Chrzanowski 1

Pawel Chrzanowski

Dr. Semih Eser

EGEE 101H

10 April 2014

Petroleum in Transportation

Abstract

Petroleum is a high-energy resource that is a crucial aspect of our society.
It supplies 95% of the total energy of transportation, which has created a reliance
on the two fuels that can be refined from petroleum: gasoline and diesel. This is
problematic because petroleum is a scarce resource and there can be harmful
consequences in the future if we dont try to preserve it. The proposed solution in
this essay is to convert all vehicles from gasoline engine to diesel engines. Diesel fuel
has higher energy capacity and diesel engines have higher miles per gallon. If all
vehicles were converted, we would be able to save 102,155,827 gallons of fuel. Thus,
we would be helpful in slowing down petroleum consumption.















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Petroleum, also known as crude oil, has been known since antiquity and is
currently a prominent resource of the modern society. When first discovered,
petroleum was used as kerosene for lighting fluid. Today, it is the motor of the
industrialized world, fuel in transportation and a contributor to composition of
many chemical products. Currently, petroleum supplies 95% of the total energy
used by world transport and transportation uses up 70% of the total refined
petroleum in the world ("Petroleum, Ribeiro et al. 325). Transportation plays an
important factor in our society because it allows for quick mobility within the
industry and within our daily lives. Imagine what your life would be like without a
car! Due to this reason, there is a dependence on transportation and an over-
dependence on petroleum, which can create harmful consequences. The EIA has
estimated that there are known conventional oil reserves of more than 1.3 trillion
barrels worldwide and there may be another 600 billions barrels that have been
undiscovered ("What you need to know"). Petroleum is a scarce resource and we
need to consume it wisely or it will run out! One estimate from Garrett Harding is
that we could run out of oil as early as 2050 (Harding). Weve already seen the war
in Iraq over oil, its scarcity and our dependence lead to harmful societal
consequences. We need to combat the problem by trying to hinder our
consumption. In vehicle transportation, there are two types of fuel: gasoline and
diesel fuel. Diesel fuel is relatively new and is considered by many to be the more
efficient and environmentally friendlier than gasoline. One step that we can make
toward fighting large demand of petroleum is to switch all vehicles from gasoline
engine to diesel engine.
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Colonel Edwin Drake drilled the first successful oil well in Titusville,
Pennsylvania in 1859 and started the industry for crude oil. At first, oil was refined
into kerosene, which is a colorless and highly flammable liquid that separates from
crude oil between 150 C and 275 C. Before crude oil, the main way to get kerosene
was from the bubbler of sperm whales, which was a method that was very scarce
and expensive (Smil 119). In the 1860s, kerosene was used as lighting fluid because
there werent many other forms of energy at the time. Crude oil became a cheaper
and more convenient option for kerosene and, thus, quickly took over the market for
lighting fluids. However, soon after, the market for lighting fluids vanished when
Thomas Edison invented and introduced the light bulb. The exploitation of oil
mainly began with the invention of the automobile, which ensured a place for
consistent supply of fuel (Petroleum History). Different forms of energy were tested
for effectiveness. Out of steam and electricity, the gasoline-powered (petroleum)
engines turned out to be the most practical.
World War I revolutionized the global demand for petroleum. Horses became
an outdated mode of transportation because they were slower and required more
maintenance than motor vehicles. In turn, a market emerged with enormous
demand for motorized transport and petroleum. Hundreds of thousands of
automobiles were created and countries begin to develop better forms of
transportation, like tanks, airplanes and oil-running ships for increased speed and
mobility. As a result, the whole war began to exclusively rely on petroleum fuel
based transportation (Petroleum History). Since Colonel Drakes discovery, the
world has used 1 trillion barrels of oil ("Petroleum"). Last year, there were more
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than 250 million registered vehicles for a U.S. population of more than 310 million
(U.S. Department of Transportation). That means that there are approximately 8
cars for every 10 people. In addition, nowadays there are about 20 million barrels of
crude oil used every day ("Short-Term Energy and Summer"). Due to high demand
for fuel, each 42-gallon crude oil barrel is refined into 19 gallons gasoline and 10
gallons of diesel ("What Fuels Are Made").
Gasoline is a product of petroleum that consists of a mixture of
hydrocarbons, additives and blending agents. While its composition varies with its
producer, the typical composition is: 4-8% alkanes; 2-5% alkenes; 25-40%
isoalkanes; 3-7% cycloalkanes; l-4% cycloalkenes; and 20-50% total aromatics (0.5-
2.5% benzene). At the refinery process for gasoline, additives and blending agents
are added to crude oil for increased performance and stability. Some of those
include: anti-knock agents, anti-oxidants, metal deactivators, lead scavengers, anti-
rust agents, anti-icing agents, upper-cylinder lubricants, detergents, and dyes. When
the production process is over, gasoline typically contains more than 150 separate
compounds and is the lightest and most flammable by-product of oil refining ("The
Differences between Gasoline, Gasoline: Chemical Identity"). Diesel fuel is different
in that it is less volatile than gasoline. It is denser than gasoline, which means that
there is more energy per unit volume. The U.S. definition of diesel encompasses
different numbers of the fuel: No.1, No.2, and No.4. The No.1 grade is the more
volatile one and is typically used in city buses since it accommodates for frequent
changes in speed and load. The No.2 grade has a higher specific gravity and provides
more energy per unit volume of fuel, which is used in transportation that includes
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railroads and trucks. Diesel fuel No.4 is special type oil that is used for low- and
medium-speed engines that can use viscous fuel oil with relatively high sulfur
content ("Diesel Fuels"). Automobiles use ultra-low sulphur diesel fuel, which is
cleaner diesel. When the diesel engines were becoming more and more popular, the
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency put a law in place to require vehicles,
manufactured after 2007, to use ultra-low sulphur for cleaner burning diesel
("Strong Diesel Fuel Demand"). When narrowing it down to one definition, the Toxic
Substances Control Act states that diesel oil is: A complex combination of
hydrocarbons produced by the distillation of crude oil. It consists of hydrocarbons
having carbon numbers predominantly in the range of C9-C20 and boiling in the
range of approximately 163- 357C.
Since gasoline and diesel have different consistencies, they have different
engine constructions that go along with them. In a gasoline engine, oxygen and gas
are mixed together to create a vapor that is compressed by a piston and then ignited
by a spark plug. In a diesel engine, the piston only compresses the air. It then keeps
on compressing the air, making it hotter. Once it becomes hot enough, the diesel fuel
combusts from the hot air alone and there is no spark plug required ("The
Differences between Gasoline"). Currently, the United States has a gasoline-
dominant fuels factor. Approximately 98% of the automobile engines are gasoline
powered and 2% diesel powered ("Strong Diesel Fuel Demand"). My proposed
change is that we should convert to 100% diesel powered automobile engines. Some
consider diesel fuel as a bio-fuel because you can get more energy from a gallon of
diesel when comparing it to a gallon gasoline; it is able to yield a higher rate of miles
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per gallon ("What's The Difference Between, The Differences between Gasoline").
Diesel fuels typically deliver a 25 to 30 percent better fuel economy (Sclar). This is
an important factor because less petroleum can be used to produce the same
amount of energy.
University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute carried out
research on the total cost of ownership between gasoline and diesel engines. Their
purpose was to keep up to date with the U.S. automotive market, which is evolving
to a more fuel-efficient fleet. They accounted for the total cost of ownership for
diesel vehicles and compared it to the total cost of ownership to the gasoline
vehicles. Using government data, they created estimates for three and five-year
depreciation costs, which included: MPG, resale and fuel cost. In their study, they
used twelve different comparable diesel and gas vehicle pairs. Comparing MPG,
Diesel won in every vehicle. The highest percentage difference in miles per gallon
was 44%, average was 28.25%, more than the gasoline engine. Comparing resale
value, the diesel vehicles showed distinct advantages, where most vehicles showed
double digit percentage higher savings. Finally, comparing fuel cost, University of
Michigan again showed an advantage for the diesel engines by proving that over
time (5 years), you could end up paying less for diesel. Percentages in 5 years
ranged from 9% savings to 23% saving from gasoline. Overall, most of the savings
for cars were in the $2000 to $6000 range. The low savings in three years was $67
and the high in five years $15,619 (Belzowski and Green). This shows that the
diesel engines are able to compete with gasoline engines in the U.S. market. Over
time, many diesel-powered vehicles end up costing less in total than gasoline-
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powered vehicles. This can serve as a good incentive for consumers to start
purchasing diesel engine powered vehicles and for companies to start producing
them.
By switching to diesel-powered engines, consumers can save money over
time and we can start saving petroleum! According to the U.S. Department of
Transportation, there were 250,070,048 registered vehicles in 2010 in the United
States. In the same year, on average a vehicle drove 11,853 miles and had an MPG of
17.5 (U.S. Department of Transportation). When you multiply the number of
vehicles times the amount of miles driven and divide that by MPG, you will get an
approximate number of 169,376,015,940 gallons that were consumed in 2010 by
registered vehicles alone; or in other terms, 464,043,879 gallons consumed per day.
As I mentioned before, in the U.S. there are 98% gasoline engine vehicles and 2%
diesel engine vehicles. So we can estimate that 454,763,001 gallons were gasoline
and 9,280,878 gallons were diesel. Moving forward, when applying University of
Michigans study, diesel fuels are able to have 28.25% more MPG. Therefore, if all
the vehicles in the U.S. were diesel engines, we can assume that the MPG would
increase by 4.94-MPG to have a new average 22.44-MPG (changed from 17.5). If you
substitute in the new number and recalculate, we would consume approximately
132,089,138,990 gallons in 2010 or 361,888,052 gallons per day. That is
102,155,827 less total gallons of petroleum that we would consume per day!
Each 42-gallon crude oil barrel produces about 45 gallons of petroleum
products. This gain happens because of the refinement process, which adds
miscellaneous entities during the transition process into various petroleum fuels.
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From one barrel of U.S. crude oil, we get 10 gallons of diesel, 19 gallons of gasoline, 4
gallons of jet fuel, 7 gallons of other products, and other is residual. Other products
from petroleum include: ink, crayons, dishwashing liquids, deodorant, eyeglasses,
CDs and DVDs, tires, ammonia and heart valves ("What Fuels Are Made"). Since
there has always been such a reliance on gasoline, U.S. refineries were configured to
maximize gasoline yield and have trouble ("Diesel/Gasoline Imbalance"). This
makes it difficult for refineries to reduce gasoline yield and increase the diesel.
However, there are available refining technologies that can convert crude oil to
diesel at a rate of 28 gallons per barrel (Eser). When you go back to the Michigan
study, the researchers found that you can get on average, with diesel, you can get
28% more MPG than gasoline. This means that 15 gallons of diesel will be able to
produce the same amount of energy and mileage as 19 gallons of gasoline. We would
be able to reduce our total fuel production from 29 to 25 to meet the same energy
quota, giving us 4 more gallons of crude oil per barrel. Thus, if we consume 20
million barrels per day, we would be able to save approximately 80 million gallons
of crude oil per day! These extra gallons could either be saved or used for other
petroleum products that I mentioned above.
Trying to decrease our petroleum consumption and having the same amount
of transportation is feasible. Since diesel has more energy unit per volume, it can
produce as much energy as gasoline but in lesser amounts. We would be able to
slow down petroleum consumption and add a couple years to the estimates that
predict crude oil depletion. While this isnt the perfect solution to overuse of
petroleum, it is one that gives us more time to seek alternative resources or to have
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advancements in our technology that can lessen our dependence on petroleum
products.
It is important to reduce petroleum consumption because it creates harmful
environmental consequences and societal problems. Oil consumption has significant
greenhouse emissions that contribute to global warming (Mesnikoff et al.). If every
car drives the same distance on the same amount of fuel, then we have fewer
emissions per car and we would have less pollution. Secondly, since the U.S. has
become dependent on crude oil, it has become more vulnerable to any kind of
supply distractions. Already we have seen the Iraq war, which many consider was a
war for oil. If we end up getting to the point of peak oil (where every oil well is
pumping oil up at a maximum rate) or if we run out of it, then we can experience
societal tension that will result in detrimental effects ("Reduce U.S. Oil
Consumption). It is crucial that we try to prevent over consumption as much as
possible and that we look for alternative sources of energy.
In conclusion, converting all vehicles to diesel fuel engines would have a
positive effect on the petroleum consumption. Petroleum is a crucial resource in our
daily lives and in the industry, which means that it should be consumed wisely.
Gasoline and diesel fuel are two products that can be refined from crude oil and are
responsible for providing 95% of total energy for transportation. After World War I
and because Petroleum is convenient, the U.S. has become overly reliant upon it.
This creates problems because crude oil is a scarce product that is being overused.
One forecast is that it will run out as soon as 2050! Its hard to imagine the switch
that would have to occur from having it everywhere to not having it at all. I chose
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this topic to explore a solution that could be implement to slow down petroleum
consumption. I believe that if we give ourselves more time, that we can have a better
chance to seek alternative resources. Through research, I found that we could save
millions of gallons of petroleum by converting from mostly gasoline engines to all
diesel engines. Additionally, we can create 15 more gallons of diesel from crude oil
to match the energy capacity of 19 gallons of gasoline. We would be able to reduce
our total fuel production and we would be able to save 4 gallons per barrel. We
would then accomplish our goal of trying to hinder petroleum consumption.















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