Stuff of Progress, Pt. 11: Crude Oils
By Tony Morley | @tonymmorley
On August 27, 1859, a small group of men working in a remote part of the Pennsylvanian forest did something that would profoundly transform the history of industrialization. On that hot summer afternoon, Edwin Drake and William A. Smith set out to lead the first team in history to sink a purpose-drilled exploration well in search of crude oil for use in the manufacture of kerosene, a petroleum distillate used as a lighting fuel. Working out of a small drilling frame erected on Oil Creek, and plagued by mechanical failures and other technical problems with the well, the team made slow progress, drilling just 1 meter (3 feet) each day. Despite running out of funds, Drake and Smith laboriously drilled to a depth of 21.2 meters (69.5 feet), whereupon the drill encountered the underlying oil formation. Crude oil entered the well, first gradually and then in such volumes that Drake and his team simply ran out of places to store the crude and began filling empty whisky barrels. The discovery of liquid petroleum in economically viable quantities at Oil Creek kicked off the age of liquid and gas hydrocarbon energy capture. By doing so, the team sped up the process of industrialization.
Crude oil (better understood as crude oils, as there are many types of crude) is a naturally occurring mixture of volatile liquid hydrocarbon compounds consisting principally of carbon (between 80 and 87 percent) and hydrogen (between 11 and 14 percent), with trace elements of sulphur, nitrogen, oxygen, etc. Nearly all crude oil deposits were formed as a result of geologically slow accumulation of dead oceanic microorganisms. The microorganisms drifted down to the sea floor, taking with them, on an individual level, an inconceivably small amount of chemical energy or hydrogen encapsulated in its cells. Layers of microorganisms built up on the bottom of warm seas over tens of millions of years. The seafloor containing these bio-rich layers was eventually subducted further into the Earth’s crust, where pressure and heat would gradually transform the layers into crude oils and natural gases. It was this store of chemical energy that Drake and Smith successfully tapped in the summer of 1859.
https://www.humanprogress.org/stuff-of-progress-pt-11-crude-oils/
