Discovering Oil

Discovering Oil


Oil is used in almost everything today. There is oil that comes from a plant, and oil that comes from the ground. Finding oil in the ground was one of the greatest discoveries ever made and changed the way we live today. It seems like it drives everything, literally. We use oil pretty much every day of our lives. It is used in automobiles which we use every day. When and where oil was discovered, what oil is used for, and how it changed the way we live today is very important.
Oil was discovered in Persia, or as of today it is known as Saudi Arabia. A British man by the name of William D’Arcy was the first to go explore for it in Persia. He convinced the Persian government to allow him to explore Persia for oil. The reason he went to Persia to explore was because there was said to be oil seeps in Persia being found for thousands of years. D’Arcy went bankrupt during his exploration, and was scared he might sell his concession to a foreign country other than keeping it for Britain. By that time The British had already made a British oil company, Burmah Oil, to help D’Arcy with his financial problem. Finally after this, in 1905, large amounts of oil had been discovered.
Oil has always had many uses. We use it a lot today. In the past oil was used for kerosene lighting, used in furnaces, and in the development of automobiles. A writer by the name of Jeremy Williams said oil has five key moments in history. The first he said is forming the electric light bulb. For lighting in the past oil was used in kerosene lamps. This was a cheap way to by lighting since it did not require tons of money to be made. Shortly after, Thomas Edison found a way more efficient way by inventing the light bulb by using electricity for lighting. The second Williams said was used to make the model T Ford. Before oil, cars were dirty and very expensive, people called it the “horseless carriage” for how insufficient it was for the expense of it. In 1908, Henry Ford created a conveyor belt, ran by oil, which easily out produced the old way of making cars. His invention changed car production forever.
Williams third point was that it made World War I. Oil and this world war linked the two together. Warfare changed dramatically with tanks and air forces. Churchill made petrol-driven boats (petrol, meaning oil because petroleum is the base of oil). These oil powered boats easily out-performed, out-maneuvered, and destroyed the coal powered boats. This war made the U.S. dependent on oil because all of our major war machines were powered by it. The fourth point said by Williams, was that it led to the discovery of fertilizer. A German chemist named Fritz Haber, had already been extracting nitrogen from the air. He then put it under extreme pressure and heat which turned it to ammonia which can be used for fertilizing. After this discovery, agricultural yields had doubled. People ate healthier too. In the fifty years the agricultural yields doubled, so did the world population. This led to many more farms, and much more healthy foods brought to the world. The fifth and final key point Jeremy Williams said oil led to was the production of synthetic rubber. Rubber was made before oil, there is natural rubber for example. In 1941, at the very top of World War II, Japan seized the rubber plantations in the Amazon cutting off usage from other countries. A flat tire for countries was almost like a death sentence. The U.S. turned to petrochemicals, which provided synthetic rubber not just for rafts and tires, but it also created nylon, Plexiglas, and nitrogen ammonia for plastic explosives. Jeremy Williams was the provider for this information.
Those five key points explained by Jeremy Williams shaped the way we live today. Looking back on all those examples, we do not use the old way of those any more. We use electric light bulbs instead of kerosene lit lamps in our houses. All cars are produced the way Henry Ford made the Model T. Oil is used in warfare today in the same way and in new ways. Today fertilizer is always used in growing plants. Finally, synthetic rubber and the other discoveries when producing that are used in all different kinds of ways. Without those discoveries, who knows how our world today is. Where most people see the most common use of oil is in cars, boats, and airplanes. Oil is used in a wide variety of items today. Oil is one of the greatest discoveries ever made.


http://www.celsias.com/article/five-key-moments-in-the-history-of-oil/

http://www.bookrags.com/research/oil-is-discovered-in-the-middle-eas-scit-061/