Fuel and Pollution:
The Gas Station & Auto Service Collectibles Web Site
 1930s Shell Gas Station

• Automobiles run on gasoline, a relatively light fraction of crude oil.  Diesel fuel (which is essentially the same as home heating oil) is a relatively heavy fraction.
• The heaviest fractions (bitumen or rock asphalt) had been used for centuries for waterproofing and after 1800 for roads.  Kerosene was used in lamps from the 1850s.
• In 1859 an American industrialist, George H. Bissell began a deliberate search for oil.  They chose a site in Pennsylvania, drilled through 70 feet of bedrock, and used the oil from the well for illuminating gas, lubricating oil, and an excellent lamp oil.   Within 15 years production in the Pennsylvania field had reached 10 million (360 lb) barrels a year.
• John D. Rockefeller established Standard Oil in 1870.  By building a pipeline system he soon gained control of 90% of a rapidly-growing industry and became for a while the richest person in the world.

Beginnings of the Petroleum Industry

• The oil was distilled to separate the fractions--first gasoline (1.5 to 15 percent, depending on the crude), which at first was a nuisance because it was highly inflammable and had no use, then kerosene, and then lubricating oil.   For a good explanation of refining see Modern Refining.
• With the popularity of the automobile suddenly gasoline was in greater demand than the other fractions, and cracking was invented by William Burton at Standard Oil in 1913.  Heavier fractions are converted into lighter ones by subjecting them to high temperature and pressure to break down the chains of carbon atoms into shorter ones.  Industrial research labs competed to find more efficient ways of doing this, most important catalytic cracking with a platinum catalyst in the 1920s.
• problem of engine knock arose just before WWI as refineries tried to widen the cut.  Solved by the 1922 introduction of tetraethyl lead as a fueld additive.  To prevent lead from fouling the engine ethylene dibromide was added to react with the lead residue and make sure it was funneled out of the exhaust system into the atmosphere (at the time the only questions raised were about hazards of the lead to refinery workers).
• leaded gasoline was phased out starting in the 1970s because the lead that got into the atmosphere and fell into the soil in heavily traveled areas was identified as a significant cause of lead poisoning.

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Oil crisis

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• 1972 publication of The Limits to Growth by the Club of Rome--an informal organiation of scholars, businessmen and civil servants.  Predicted that we were going to run out of most resources in the next 50 years or so--20 years for petroleum. (For a pessimistic current report see  The Global Oil Crisis )
• what happens then?

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• Oil crisis of 1973--caused by Arab oil embargo.  Long lines and doubling of price.  Showed US dependence on cheap imported oil.
• responses:
• conservation--small cars and requirements on automakers for greater efficiency
• energy policy, particularly subsidies for alternative energy sources
• higher price and deregulation led to more exploration and drilling more difficult areas, such as deeper at sea.
• OPEC political troubles have forced those countries into a higher rate of production
• Oil price increases of 2004-2005 (chart)
  
• increased demand, particularly from China (39% increase from 2003 to 2004)
• lack of sufficient refining capability
  
• decline in the value of the US dollar
• uncertainties (ie. Iraq war)
  
• much of the increase happened  before Hurricane Katrina shut Gulf of Mexico oil rigs, pipelines, and refineries
• oil companies have made record profits from increasing prices
  

• fossil fuels--petroleum, coal, and natural gas--result in immense quantities of carbon dioxide (causing global warming), carbon monoxide, sulfur (causing acid rain), and oxides of nitrogen into the atmosphere--5.66 billion tons of exhaust in 1988
• Carbon dioxide in atmosphere has increased 25% since pre-industrial times.
• solutions?
• Conservation: efficiency has increased 20 to 30% since 1973.
•  Solar Power Satellites
  
• cars powered by batteries or fuel cells (but how do you generate the electricity or the hydrogen?)
• alternative energy: wind, solar electric, solar hot water, geothermal
  
• increase our use of nuclear power?
  
• cut back our expectations (you can find interesting material on sustainable development at: The Millennium Institute)

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