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June 03, 2004

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I recall when I was younger and passing through this area. These large machines were all pumping away like mad. They looked like huge mechanical grasshoppers, bobbing up and down, as far as the eye could see. Now as I drive through there it seems as though only a few are left pumping and many have been dismantled and removed. Have we used up the resources and depleted our oil out there? I had heard that many of the wells have, in fact dried up. But I have also read that, due to the high labor rates here, it is much cheaper to import oil from other countries.

During the fuel crunch in the early 70's it was speculated that the U.S. could be self-sufficient and actually supply all of our own oil needs. But now it appears that, even if we did pump all of our own oil, we have turned around and extended our needs, and can no longer support ourselves without foreign oil. 

Different types of oils have been used for centuries. But since the discovery of crude oil, in Pennsylvania, back in the 1859 the race has been on. The need for this flammable natural resource had "sparked" a fire that will never stop and has created a need for something that we seemed to have been able to live without before. Now, much like air-conditioning, we can't even imagine survival without it. The whole world has become dependent on it and wars have been fought and lives have been lost all for this prehistoric land-fill material. 

What is crude oil? Most crude oil formed from microscopic plants and animals that died millions of years ago and where rapidly buried under conditions that favored their preservation. Given deeper burial, with sufficient time and temperature, the soft parts of these organisms, over probably millions of years, were slowly converted to oil.

Well the fact remains that this resource cannot last forever, we won't be able to depend upon it and there doesn't seem to be any means of replenishing it any time soon. So with mankind using up all the resources here on the surface of the planet now, I don't foresee us leaving anything for the future. Not to mention the fact that we won't really be able to wait for another million years for our existing landfills to turn to oil. 

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