HISTORY OF OIL

BY INTICA


  1. How did the previous actions of oil companies affect today's oil crisis?
The oil companies have drilled oil wells all over the the nation and extracted oil at a fast pace and high rate in which a well or field can not naturally renew itself. After oil wells hit their peak the oil companies can not produce enough oil to profit and sustain and investment declines therefore the cost of oil rises until the well is depleted. We depend highly on the availability of oil from outside the U.S. The cost of bringing oil to the U.S. raises the cost of oil with imposed export taxes and price regulation set by foreign countries. There have been wars over oil rights and prices.  The 1973 oil crisis came out of an embargo set by OAPEC in response to the U.S. to supplying the Israeli military.  This caused the price of oil to rise. Because the U.S. demand for oil and dependancy on oil was so high this caused a recession. The government has put limits on the amount of oil that can be extracted while some limits are determined by the availability of the well or field.  Most oil fields are outside of the U.S. and due to government agreements and regulations determine the price and availability in the U.S. There have been many oil spills and pipeline breaks causing large amounts of oil to be wasted. Oil spills are happening all over like in Baku, Venezuela, Texas, and the Middle East and the loss of oil, clean up and pipeline repair are causing the cost of oil to rise as well as the fact that large amounts of oil are wasted. 
2. Have we learned from our previous mistakes?
Obviously we have not learned from our past mistakes. Society depends heavily on the use of oil to run our transportation, factories, machinery and homes. We all think we can use as much oil as we want and we will get more but that is not the case. The demand is greater than availability. We need to use oil more cautiously and find ways to not depend so much on the use of oil or alliances with other countries. If there is another oil peak emerging then we should have already found a way to change before it even gets here.  After the 1973 oil crisis the price of oil never recovered but the overall economy rose again and car companies started making bigger vehicles that depend on more gas.  In 1956 Hubbert predicted that the oil production would hit its peak between 1956 and 1970 and be in decline there after.  The world should have began finding ways to lessen our dependance on oil around this time period.  However it is only as we get closer to the depletion of oil that we have begun finding other sources of energy. We also still dig for oil in dangerous places like the ocean.  We have already had a tragic oil spill that has affected our wildlife and economy.  We need to change our ways of retrieving oil and find a new solution for energy.
3. Can we continue this pattern into the future?
If we continued these patterns into the future, then we will eventually run out of oil and our economy will take a major dive. The cost of oil is high and our country is already in debt.  The cost of goods keeps on rising with the price of oil and will soon make many things unaffordable including driving your car. Oil companies spend trillions of dollars on oil each year. Oil has developed over millions of years and at the rate we use it won't last forever. The world uses about 26,000,000,000 barrels every year. At the rate we are using our oil, we will have enough oil to last us another 40 years. We should develop other ways to live that don’t involve using as much oil as we are now.  We need to invest our money in alternative forms of energy and relieve our dependance on oil from other countries and availability altogether.