EGEE 101
Energy and the Environment

Lesson 6: Beyond the Barrel

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Overview

You drive up to the station, get gas (gasoline), pay for it (hopefully), and you're on your way. That's generally all the thinking we do about our gasoline supply, except when we're faced with price increases, which then sparks complaining. If you've pumped petrol (gasoline) in Europe, however, your fuel costs will be much greater. We wait until Lesson 8 to think about war/security issues that can also cause drastic price increases. Please watch the following introductory (0:33) video.

Dr. Mathews, happy to be filling up his 1992 Toyota at US gasoline prices rather than the standard British price. The picture was taken summer 2001; it was a very good year for cheap gasoline! What is today's price?
Click for the transcript.

Transcript [Dr. Mathews parked his car at a gas station. He gets out of his car and walks over to the pump. As he is talking he puts the pump into the car's fuel hole, fills the tank, and replaces the pump to its holster.] Dr. Mathews: Today we are going to be talking about how we transform crude oil into the useful products we use. Mainly gasoline, as well as jet fuel, petroleum coke. Even medicines, plastics, and cosmetics. We use an awful lot of things in transforming this. There is a lot of requirements too: it has to be environmentally benign, it needs to be environmentally friendly, and of course, it has to make a profit for the industry, too. [Video ends]

This lesson covers what happens to crude oil between the time it gets pumped out of the ground and the time you use it as gasoline. We will look at the transformation of crude oil to gasoline, and the many other products that you use every day, probably without any knowledge that they came from the same source as gasoline.

Lesson Objectives

Your success in this lesson will be based on your ability to do the following;
  • Articulate how crude oil is transported.
  • Articulate how crude oil is transformed into fuels (refinery operations).
  • Discuss fuel changes for vehicle pollution reduction.
  • Discuss fuel chemistry, identify key chemical species.
  • Discuss SPR issues (security/storage approach etc.)

Wake Up Your Brain

Question: Do you agree that we should export crude oil to other nations?

Yes
No

Click for the answer...

ANSWER:
A few years ago this was a question about importing crude oil. We still import but are now a net exporter (how things change). The prosperity of the nation currently requires crude oil as it still powers transportation. As you will see we now are producing more domestic oil and natural gas production. We also produce alternative fuels as well. Tie that in with efficiency improvements in automobiles and we have more oil than we need. We do still import crude oil from Canada, select areas of the Middle East and other nations.