Welcome to CoveBear.com! - Earth Energy Petroleum

People need energy sources to use as fuel to power their engines so they can ride in cars and trucks and motorcycles, and to use a fuel to power their businesses and homes. Fuel is needed to run factories and to make products. Fuel is needed to produce air conditioning in the summer, and heat in the winter. Fuel is needed to cook food.

PETROLEUM - A FOSSIL FUEL (from prehistoric animal and plant remains)

When oil is taken out of the ground it is called petroleum. Petroleum is made from pre-historic animals that have decomposed long ago. It is an oily liquid that is found under the ground in and among between rocks. Oil, as petroleum is commonly called, raw out of the ground is called crude oil. Oil that has been cleaned and converted to another form is called refined oil. Petroleum is a popular source of fuel because it is abundant, it is easy to transport, and it is dense in hydrocarbons which burn easily.

Most petroleum is black or gray-black or brown-black, but some can be greenish or yellowish.

A tar volcano in the Carpinteria Asphalt mine,

showing how oil exudes from joint cracks in the upturned

Monterey shale forming the floor of mine.

Santa Barbara County, California. October 16, 1906.

Plate 3-A in U.S. Geological Survey. Bulletin 321. 1907.

USGS - Used with permission to CoveBear.com.

When prehistoric animals died, their remains decomposed, and over long periods of time, all of this matter heated and compressed and oozed through and between porous rocks or sands. Below are some of the tiny creatures that have been found in this oil-rich shale rock.

Example of small animals that died millions of

years ago that resulted in the creation of oil.

Above: Microfossil of the oil shale of the Green River formation:

Quadrula minuta Bradley, n.sp. Colorado or Utah. 1925.

Plate 25, figure 7, U.S. Geological Survey. Professional paper 168. 1931.

W.H. Bradley - USGS - Used with permission to CoveBear.com.

Another example of what is found in oil-rich shale.

Above: Microfossil of the oil shale of the Green River formation:

As this Stellate plant hair? Colorado or Utah. 1925.

Plate 24, figure 7, U.S. Geological Survey. Professional paper 168. 1931.

W.H. Bradley - USGS - Used with permission to CoveBear.com.

Above: Microfossil of the oil shale of the Green River formation:

spores resembling those of Macrosporuim.

sp. Colorado or Utah. 1925. Plate 20, figure 9, U.S. Geological Survey.

Professional paper 168. 1931. W.H. Bradley

USGS - Used with permission to CoveBear.com.

Above: Insects, like other animals, contributed to oil.

Thin section of a rich oil shale bed from asphalt tunnel,

sec. 1, T. 7 S., R. 98 W., showing figured organic material

embedded in a structure less groundmass.

This photomicrograph shows the spines of insect larvae,

probably a species of Oestridae still arranged in tiers.

It also shows part of larval skins (the large black areas)

and fragments of the eyes and wings of minute adult insects.

C.A. Davis thin section was made prior to 1916: enlarged 110 times.

Garfield County, Colorado. Plate 18, U.S. Geological Survey.

Professional paper 168. 1931. W.H. Bradley

USGS - Used with permission to CoveBear.com.

Above: Microfossil of the oil shale of the Green River formation:

larva of Chironomidae. Colorado or Utah. 1927.

Plate 28, figure 1 and 3, U.S. Geological Survey.

Professional paper 168. 1931. W.H. Bradley

USGS - Used with permission to CoveBear.com.

Above: Microfossil of the oil shale of the Green River formation:

Euglypha robusticornis Bradley, n. sp. individual with 4 spines.

Colorado or Utah. 1914. Plate 25, figure 11, U.S. Geological Survey.

Professional paper 168. 1931. C.A. Davis

USGS - Used with permission to CoveBear.com.

Pools of underground petroleum that are tapped are what you will see gushing out of an oil derrick. Typically, there is a cap of natural gas domed on top of the petroleum pool, and there is saline (salty) water under the pool of oil. Sometimes the oil is extracted from oil-soaked rocks, and not from pools.

Above: Sometimes, oil just seeps right out of the ground.

Ralph Miller at Simpson oil seepage.

NPR4. Northern Alaska. June 1949.

USGS - Used with permission to CoveBear.com.

A petroleum crude oil reservoir yields huge amounts of oil. A reservoir is formed by petroleum getting trapped in an underground pocket beneath a cap of rock. The dome of natural gas is above the oil in the pocket, but beneath a cap of rock, and the saline water is found under the oil, as in other places. The reservoir many times contains porous rocks into which the oil seeps, but must also contain rocks which are permeable, meaning the oil can seep out again, and can therefore be extracted. However, the cap of rock over the reservoir is not porous, and the oil cannot seep through the cap up into the ground. In a reservoir of this type, the oil is trapped. This cap of rock is very large, and the petroleum reservoir that lies beneath it is huge. This is called an oil field. If the rock in a petroleum reservoir is porous, and also permeable, and if the liquid contains enough hydrocarbons, it is petroleum that would be sought after.

Above: Old photo of an oil strike -

liquid petroleum shoots up into the air.

Oil thrown into air when well was "shot" on Torchlight dome.

Big Horn County, Wyoming. 1914. Plate 8-A in

U.S. Geological Survey. Bulletin 656. 1917.

USGS - Used with permission to CoveBear.com.

Above: Black gold - oil shooting up through a derrick.

Flowing well being brought in, Sunset Oil field;

well no. 30 of Ethel D. Oil Co. This well was soon controlled

and flowed a few hundred barrels daily.

Kern County, California. June 3, 1916.

Plate 41-A in U.S. Geological Survey. Professional paper 116. 1920.

Sometimes petroleum can be removed from the sea floor. Long ago, in areas where seas evaporated and were no longer so deep, salt from the water was left at the bottom. Since at one time much of the earth was covered with water, the animal life there, beginning with algae and other smaller life forms, and later larger animals, died, and floated to the bottom. Rocks called shale and sandstone were formed on top of the salt, created by the decomposition of these animals. Pressure from the earth's violent center and shifting ocean floor heated this, and over millions of years, oil was formed and migrated through these rocks, because of intense heat and pressure. The creation of petroleum from animals, beginning with the salt deposits in evaporating seas, took over 300 million years. Much of the land in which we have found petroleum once was under the ocean.

Above: Example of a sandstone site.

Characteristic thin-bedded Pliocene sandstone,

Los Angeles Oil Field, Los Angeles County, California. 1905.

Plate 24-A in U.S. Geological Survey. Bulletin 309. 1907.

USGS - Used with permission to CoveBear.com.

One reason that petroleum is so difficult to take out of the earth is that it is typically located 10,000 feet (2 miles) underground or under the ocean. Another reason is that oftentimes an oil reservoir is not a lake of liquid at all, but merely oil-soaked rock. The rock must be excavated and the oil is then extracted from the rock.

Above: Unconformity of the oil sands of the Vaqueros formation

on oily Kreyenhagen shale along Silver Creek,

looking north at bank of creek below New Bedford well.

Fresno County, California. Circa 1910.

Plate 9-A in U.S. Geological Survey. Bulletin 603. 1915.

There is a man in the middle of this photo.

USGS - Used with permission to CoveBear.com.

Petroleum can be taken from tar sands, and a lot of future oil exploration will be in this area. There are two large areas that contain oil-rich tar sands, one in Canada, and one in Venezuela.

Oil fields are located in many different places around the globe. The largest traditional oil fields are located in the Middle East. Oil companies estimate how much petroleum can be extracted from an oil field, whether it is from a pool, a reservoir, from shale rocks, or from sands. It is estimated that the largest oil fields are in the Middle East, mainly in Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emerites Republic. According to OPEC, those conventional oil fields could ultimately yield over 700 billion barrels of oil. Petroleum in the Middle East is relatively easy to extract, compared to other places in the world. According to other authorities, It is estimated that the largest unconventional oil fields, which are tar sands, located in Canada and in Venezuela, may someday ultimately yield over 1700 billion barrels of oil. However, as of 2008, not all of these countries are actually producing those large numbers of barrels: the highest amount of actual crude oil production is currently taking place in Russia, Saudi Arabia, the United States, Iran, and China.

The U.S. Geological Survey describes the formation of desert petroleum in this way:

"The Green River Formation of Colorado, Wyoming, and Utah contains alluvial fan deposits and playa evaporites created in a huge lake whose level fluctuated for millions of years. Economically significant deposits of trona, a major source of sodium compounds, and thick layers of oil shale were created in the arid environment.

Some of the more productive petroleum areas on Earth are found in arid and semiarid regions of Africa and the Mideast, although the oil reservoirs were originally formed in shallow marine environments. Recent climate change has placed these reservoirs in an arid environment.

Other oil reservoirs, however, are presumed to be eolian in origin and are presently found in humid environments. The Rotliegendes, a hydrocarbon reservoir in the North Sea, is associated with extensive evaporite deposits. Many of the major U.S. hydrocarbon resources may come from eolian sands. Ancient alluvial fan sequences may also be hydrocarbon reservoirs."

WHAT IS THE MAIN PROBLEM TODAY WITH REGARDS TO PETROLEUM?

The main problem today with regards to petroleum, is that human consumption or use of petroleum and petroleum-related products, is increasing too fast to keep up with supply now and later. World oil demand in 2000 was 76 billion barrels per day. It is estimated that by the year 2010 world oil demand will reach 90 billion barrels per day, and by 2020, that demand could increase to 103 billion barrels per day. Demand for petroleum increases as the world has more people who need energy and products that come from oil. As demand and production of oil increase, the amount of petroleum that is left in the earth is reduced by that amount. This "renewable resource" is not renewable in our lifetimes - it takes 300 million years for the earth to create petroleum again.

PRO'S AND CON'S OF EXTRACTING AND USING PETROLEUM FOR ENERGY

Pros

Today, most of the world runs on oil. Raw petroleum is used in transportation, the manufacture of products, and in generating electricity. Refined petroleum is used in heating oil so that our houses are warm in the winter; lubricating oil and grease so that our engines and mechanical things run smoothly; in diesel fuel so that our trucks and cars can be driven; gasoline so that we can fly planes, drive cars and motorcycles, and ride boats; tar so that we can have paved roads and bridges; kerosene so that some people can have light and fuel to cook food.

Many items are made from petroleum products and petroleum by-products. Crayons and inks, cosmetics, plastics, drugs, filters, glass, carpet, candles, furniture, cameras, toys, electrical wire, shoes, trash bags, soaps, paint, guitar strings, tape, insect repellant, tires, film, roofing, contact lenses, water pipes, fertilizers, and more. Eliminating the use of oil does not extend only to driving cars; it extends also to the elimination of using oil to make many different products. Oil has made our lives easier and more productive, as well as more technologically advanced.

Cons

Cost of oil to consumers: As oil becomes more scarce, and as a lot of oil is controlled more and more by other countries who can decide the price of the oil, and as it becomes more difficult to find oil, and as demand for more oil and oil-related products grows, the price of oil will continue to rise. At some point, many people may not be able to afford to purchase oil products, while some countries will have to pay whatever the price is demanded in order to keep its economy going.

Depleted supply of oil: The world as we know it, runs on oil. Some people think that oil has become like money. Some people think that we should get the most oil out of the earth that we can, because we have not yet created alternative means of converting other resources to energy. Since it took over 300 million years to create the oil that we are taking out of the earth, we see that once it is gone, it is gone for us. That is why we now refer to petroleum as a non-renewable resource. It actually, in the very long run, is a renewable resource, but it would take another 300 million years for the earth to create it again.

Amount of time and money to find and produce a new oil field: According to the OPEC (Oil Producing and Exporting Countries) website, it can take 3 to 10 years to begin to explore for oil in an area, find the oil there, extract the oil from that area, and bring it to market. The four phases of oil exploration are: discovery - testing - development - and delivery from the new field. In the middle of all that is refining and transporting. They and many others agree that off-shore oil exploration can take much longer than that, and be much more expensive since the environment there is deep water, and that presents many more problems than you would find on dry land.

Destruction of the environment: Taking oil from shale and other rock means that geographic area must be changed in order to take the rock out of the earth. Sometimes the transport of oil can result in a spill. Sometimes people are searching for and drilling for oil in wilderness areas, which means roads and equipment cut through animal migration routes, traditional birthing grounds, and may sometimes destroy natural habitat. For these reasons, many people feel that the pursuit of oil and the transport of oil can be very destructive to our environment if people are not careful, as shown by the photos below. There has been an executive ban on all off-shore drilling of oil in the United States since 1990. On July 14, 2008, that executive ban was lifted. The ban will go to Congress for their opinion on proceeding with lifting the ban all the way; however, then the final decision will be by state. If the state of Florida, for instance, stands by its previous decision to keep an oil ban off their beaches, their state ban will continue. Florida has stated that drilling for oil off of their coast would put into jeopardy their main industry, which is tourism. They cannot risk their beaches being spoiled by odor or spills, as has happened in other states, such as Louisiana and Alaska.

Above: Example of an oil-rich shale site.

Oblique aerial view of surface site development on

oil shale prototype tract C-a.

Rio Blanco County, Colorado. May 31, 1978.

USGS - Used with permission to CoveBear.com.

Fragile wetlands are easily damaged by salt water

that invades canals dredged for

navigation and oil exploration. U.S. Geological Survey

USGS - Used with permission to CoveBear.com.

Above: King Eider female duck in the snow in Alaska,

covered in oil after an fuel oil spill, unable to fly.

Oil spills are lethal to wildlife.

Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge,

U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service - 2004

"Oiled king eiders such as these shown came ashore on

St. Paul Island because their oiled feathers could

no longer keep them warm at sea. Most died.

Foxes and carnivorous birds scavenged the carcasses

resulting in even greater numbers of deaths."

FWS - Alaska Image Library. Permission to CoveBear.com

Above: Transporting of oil in ships can prove

hazardous to the environment if oil is spilled.

This is an oiled dead Sea Otter.

U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service Response - 2004 -

to Grounding / Oil Spill off Unalaska Background Information

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is responding

to the grounding of the 738-foot cargo vessel M/V Selendang Ayu,

off Unalaska Island in the Aleutian Islands.

The vessel, carrying approximately 483,000 gallons of

heavy bunker fuel oil and 21,000 gallons of diesel fuel,

ran aground and broke apart. The area is accessible

only by water or air, therefore most animals

could not be saved and cleanup took a long time.

Oiled Beach.

Humpback Cove and North Shore of Portage Bay,

Unalaska Island. Same oil spill.

U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service - Alaska Image Library.

Permission to CoveBear.com

NEXT STEPS

Many experts have suggested that in order to make sure that the people in the world will continue to have what they need, all countries should do the following, with regards to petroleum:

1. Understand that petroleum will eventually run out.

2. Use the oil that is found and produced now and in the future in an appropriate and wise manner.

3. Have the choice of alternative methods of energy production which is now a necessity, not a dream.

See alternative Earth Energy sources on this website.

WorldWatch Institute offers 10 ways to Go Green and Save Green -

http://www.worldwatch.org/node/3915?gclid=CNaNvr73gZUCFQJ-xgoddkB0dQ

Community Environmental Council offers "Fossil Free by '33" -http://www.communityenvironmentalcouncil.org/Programs/EP/index.cfm?gclid=CJSItMn5gZUCFRqiQQodKUMVqw

Wind farms are a source of alternative energy -

http://www.nationalwind.us/?gclid=CJKKucr7gZUCFReSQAodpQXtqA

Please reference CoveBear.com as a wonderful educational website!

CONTACT US BY EMAIL

KMG is not responsible for errors in information, but accuracy is our goal.

www.CoveBear.com