anything. The government will be useless. Large cities like Toronto and New York will be in dispar, buildings in flames, people being kill for food, anything could happen. A government some where could have enough petrol to fly an air plane and a few bombs to a country with plenty of oil, such as the US, Canada, Iran, Russia, Saudi Arabia or any other oil producing country and threaten them with their bombs if oil is not given to them. With the world depending on oil to such an extent, many people will go crazy. Life as we know it will soon be gone.

I believe that civilization has a pattern. A very simple pattern. You know we started of as people who lived in a cave, and had not even developed a way to communicate. And then the Egyptians and Romans came about. They lived an advanced life. The Incas, Native Americans, the Mayan’s, the Aztecs, they too had been advanced. Civilization has grown, facing many challenges but have over come them. We have survived through ice ages, wars, and anything nature has thrown at us. Oil, it has been throughout all of civilisation, it has brought us to where we are. How do you think the Romans had light? The Egyptians had purification oils? Sailors had waterproof boats and clothing? How axles have run smoothly? Oil, oil, oil.

My theory is that once we start to get low on oil, civilisation declines. We start to go back in time, further and further back. Until thousands, if not millions of years have gone by with an ice age or two, that oil has had time to regenerate, that we start to move forwards. The cycle that keeps repeating itself.

How can we stop this from happening? We can’t. We can slow it down, and give us more time with petroleum, but unless we stop using oil, we cannot stop it. The ones who will survive will be those who do not depend on oil, the wise and those who are off the grid. Few people will survive. The Amish will have a great advantage, as they are off-grid and basically make and grow what they need. They are the wise and the smart. Soon we will all be looking to them for help. But, we are still doomed.

By Nick A