Our Purpose
Our aim in this blog is to provide critique and commentary on world energy news in an effort to clarify the issues and allow the reader to reach an informed decision on energy issues.
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Category Archives: Energy
How much oil do we use? (4/5)
Now that we’ve covered where oil comes from, what oil is chemically, and how we refine crude, it’s time to get to the heart of the oil hype – consumption. The cool flow diagram below shows where the USA gets oil from and where we use it. From this diagram we can learn quite a [...]
CFLs and Mercury
There’s been a lot of backlash to the CFL (Compact Fluorescent Lamp) movement recently. Why? Mercury. CFLs contain small amounts of mercury. When these bulbs reach the end of their lives (on average 5 or more years – 10 times that of incandescent bulbs), they usually end up in the trash. On the way to [...]
How do we make gasoline and other useful fuels? (3/5)
In the last article in the series on crude oil, we learned where oil comes from. In this edition, we’ll discuss how fuels, lubricants, and other petroleum products are made from oil. After oil is extracted from the earth, it is separated into different components roughly according to how big the molecules are. Differences in [...]
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Where Does Oil Come From? (2/5)
We just learned what hydrocarbons are, we want to know where they come from. This article continues the series on Crude Oil. Organic material, like algae and zooplankton, that have died millions of year ago and sank to the bottom of the ocean were slowly buried by silt and other organic material to form layers. [...]
The Next Big Green Thing: LED Lighting