Effects of Excessive Petroleum Use

Effects of Excessive Petroleum Use Researches shown that in 2014, the world’s oil consumptions would reach 90, 78 million barrels per day. This indicates the importance of the oil in every country, both developing and developed countries. But in the same research, the supply of oil in one day in the world’s only estimated about 89, 74 million barrels per day, which means the supply will soon can’t afford the usage of oil in the world. This lack of supply can easily cause the exhaustion of petroleum and then it may lead to the power crisis. Petroleum supply exhaustion is one of the biggest problems in every country in the world, governments and scientists are trying to find ways to solve this issue. Amongst some effort that have been done to solve the supply exhaustion problem, this essay will argue about the degradation of the oil’s quality in some area and improve the quality is one of the best way to put an end to the hardness. Litten by oil was shown to have been used in the ancient Chinese. In the 8th century, the oil production had appeared in Iraq where people use pitches, a waste of petroleum to cover the streets. The first oil drilling was said to be around Baku, Azerbaijan. But it was not until the beginning of the 19th century that oil exploitation was strongly developed. At that time, the main fuel was the spermaceti but it was too expensive, none can afford it except the rich people. Although the price was very high but it had a very bad smell so that people want to find a replacement. In the middle of the 19th century, scientists found many ways to exploit the crude oil efficiently. The first modern drilling was in 1859 in Pennsylvania and it put a start to our current petroleum industry. As the crude oil is becoming one of the most important thing for our lives, it is being overexploited that lead to the supply exhaustion, one of the biggest and the most significant problem in petroleum industry. Over two centuries, trillion of oil barrels have been exploited, this number is not decrease but it increase significantly in the last two centuries and it’s becoming more and more. In some researches, scientists have pointed out that people used 30 billion barrels of oil per year; this horrible number shows that people are using too much oil but the supply and the reserves do not enough for us to use. According to the chart posted by Michael Morrison, the world supply and demand change repidly from 2008 to the first quarter of 2012, in 2008 and 2009, the demand and supply are very similar, but from the first quarter of 2010 to the first quarter of 2012, the demand always higher than the supply, even in some times, the differences reach 3 million barrels per day. With those evidences, the exhaustion of petroleum is becoming more and more serious. It is said that the lack of petroleum supplement is becoming more and more severe, and the causes of this problem is observable. Supply exhaustion come from both subjective and objective reasons. One of the reason why the petroleum supplies deficiency than the need is the usage of everybody in the world. As we have known, oil is used in most aspect of our life. People use petroleum or at least its waste to process it into products such as all leather foot, aspirin, waxen, chewing gums, and the most important apply of oil is fuel and gas; two of the most important power resources in the world. Since oil has become so important and the products which made of oil are becoming more useful, its high usage is understandable. We all know that it is easier to use than make, so that the supply always have to follow the need. The next main reason is about the use of the low quality crude oil. Low quality oil contains a great amount of sulfur, a toxic. According to Greg Karras, low quality oil can increase the greenhouse gas emission by as much as 17 %-40 %( Environ. Sci. Technol, 2010, 44). Some statistics have shown that Middle East is the region which has the most oil reserves in the world, but in some others statistics; the Middle East’s oil has the worst quality (G. Houlton, 2010). Most of the imported oil in the world comes from Middle East, which means we are using the low quality oil; this can cause significantly bad effects to our health and our environment. This can cause severe damage to the supplement of oil. Petroleum industry is not the only one that suffers from this, industries, people, social and even some governments also have trouble with this hardness. The aspect which will be affected the most serious is the economics. The most adverse effect is price of petroleum will have to be increased. If the price of petroleum is increased, since some industries have to use the products of petroleum as its materials, those industries will be in difficulty and with the higher and higher prices of crude oil, the producer’s prices raised significantly. It is followed by every other product must increase their price which lead to the restructuring of the economics and damage directly to the life of the social groups, products excess and even economics crisis ( Kiseok Lee, Shawn Ni, 2002). Plus, the countries those who focus on export petroleum such as Russia, Arabia, UAE, etc†¦ will be suffered from the raise of the price of petroleum for some countries can’t afford it. Furthermore, some countries have the intensifying unemployment rates and the taxes collected from citizens are lower because of the low employment and with the raise of the petroleum, those countries now have to face a very pernicious problem. To sum up, the lack of supply of petroleum has many causes. Although the impact of this problem at the present is not so serious and some solutions have been given out. However, people have to overcome this soon to prevent the problem from being severely. In the case of the lack of supply, people have to take action to control this problem, not only during the event but also after it. These are the most fundamental solutions. First, the government should control the usage of petroleum in each country. There are four main ways I want to suggest to reduce the usage of petroleum. Petroleum is known to have been the most used fuel in the world and most of the products of petroleum are used to make fuel. In the event of the number of the vehicles are rising, the world need more and more fuel to run those vehicles, which lead to the explosion of the oil demand. In order to solve this, the scientists have found some replacements for the petroleum such as biofuel, power source from sticks; carrots; †¦ (R.J.Kopp, 2006). Apply those replacements in the real life will surely ease the pressure on the petroleum supplement. The next way to reduce the usage of petroleum in life is the change in people’s using habits. People have used some organic, green products instead of products made from oil. Avoid using personal vehicles to travel from place to place and replace it by cycle or public transport, using packaged without plastic products; recycle and re-use bottles, etc†¦ (J. Lucie, 2010). Plus, some industries which use petroleum as its raw materials should decrease the usage of petroleum and manipulate some others resources as the main raw materials (NASEO). It will followed by the lowered of the demand. In addition, to reduce the use of petroleum in the world, scientists should find alternatives to petroleum products. There are many sources that can replace the petroleum and petroleum-based products like electric, natural gas, hybrid gas, bio-diesel; a little known replacement to diesel fuel which is made out of used vegetable oil and can be burned in diesel cars and in home oil burners (Baltimore Monthly Meeting of Friends, Story Run, 5116 N. Charles St., Baltimore, MD 21210). I would add that photovoltaic, passive solar, wind turbines and some others renewable fuels can be used to replace fuel. These are some alternatives for petroleum fuel which people can use it to reduce the usage of petroleum. However, most of those alternatives are little-known ones, only a little people know about it, then how can they use it There should be some propaganda campaigns that help the people know about the situation of the petroleum supplement then show them the advantages of using the alternati ves for oil, this could help people reduce using petroleum as their most important power source. Last but not least, a very effective way to reduce the use of petroleum in people and teen is some programs that the government should set up such as â€Å"weekend without oil†. This is a program which was set up by dosomething.org, an organization help young people to tackle against some impact from their own behaviors and habits. These programs should aim to helps people to recognize the ways that their daily routines help increase the oil consumption and provide the people how to avoid it (C. Tackett, 2010). This is not only help to reduce the use of oil but also make the people to be more active with some outdoor activities such as walk or ride a bike,†¦ Although all these solutions are very effective, but it’s also have some disadvantages. There’s one most optimal solution that I have given, and it is:† people should use alternatives fuel†. This is the most effective way to restrict the usage of petroleum; it’s also the best way to improve the quality of our environment which is being severely damage by the over-using of petroleum. In this solution, people can reduce their petroleum usage by using others kind of power source such as solar energy, power of the wind, biofuel, biodiesel†¦ and especially fuel for driving vehicles. As most of the amount of petroleum is used as the fuel to run the vehicles, changing the fuel of the vehicles is the best ways to reduce the petroleum usage, which biodiesel and solar energy can be the best one. Using these alternative can help reduce the reliance on petroleum of most of the country in the world. Plus, some alternatives are renewable resources while petroleum is non-renewable resources, which mean we can use as much as we can without worry about the exhaustion of those resources. Furthermore, those alternatives’s bad effects are extremely small while petroleum can cause huge damage for our environment, every year; using and exploiting petroleum emit 381.740.601lbs of toxic air pollution, 3.3 trillion lbs of CO2 (J.Sandry,2013). Using alternatives for petroleum is very useful and it’s also the easiest way to reduce our reliance on petroleum so that we can solve the petroleum-exhaustion problem, and even the environment problems. Biofuels is an example, these are result from the photosynthesis of plants which convert solar energy into chemical energy, its green and renewable though their slightly less energy than oil and gasoline but much cleaner (ecoreps). Some researches shown that using solar energy instead of petroleum in 25 years can help reduce 199.679lbs of CO2, 2316 trees can be planted with the surplus and help the drivers saving 208.166 miles driven (RGS energy,2014). This way is not being limited in any country but for every country in the world, everyone can use these replacements, it’s even cheaper than the cost of the petroleum, then why shouldn’t people use these alternatives, for both themselves and the world. However, the only downfall of this solution is that it can’t be spread through some dev eloping countries, people should find some way to widespread these alternatives to developing countries to help them. In order to reduce petroleum usage and saving our environment, replace petroleum in most of aspect in our lives is the best way to achieve our goal. In conclusion, supply exhaustion in petroleum is a significant problem in every phase of petroleum industry, but this is a most severe time when the surplus between supply and demand is at the highest ever. Industries, power, products, etc†¦ now have to rely too much on petroleum and its waste which is the most fundamental reason for this problem. This reliance does not damage the petroleum industry with the depletion of supply but also damage the economics with the raise of the cost of petroleum. However, the most significant effect is the damage our environment with the use and the waste of petroleum. In that consequence, people have to reduce their use of petroleum to save them from the reliance on petroleum. The best way to reduce the use is using alternatives, solar energy; wind energy; biofuels†¦ are very effective alternatives that people should consider to use them instead of using too much petroleum. This is not only to save the petroleum industry but also our envi ronment. Everyone should join hand to solve this problem.