Discussion»Statements»Rosie's Corner» We covet MONEY. We covet OIL. We start wars for OIL. We ignore countries that are oil free oil less. WHAT IF oil did not exist?
There may been fewer wars though that's hard to establish since there have been any number of Wars in human history before the discovery of crude oil and its derivatives. They found other things to fight about, but I'm not sure oil has been the main cause of wars even since its discovery anyway.
Also, think of all things we take for granted in everyday life that would be impossible or at least extremely difficult without oil. It goes far further than simple fuels.
Petroleum, natural-gas and coal are finite resources, too. What will happen when they are all used up; or if we stop extracting them for fuel to try to stop climate-change? (Or more accurately perhaps, to revert that to a natural rate.) Maybe that will be the time when society world-wide becomes really unstable.
Isn't the ways we have used petroleum a significant reason for our climate change catastrophe Durdle? For use in many areas besides polluting the air we don't confine ourselves to using it in its most benign form. I expect many things that are a problem aren't the problem at all. It's the way they are being used. To that end petroleum is useful in many things that don't harm the air we breathe. I think we need to figure out a way to use what's avalable in the most most beneficial ways possible. Not outlaw completely but redefine when and where and how. Thank you for your reply Durdle and Happy Saturday to thee and thine. :)
Yes, burning hydrocarbon fuels is seen as the biggest cause of climate change.
Some scientists warned of the risk 100 years ago, but because their predictions were based on the world-wide consumption of coal - the primary fuel then - at their time, significant changes were probably seen as so far ahead as not something to worry about too much.
I don't know if crude oil can be refined to give us all the beneficial things without also giving us the fuels. If not, then what do we do with all the inflammable by-products unless they can be turned into other materials?
If you distil coal you produce gas, coke and tar.
Coal-gas is mainly carbon-monoxide, the highly toxic but very efficient fuel for heating and cooking before natural-gas (methane) replaced it. It burns to carbon-dioxide. So does methane, also producing some water. If you've noticed little purplish flames on a coal fire that has burnt down to a gentle bed of incandescent embers, the flames are of the carbon-monoxide burning.
Coke is mostly carbon - safe enough as it is, but a useful fuel and more importantly still the only practical reducing-agent for obtaining iron from iron-ore (though research into alternatives such as hydrogen is well under way... bringing their own supply problems to solve). Burn coke in sufficient air, as fuel only or for iron-making, and it produces some harmless ash... but mainly carbon-dioxide.
The tar can be distilled further to produce a range of raw materials for various chemical products. '
Burning hydrogen in air produces harmless water-vapour that simply returns to the environment, but if burnt in some situations also produces nitrous oxides.
What happens if hydrogen leaks? Well, like any flammable gas it is extremely dangerous if confined; but being so much less dense than air, if allowed to escape it would either burn at the leak or simply be lost forever in the upper atmosphere. Whether we'd lose enough up there for that to be a problem, is another matter. Probably not.
' Unfortunately most of the more hyperbolic environmental campaigning so far concentrates only on replacing fuels for transport and heating, with electricity and hydrogen; but stops short of examining the enormous problems these bring in their own ways.
Hydrogen's problem is finding suitable ways to produce enough of the stuff. The simplest, electrolysing water, needs enormous amounts of electricity. Or you can do it by passing steam over incandescent coke... but you need to produce the coke and the steam. In fact it was a method used in the past for making what was called "water-gas": hydrogen mixed with the carbon-monoxide to make the once-familiar "town gas" for our kitchens. I think it can also be made from methane - but natural-gas is another finite resource and I am not sure what the by-products are... carbon-dioxide I think.
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No such things as free lunches, and paying for either the lunches or for no lunch, in future, is likely to be among the most dangerous future threats to the world.
You just proved beyond a shadow of a doubt the benefits of being ignorant. I am. You aren't. So in my world all things are possible. In your world? Wait a minute...hold on there. It's complicated. Thank you for the info as usual Durdle. I tell ya if the world worked according to me there would be few if any "extenuating circumstances" to bollex everything up. Ignorance may not be bliss but it's probably as close as you're gonna get. Thank you for your very helpful and informative reply. Again! I do so appreciate CONSISTENCY! :)
Ignorance is bliss? Hardly, but is natural simply because no-one can possibly know everything! There are many fields I know almost nothing about, even in ordinary areas like sports and entertainments.
I have always had a general interest in science and engineering, and worked at modest levels in technical trades, so that's how I know something about them; but I always try to look behind the scenes at contentious matters, knowing that many are not as straightforward as they appear.
Durdle 