This is a wild one. We have a mistaken edict or new religion in this country: Save the Planet not the People. Even the Vice President said recently, “Reduce the population.” What’s that mean? Who must go?
On the other hand, there are grubby bikers like myself, who want the truth to be told, but more than that, we want folks to have fun with their vehicles, with transportation and with love. We want kids to look forward to that camping trip in mom’s gas guzzling SUV. We want teenagers to look forward to their first flat track race or building their first bike or taking a girl on a date in dad’s old Chevy.
The alarmist see only one insane goal, but of course it doesn’t make scientific or common sense, so I thought I would work on a list of oil uses just to remind the world that oil is king and thank god for oil and CO2. Check it out.
Petroleum Products and Its Uses: A Comprehensive Study
Uses of Petroleum: Petroleum products are derived from crude oil and natural gas. Crude oil and natural gas are hydrocarbons and are made up of molecules of hydrogen and carbon. Petroleum products are used to produce heat, light, power, and transportation fuels.
Heating oil is a petroleum product used to heat homes and businesses. Heating oil is a heavy, low-viscosity oil that is used to heat buildings by burning it in a furnace.
Gasoline is a petroleum product used to power automobiles. Gasoline is a volatile, flammable liquid that is used to power automobiles by burning it in an engine.
Diesel fuel is a petroleum product used to power trucks and buses. Diesel fuel is a heavy, oil-based fuel that is used to power trucks and buses by burning it in a diesel engine.
Jet fuel is a petroleum product used to power airplanes. Jet fuel is a high-octane, flammable liquid that is used to power airplanes by burning it in an engine.
Propane is a petroleum product used to heat homes and businesses.
Propane is a liquefied petroleum gas that is used to heat buildings by burning it in a furnace or a stove.
Natural gas is a petroleum product used to generate electricity. Natural gas is a combustible, odorless gas that is used to generate electricity by burning it in a turbine.
Lubricating oils are petroleum products used to lubricate machinery.
Transportation fuels, fuel oils for heating and electricity generation, asphalt and road oil, and feedstocks for making the chemicals, plastics, and synthetic materials that are in nearly everything we use.
— Lubric
What are the petroleum products people consume most?
Gasoline is the most consumed petroleum product in the United States. In 2021, consumption of finished motor gasoline averaged about 8.8 million b/d (369 million gallons per day), which was equal to about 44% of total U.S. petroleum consumption.
Distillate fuel oil is the second most-consumed petroleum product in the United States. Distillate fuel oil includes diesel fuel and heating oil. Diesel fuel is used in the diesel engines of heavy construction equipment, trucks, buses, tractors, boats, trains, some automobiles, and electricity generators. Heating oil, also called fuel oil, is used in boilers and furnaces for heating homes and buildings, for industrial heating, and for producing electricity in power plants. Total distillate fuel oil consumption in 2021 averaged about 3.94 million b/d (669 million gallons per day), equal to 29% of total U.S. petroleum consumption.
Hydrocarbon gas liquids (HGLs), the third most-used category of petroleum in the United States, include propane, ethane, butane, and other HGLs that are produced at natural gas processing plants and oil refineries. HGLs have many uses. Total consumption of HGLs in 2021 averaged about 3.41 million b/d, accounting for about 17% of total petroleum consumption.
Jet fuel is the fourth most-used petroleum product in the United States. Jet fuel consumption averaged about 1.37 million b/d (58 million gallons per day) in 2021, accounting for about 7% of total petroleum consumption.
Here are some of the ways petroleum is used in our everyday lives. All plastic is made from petroleum and plastic is used almost everywhere: in cars, houses, toys, computers and clothing. Asphalt used in road construction is a petroleum product as is the synthetic rubber in the tires. Paraffin wax comes from petroleum, as do fertilizer, pesticides, herbicides, detergents, phonograph records, photographic film, furniture, packaging materials, surfboards, paints, and artificial fibers used in clothing, upholstery, and carpet backing.
Solvents, Diesel Motor Oil, Bearing Grease, Ink, Floor Wax, Ballpoint Pens, Football Cleats, Upholstery, Sweaters, Boats Insecticides, Bicycle Tires, Sports Car Bodies, Nail Polish, Fishing lures, Dresses, Golf Bags, Perfumes, Cassettes, Dishwashers, Tool Boxes, Shoe Polish Motorcycle Helmets, Caulking, Petroleum Jelly, Transparent Tape, CD Players, Faucet Washers, Antiseptics, Clothesline, Curtains, Food Preservatives, Basketballs, Soap, Vitamin Capsules, Antihistamines, Purses, Shoes, Dashboards, Cortisone, Deodorant, Footballs, Putty, Dyes, Panty Hose, Refrigerant, Percolators, Life Jackets, Rubbing Alcohol, Linings, Skis, TV Cabinets, Shag Rugs, Electrician’s Tape, Tool Racks, Car Battery Cases, Epoxy Paint, Mops, Slacks, Insect Repellent, Oil Filters, Umbrellas, Yarn, Fertilizers, Hair Coloring, Roofing, Toilet Seats, Fishing Rods, Denture Adhesive, Linoleum, Ice Cube Trays, Synthetic Rubber, Speakers, Plastic Wood, Electric Blankets Glycerin Tennis Rackets Rubber Cement Fishing Boots Dice Nylon Rope Candles Trash Bags House Paint Water Pipes Hand Lotion Roller Skates Surf Boards Shampoo Wheels Paint Rollers Shower Curtains Guitar Strings Luggage Aspirin Safety Glasses Antifreeze Football Helmets Awnings Eyeglasses Clothes Toothbrushes Ice Chests Footballs Combs CD’s Paint Brushes Detergents Vaporizers Balloons Sun Glasses Tents Heart Valves Crayons Parachutes Telephones Enamel Pillows Dishes Cameras Anesthetics Artificial Turf Artificial limbs Bandages Dentures Model Cars Folding Doors Hair Curlers Cold cream Movie film Soft Contact lenses Drinking Cups Fan Belts Car Enamel Shaving Cream Ammonia Refrigerators Golf Balls Toothpaste Gasoline Ink Dishwashing liquids Paint brushes Telephones Toys Unbreakable dishes Insecticides Antiseptics Dolls Car sound insulation Fishing lures Deodorant Tires Motorcycle helmets Linoleum Sweaters Tents Refrigerator linings Paint rollers Floor wax Shoes Electrician’s tape Plastic wood Model cars Glue Roller-skate wheels Trash bags Soap dishes Skis Permanent press clothes Hand lotion Clothesline Dyes Soft contact lenses Shampoo Panty hose Cameras Food preservatives Fishing rods Oil filters Combs Transparent tape Anesthetics Upholstery Dice Disposable diapers TV cabinets Cassettes Mops Sports car bodies Salad bowls House paint Purses Electric blankets Awnings Ammonia Dresses Car battery cases Safety glass Hair curlers Pajamas Synthetic rubber VCR tapes Eyeglasses Pillows Vitamin capsules Movie film Ice chests Candles Rubbing alcohol Loudspeakers Ice buckets Boats Ice cube trays Credit cards Fertilizers Crayons Insect repellent Water pipes Toilet seats Caulking Roofing shingles Fishing boots Life jackets Balloons Shower curtains Garden hose Golf balls Curtains Plywood adhesive Umbrellas Detergents Milk jugs Beach umbrellas Rubber cement Sun glasses Putty Faucet washers Cold cream Bandages Tool racks Antihistamines Hair coloring Nail polish Slacks Drinking cups Guitar strings False teeth Yarn Petroleum jelly Toothpaste Golf bags Roofing Tennis rackets Toothbrushes Perfume Luggage Wire insulation Folding doors Shoe polish Fan belts Ballpoint pens Shower doors Cortisone Carpeting Artificial turf Heart valves LP records Lipstick Artificial limbs Hearing aids Vaporizers Aspirin Shaving cream Wading pools Parachutes Americans consume petroleum products at a rate of three-and-a-half gallons of oil and more than 250 cubic feet of natural gas per day each!
As shown here petroleum is not just used for fuel.
–Steve Pryor
Comment:
Hey,
Steve repeated many products above.
Most important is Ammonium Nitrate from natural gas. This fertilizes our crops, producing food. Food is the most important product!
–Don Berry
Here’s the medical side:
Petrochemicals cumene, phenol, benzene, and other aromatics are used to make not only aspirin, but also penicillin and cancer-fighting drugs. Ultimately, most drugs are organic molecules made using petrochemical polymer. Those not using polymer are often purified using petrochemical resins.
Advanced Plastics in Modern Medicine:
Only Possible with Hydraulic Fracturing Improving Lives, Saving Lives.
But keep in mind, Alarmist don’t want to save lives. They want to eliminate them.
Americans often take for granted the thousands of products made from oil and natural gas that they use every day, from lightweight automobile parts and paint to food packaging and performance clothing.
These important consumer items can only be made by processing crude oil and natural gas, using chemical treatments and technologies to make each product. The same goes for the hundreds of petroleum-derived items used by health care providers, from simple items such as band-aids and latex gloves, to complex heart valves and artificial joints. More than 90 items made possible through the processing of oil and natural gas into advanced plastics and synthetic rubber are shown in this photo of a typical emergency room.
Items in a typical emergency room
Blood pressure cuff
Blood pressure cuff tubing
Chair
Code cart/wheels
EKG Leads
EKG wire covers
End-Tidal carbon dioxide cable
Fluorescent light covers
Infectious waste container
IV Pole wheels and hook
IV pump
IV pump power cord
Laminated charts
Monitor/cables
Nasal canula
Ophthalmoscope
Otoscope
Ottoscope covers
Overhead lamp/bulbs
Oxygen saturation finger probe
Oxygen wall to tubing adapter
Patient education packets
Plastic patient belonging bag
Plastic slip cover for mattress
Plastic-lined pillows
Stethoscope label
Stethoscope tubing
Suction canister
Suction tubing
Thermometer
Thermometer probe covers
Trash bag
Trash can
Wall oxygen dial
Wall suction dial
Yankauer suction
Items found in an ER code cart
AED
Alcohol swab packaging
Ambu bag
Atomizer
Code cart lock tab
CPR back board
Endotracheal tubes
Exam gloves
Intubation blade
IV catheters
IV fluid bags
IV tubing
Lubrication
Medication ampules
Medication bottles
Nasopharyngeal airways
Needle caps
Non-rebreather mask
Oral airways
Oxygen tank dial
Pacer pads
Plastic cart housing
Plastic cover over tip of scissors
Plastic syringes
Plastic tape
Portable suction pump
Saline flushes
Sharps container
Syringe caps
Tourniquets
Venti-mask
Other medical devices used on a daily basis
Adhesive foam
Bedpan
Bleach wipe containers
Crutch pads/grips
Date stickers
Hemovac drain
IV caps
Jackson Pratt drain
Medical glue
Nasogastric tubes
Ostomy bags and appliance
Patient call bell
Patient room phone
Patient socks/grip bottoms
Peripheral venous catheter
Plastic boxes of gauze
Plastic medicine cups
Plastic packaging on
medications
Pyxis machine
Skin barrier packaging
Sterile gowns
Sterile packaging
Sutures
Three-way stopcocks
Urinary catheters
Walkers/canes
Okay,
What about the dread CO2?
Here’s a recent report from WUWT
How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Carbon Dioxide
by Ron Barmby
Political tunnel vision on global warming has resulted in declaring increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide an existential threat. But the United Nations’ resolve to reduce carbon dioxide levels runs counter to its goals to end world hunger, promote world peace and protect global ecosystems. It fails to address the key question relating to those three goals: Which pathway creates the greatest good to the greatest multitude—reducing or increasing CO2?
The numbers since the year 2000 provide convincing evidence that increasing carbon dioxide has positive impacts and reducing carbon emissions entails dire consequences.
World Hunger
The pre-industrial (circa 1850) atmospheric CO2 concentration of 280 ppm (parts per million) compares to today’s 420 ppm, a 50% increase. Meanwhile, the global population has risen 560%, from 1.2 billion to 8 billion.
Those extra 6.8 billion people are mostly being fed, and it’s not all because of human agricultural productivity, pest control and plant genetics.
Observations of Earth’s vegetative cover since the year 2000 by NASA’s Terra satellite show a 10% increase in vegetation in the first 20 years of the century. Clearly, something other than agriculture is helping to improve overall plant growth.
In a recent study supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Dr. Charles Taylor and Dr. Wolfram Schlenker quantified how much of that extra greening resulted in food for human consumption since 2000. Using satellite imagery of U.S. cropland, they estimated that a 1 ppm increase in CO2 led to an increase of 0.4%, 0.6% and 1% in yield for corn, soybeans and wheat, respectively. They also extrapolated back to 1940 and suggested that the 500% increased yield of corn and 200% increased yield of soybeans and winter wheat are largely attributable to the 100 ppm increase in CO2 since then.
CO2 fertilization is not only greening the Earth, it’s feeding the very fertile human race.
World Peace
Though adding CO2 to the atmosphere does not promote world peace, attempts to stop CO2 emissions in the western democracies have increased the CO2 emissions, wealth and influence of totalitarian Russia and China.
Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union (EU), reports that the EU’s reliance on imported natural gas increased from 15.5% of its energy needs in 2000 to 22.5% by 2020. Russia was the main supplier of Europe’s natural gas. Holding Europe’s energy security in its pipelines not only helped finance Russia’s 2021 invasion of Ukraine, but it also limited the economic sanctions Europe could impose in retaliation.
According to the scientific online publication Our World in Data, between 2000 and 2020 the G7 nations lost 13.8% of the world share of GDP and China picked up 12%.
The West (the EU plus the UK, U.S., Canada and Japan) transferred GDP growth to China and energy security to Russia and was able to reduce CO2 emissions from 45% of the global total in 2000 to 25% in 2020. In the same period China’s CO2 emissions grew from 14% of the total to 31%, leading to an increase of 39% in total CO2 global emissions.
The unintended consequence of the West’s attempts to reduce CO2 emissions has been to shore up Chinese and Russian dictatorships—and in Russia’s case, to partly fund the invasion of a sovereign and democratic neighbor, Ukraine.
World Ecology
Much of the human footprint on Earth is where the products we consume originate: We either grow them on the planet’s surface or extract them from within its crust.
In testimony to the U.S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce in 2021, Mark Mills, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, estimated that replacing each unit of hydrocarbon energy by “clean tech” energy would on average result in the extraction of five to 10 times more materials from the Earth than does hydrocarbon production.
Mills also pointed out that Chinese firms dominate the production and processing of many critical rare earth elements and that nearly all the growth in mining is expected to be abroad, increasingly in fragile, biodiverse wilderness areas.
Decarbonization will impose the heavy environmental cost of an unprecedented increase in mining.
One Last Number
Since El Nino induced a modern peak global average temperature in 1998, global warming has been essentially zero.
The numbers don’t lie. Allowing more CO2 emissions is better for ending world hunger, promoting world peace, and protecting global ecosystems.
This commentary was first published at Real Clear Energy, July 6, 2023.
–Ron Barmby, a Professional Engineer with a master’s degree in geosciences, had a 40-year career in the energy industry that covered 40 countries and five continents. He is author of “Sunlight on Climate Change: A Heretic’s Guide to Global Climate Hysteria” and is a proud member of the CO2 Coalition, Arlington, Virginia.
How about computers:
It takes 500 pounds of fossil fuel, 50 pounds of chemicals, and 1.5 tons of water to manufacture one computer and monitor, according to the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Just in case I missed something. This just in from the Energy Department:
Products Made from Oil and Natural Gas
Adhesive
Air mattresses
Ammonia
Antifreeze
Antihistamines
Antiseptics
Artificial limbs
Artificial turf
Asphalt
Aspirin
Awnings
Backpacks
Balloons
Ballpoint pens
Bandages
Beach umbrellas
Boats
Cameras
Candies and gum
Candles
Car battery cases
Car enamel
Cassettes
Caulking
CDs/computer disks
Cell phones
Clothes
Clothesline
Clothing
Coffee makers
Cold cream
Combs
Computer keyboards
Computer monitors
Cortisone
Crayons
Credit cards
Curtains
Dashboards
Denture adhesives
Dentures
Deodorant
Detergent
Dice
Dishwashing liquid
Dog collars
Drinking cups
Dyes
Electric blankets
Electrical tape
Enamel
Epoxy paint
Eyeglasses
Fan belts
Faucet washers
Fertilizers
Fishing boots
Fishing lures
Floor wax
Food preservatives
Footballs
Fuel tanks
Glue
Glycerin
Golf bags
Golf balls
Guitar strings
Hair coloring
Hair curlers
Hand lotion
Hearing aids
Heart valves
House paint
Hula hoops
Ice buckets
Ice chests
Ice cube trays
Ink
Insect repellent
Insecticides
Insulation
iPad/iPhone
Kayaks
Laptops
Life jackets
Light-weight aircraft
Lipstick
Loudspeakers
Lubricants
Luggage
Model cars
Mops
Motorcycle helmets
Movie film
Nail polish
Noise insulation
Nylon rope
Oil filters
Packaging
Paint brushes
Paint roller
Pajamas
Panty hose
Parachutes
Perfumes
Permanent press
Petroleum jelly
Pharmaceuticals
Pillow filling
Plastic toys
Plastics
Plywood adhesive
Propane
Purses
Putty
Refrigerants
Refrigerator linings
Roller skate wheels
Roofing
Rubber cement
Rubbing alcohol
Safety glasses
Shampoo
Shaving cream
Shoe polish
Shoes/sandals
Shower curtains
Skateboards
Skis
Soap dishes
Soft contact lenses
Solar panels
Solvents
Spacesuits
Sports car bodies
Sunglasses
Surf boards
Swimming pools
Synthetic rubber
Telephones
Tennis rackets
Tents
Tires
Tool boxes
Tool racks
Toothbrushes
Toothpaste
Transparent tape
Trash bags
Truck and automobile parts
Tubing
TV cabinets
Umbrellas
Unbreakable dishes
Upholstery
Vaporizers
Vinyl flooring
Vitamin capsules
Water pipes
Wind turbine blades
Yarn
Here’s a good one, but I couldn’t find anything on it. How many fossil fuel products in an Electric car. All the plastic products and lubricants, wire insulation and fabrics, except leather. How about threads for upholstery. I’m sure the list is immense.
Bottom line, we need the truth and fun once more.
–Bandit
