Oil is a natural resource belonging to the group of fossil fuels, which still continue to be the major energy sources used, although supplemented with others (nuclear energy, hydroelectric energy, etc.). And of all the fossil fuels, oil is the most widely used, so it is interesting to know a little more about it.
Do you want to know what type of resource is oil, renewable or non-renewable? Then, continue reading this interesting Green Ecologist article in which we clarify whether oil is a renewable resource or not and we tell much more about it.
We start by clarifying that oil is NOT a renewable resource. But then, Why is oil a non-renewable resource?
On the one hand, renewable resources or potentially renewable resources are those that can be regenerated through natural processes at a speed greater than that of human needs. On the other hand, non-renewable resources are those in which there is no replacement or it is extremely slow, in such a way that it is not able to compensate for human consumption. Therefore, the latter are present in nature in limited quantities.
In the case of oil, if current consumption continues and without finding new oil fields, it is estimated that its reserves may be exhausted around the year 2070. Thus, oil is clearly a non-renewable resource and, therefore , also a non-renewable energy source that takes millions of years to generate as we will see below.
In summary, this is the oil formation process:
Here we tell you much more about how oil is formed.
Once the deposit is located and its viability has been verified, the oil extraction. For this, drilling techniques are used to make extraction wells.
Oil is extracted in the form of crude, formed by a mixture of gaseous, liquid and solid hydrocarbons, which cannot be consumed directly. Thus, for its use it must go through a series of refining processes. The first is known as fractional distillation and consists of gradually raising the temperature in order to separate the different fractions or parts that compose it, from lower to higher boiling point: first, the gaseous products are separated (butane, ethane , methane, etc.) in an upper chamber, then the liquids (kerosene, fuel, gasoline, etc.) and finally the solids (bitumens and tars) are deposited in the lower areas.
The hydrocarbons thus obtained are not yet suitable for consumption, so they will subsequently undergo some treatments that consist of improving their octane number, that is, the antiknock capacity of the fuel. Finally, it is transported through the known pipelinesAlthough the most common form of transportation is by large tankers.
The main environmental impact caused by the oil use It is associated with the combustion of its by-products. On the one hand, combustion causes pollution to increase, generating particles, nitrous oxides, sulfur oxides, etc. On the other hand, they come off large amounts of CO2 to the atmosphere, whose accumulation in the atmosphere is generating climate change.
As if this were not enough, the use of large oil container ships has a high risk of accidents, having oil spills consequences that can certainly be regrettable. As oil is lighter than water, in case of leakage it can spread over marine surfaces, which, in the first instance, slows the entry of oxygen and eliminates all existing life (these are called oil slicks). Some examples of oil slicks are the wrecks of the Exxon Valdez or the Prestige oil tankers and the events that occurred during the Gulf War.
Despite these problems, we cannot yet abandon its use, as a large part of society would be paralyzed. The solution is to gradually replace it with other alternative energies that have a lower environmental impact on the environment.
We tell you much more in this other post about the Environmental Impact of Oil.
Finally, we say goodbye by citing some examples of non-renewable resources. As we had commented, the oil it is a type of fossil fuel and a non-renewable resource. However, there are two more types of fossil fuels and they are also non-renewable resources: coal and natural gas. These, along with the nuclear energy, constitute the different types of non-renewable energy sources that exist.
Other non-renewable resources are those that are found in finite quantities such as the minerals and also some types of rocks used in construction. Likewise, it can be considered as a non-renewable resource underground aquifers.
In addition, to learn more about natural resources, both non-renewable and non-renewable, we recommend these articles on What are non-renewable resources and examples and What are renewable resources and examples.
If you want to read more articles similar to Is oil a renewable resource?, we recommend that you enter our category of non-renewable energies.