Western Pennsylvania

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Edwin Drake was The First American to successfully drill for Oil -

It is the 27. August, 1859, and is a crucial message had been sent. Entrepreneur, Edwin Drake ' s last financial backer had finally lost patience. You pay your debts, give up and come Home to read The Message .

Drake had hoped to find rock Oil ", is a brown, unrefined "raw" Oil , sometimes bubbled close to The Surface of the Western Pennsylvania ". He planned to Refine it into kerosene for lamps - replacement for the increasingly expensive whale Oil .

It would also be less useful by-products, such as gasoline, But if he could not find a buyer for you, that he might always you pour it.

The Message , But Drake still had not received it when the drill punctured an underground reservoir full of Oil Under Pressure . Of 69 ft (21m) below The Surface , the Oil began to rise.

had saved The whales, and The World was about to change.

Just a few miles South and a few years later, came a hint of what was to come.

As the Oil was struck at Pithole, Pennsylvania, in 1864, "there were not miles of 50 residents in a half-dozen", the New York Times.

Pithole city at The Height of his short-lived Oil Boom in 1865

A year later, Pithole had at least on graphs of 10,000 inhabitants, 50 hotels, one of the busiest in the postal, tele-stations, and dozens of brothels.

A few men of wealth, But a real economy is complex and self-preservation. Pithole was neither of the two, and in Another Year , it was gone.

on the Oil Boom will not last, But our thirst for fuel grew, and grew. The modern economy is soaked in Oil .

highlights of the inventions, ideas and innovations that contributed to the economic world.

It is with the broadcast on the BBC World Service. You can find and or.

It is The Source .

This is More Than coal and More Than twice as much as nuclear power, hydropower and renewable energies combined.

Oil and Gas provide a quarter of our electricity, and the raw material for most plastics.

Then there is traffic.

Edwin Drake may have questioned, who would was the purchase of gasoline, But the combustion engine, in order to give him an answer. From cars to trucks, cargo ships, the fuel is moving to jet aircraft, Oil derived is still With Us - and things - to.

No wonder that The Price of Oil is probably the single most important price in The World .

In 1973, when several Arab States declared an embargo on the sale of Some of the rich Nations, prices rose from $3 to $12 per barrel in just six months.

He led to a global slowdown, the US recessions after the subsequent price increases in the year 1978, 1990 and 2001. the conventional debt of the banking crisis alone.

As Oil goes, the economy goes.

So, why do we have so extremely dependent on The Stuff ?

Daniel Yergin is a magisterial history of Oil , The Price starts with a dilemma for Winston Churchill .

Churchill was the head of the Royal Navy by 1911.

One of his first decisions was the question of whether the British Empire would respond to The Challenge of an expansive Germany with new battle ships are powered by safe, secure Welsh coal, or Oil from distant Persia - modern Iran.

Why would anyone rely on such an uncertain source? Because Oil -fired battle ships would accelerate faster and maintain a higher speed requires less men to deal with the fuel and would have More capacity for weapons and ammunition.

Oil was a better fuel than coal.

Churchill's "fateful leap," in April 1912, the same logic that has governed our dependence on Oil is reflected and its influence on Global Politics since.

After Churchill's decision, The British Treasury bought up the majority of the Anglo-Persian Oil Company - the forerunner of BP.

An Oil strike by the Anglo-Persian Oil Company -field in 1909

In 1951, it was nationalized by the government of Iran. The argument would be repeated around The World in the following decades.

Some countries have good. Saudi Arabia is one of the richest on The Planet , thanks to its large Oil reserves.

Its state-owned Oil Company ,

Saudi Aramco operates in 28 locations around The World and employs around 76,000 people

Still, such as that of Japan or Germany. There is a bit More , maybe such as Pithole in a larger scale.

at another point to stand Out of the Iraq, Iran, Venezuela, Nigeria, Some Oil -rich countries, and in particular, of The Discovery .

Juan Pablo Pérez Alfonzo, Venezuela's Oil minister in the early 1960s, had a vivid description. "We are drowning in The Devil 's excrement. "

More things that the modern economy:

Why is it a problem with to much Oil ?

Export it expresses the value of the currency - which can also be expensive for anything other than Oil prohibitive in the manufacture of Home .

this means That it can be hard to develop, manufacture, or complex service Industry .

in the past, many politicians have tried to monopolize their country's Oil for themselves and their allies. Dictatorships are not uncommon. There is money - for Some - But such economies tend to be thin and brittle.

This is a reason why we have the hope to replace something, Oil . Climate Change is obviously another.

But Oil has so far stood stubbornly by the batteries. This is because the machines have to move, carry their own source of power, the lighter is with you, the better.

, and has the pleasant feature that it disappears after use. Batteries empty, alas, are just as heavy as full.

Electric Car Company Tesla is also developing state of the art battery technology

electric cars are finally starting to break through. Electro-jumbo-jets are a tougher challenge.

There was a time when it seemed to run whether the Oil might just start - "Peak Oil " was the Phrase that drove the prices higher and higher, and give us the impulse to move to a clean, renewable economy.

In fact, Oil is discovered far faster than it is consumed.

This is, in part, by the rapid growth of the share, and Gas .

The U.S. Energy Information Administration estimates that approximately half of the total U.S. crude Oil production comes from fracking

Fracking is More like manufacturing than traditional exploration and production.

enjoy, It is standardized, rapid productivity increases and The Process starts and stops, depending on whether The Price is right.

Many critics expressed concerns about its possible long-term consequences for the environment.

But , the Permian Basin - the Home of the US fracking Industry already produces More Oil than the 14 members of the organization of petroleum Exporting countries (Opec) group, apart from Saudi Arabia and Iraq.

It seems we are still drowning in The Devil 's excrement, and may continue to do so for Some time.

The author writes the Financial Times Undercover Economist column. the show is on the BBC World Service. You can find and or.

oil, fracking, energy industry

Source of news: bbc.com