Jordan Bailey
Energy Resource, Oil

Looking back in time the earliest oil well drilling was done in 4th century China, maybe even earlier. The Chinese burned the oil to evaporate brine and produce salt. They also probably used the oil for lamps and possibly to an extent to heat themselves as well as their homes. By the 10th century, extensive pipelines connected oil wells with the salt springs. In the western world, the petroleum industry started near Titusville, Pennsylvania, with Edwin Drake’s discovery of oil in 1859. The new oil industry, the fuel oil and home heating oil industry we know today, grew slowly in the 1800’s and did not become a real national concern until the early part of the 20th century. The internal combustion engine created a whole new scenario for the oil industry which provided and still provides a demand for refined fuel oil that still exists today. Early finds of oil like those in Pennsylvania quickly ran dry leading to “oil booms” in Texas, Oklahoma, and California. Other countries had much larger oil reserves and stated to develop them at an industrial level. As late as 1955 coal was still the world’s most used fuel. Oil then began to take over the scene and became the predominant fuel to heat homes. Following the 1973 energy crisis and the 1979 energy crisis there became the concern that oil is a limited resource and will eventually run out, at least as an economically viable energy source. In 2004 there was a report done by USA Today news bringing to light that there is 40 years of petroleum left in the ground. Some people argue that technology will continue to allow for the production of cheap hydrocarbons and that the earth has large sources of unconventional petroleum reserves in the form of tar sands, bitumen fields, oil shale, and methyl hydrate that could allow for petroleum use to continue for a long period in the future.