ATTN: Please don’t read this post if you are unable to think for yourself. 3.5 million gallons of crude (the approximate total amount spilled so far 06/09/2010) is less than 0.5% of our country’s daily oil consumption. The total amount of oil spilled is a tiny amount relative to how much we consume in the US …
What is crude oil? And what is all this talk about? Crude oil is a black, viscous slurry of different hydrocarbons, other organic molecules, and trace amounts of metals that can be separated and chemically changed into useful fuels and lubricants like gasoline, diesel, propane, jet fuel, and even wax. Before we can really understand …
In this final post on crude oil I’ll discuss why there’s so much controversy over oil. In short, using fossil fuels like crude has negative effects on the environment, economy, and therefore everyone. The organic material that is found in crude oil sometimes contain sulfur atoms which if combusted turns into SO2 and then into …
Now that we’ve covered where oil comes from, what oil is chemically, and how we refine crude, it’s time to get to the heart of the oil hype – consumption. The cool flow diagram below shows where the USA gets oil from and where we use it. From this diagram we can learn quite a …
