It' easier to get than coal???

Have you got all the uses for Crude Ol being refined?

-~-~-~-~
There is no Silicon Heaven! But where do all the calculators go ?

You could no more evade my wrath... than you could your own shadow!

it's actually a pretty efficient fuel, as regards the ratio of energy produced to waste. Very high calorific value i.e. it burns well. And that's basically it.

okay - well apart from the fact that crude oil is mainly used to produce products for other industrial processes/uses - which leaves one fraction ununsed -so is used for power stations (waste not, want not) in that regard. Its cleaner than coal as it produces carbon dioxide and water (depends upon impurities before anyone tries to start on what it can contain) but i would have thought a major major factor is one of its properties. Its a liquid. No need for huge lorries or even trains to carry it about. one long large pipe.........and your done. Pipe it to whereever the power station is. Also - due to not producing solid waste - you need no slag pile or removal of residues from the station. Its also alot easier to control the flow to regulate the amount of energy you need to produce. You can just turn a tap to reduce the flow of oil into whereever its burnt.

So you can stick that station anywhere as long as a pipe can be run to it.

WOuld have thought the cleanliness and ease of use/transport would be forefront

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I'm currently doing a 'project' about the use of oil but have ended up pretty stuck

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You're stuck in oil? *Shakes head* This one has much to learn .

Well, the crude oil does stick to animals when there is a spill. There are so many uses for oil in verious stages of processing. Hope the below helps with ore info.

Key Question: How are fossil fuels used today?

[Fossil fuels touch every moment of our lives-when we wake up or sleep, when we eat, when we use our eyes to see, when we play or work, or when we are ill. For instance, petroleum not only can be refined into fuels, such as gasoline, to powers engines; it can also be separated into petrochemicals from which plastics, medicines, paints, etc. can be made. The plastic of the alarm clock that wakes us up can come from petrochemicals. The farmer who raises our food may depend on fossil fuels for fertilizers to make his crop grow. When we read our eyeglass frames or lenses may be of plastic made form petroleum. When we listen to a cassette player to telephone we are using equipment that is made from fossil fuels. The synthetic fibers that keep sheets on our bed from wrinkling are produced from fossil fuels. Photographic film for our cameral also is made from petroleum as are many medicines used when we are sick. When we go to work in an office much of the equipment, such as typewriter ribbons and computer disks, depend on fossil fuels for their composition. When we work in an industrial facility we may depend on coal to fuel the huge furnaces or petroleum products to lubricate the gears of the machinery.

We also depend on petroleum products for transportation when we ride a bus or other vehicle to school. Even the school we go to probably was built using fossil fuels, such as coal to manufacture the brick sand petroleum for the tarring and waterproofing the roof. The heat in our homes or schools may come from natural gas. Clothes dryers or water heaters may also use natural gas to heat the air or water. Even the lawnmower runs on gasoline or electricity that both come from fossil fuels.

Most of our lives depend upon fossil fuels - not just for the energy, such as the electricity we take for granted, but many times for jobs, such as steel making or building construction or bus driving, and sometimes even for the manufacturing of the clothes we wear on our backs.

Finalday

Habaq Mot / Aspazomai Thanatos / Capere Obitus... /Keith Green\ (1953-1983)

I assume you've mentioned uses of oil as a lubricant and that one advantage of using it as a fuel in a power plant is that it's not radioactive for 24000 years

isn't it it amazing, you can find out about anything at TLR, it's better than any encyclopaedia or even the interweb-thingy. What an incredible invention!

*continues* you could go into information on cracking alkanes into alkenes or even alkynes and then go into addition and condensation polymers formed from petrochemicals. Have you included information on octane numbers and the problems caused by 'knocking' in petrol engines? There's loads to write about on the chemistry side of it. Just ask if you need more detailed info.

Remember to mention that crude oil is a mixture of many different hydrocarbons, each of which has a different use, that's why you use a fractionating column to seperate them.

"A good pun is its own reword"

Thanks for all of this, it's really helpful.

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You're stuck in oil? *Shakes head* This one has much to learn

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I know, it's really an awful pun.

Recusant: If you could provide some more detailed info, that would be great. I never actually thought of doing the chemistry part of it, but it sounds interesting.


I'm not evil, just morally challenged

Alkanes and alkenes are the hydrocarbons you obtain from fractionating. They both have a pattern to them but are slightly different.
All alkanes' names end in -ane (ethane, butane, propane)

All alkenes' names end in -ene (ethene, butene, propene)

Alkenes can be polymerized. This means that the double bond splits, allowing more hydrocarbons to join on. These polymers make up common plastics as just one example.

Alkanes are the ones used as fuels. I do know more but can't remember it now.

EDIT: the formatting has messed up the diagrams I was going to draw - sorry

Edited by - Darkstone on 3/2/2004 11:10:32 AM

okay - don't forget that Crude oil is fractionally distilled - and ONE fraction you get off is what the power stations run on. The others are used for petrols/plastics/planes/roads/heating/lubrication etc - so therefore the Oil is used to manufacture alot of other things. The by product of that is the fuel for a powerstation (to viscous for ships and other methods (thick and sticky is viscous). There are explanations for that - but no point going into bond energies, inter-molecular forces, carbon-carbon double/triple/single bonds, alkanes, alkenes, alkynes, or about carbon chain lengths...........cause for what you are after, its irrelevant. Lots of very good websites about this - type in crude oil fractional distillation - and you should come up with tons of stuff about it.

Do we all now get a portion of the marks?

"A good pun is its own reword"

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Do we all now get a portion of the marks?

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I'll see that you're all put in the aknowledgements

Does anyone know how efficient oil power is? As in amount of useful energy converted.


I'm not evil, just morally challenged

Edited by - The Evil Thing on 3/4/2004 9:46:44 AM