Petroleum harmful affect to the environment
Answers
oil is actually called petroleum or crude oil and may exist as a combination of liquid, gas, and sticky, tar-like substances. Oil and natural gas are cleaner fuels than coal, but they still have many environmental disadvantages.
The secret to fossil fuels’ ability to produce energy is that they contain a large amount of carbon. This carbon is left over from living matter — primarily plants — that lived millions of years ago. Oil and natural gas are usually the result of lots of biological matter that settles to the seafloor, where the hydrocarbons (molecules of hydrogen and carbon), including methane gas, become trapped in rocks.
Petroleum sources are usually small pockets of liquid or gas trapped within rock layers deep underground (often under the seafloor). Extracted crude oil is refined and used to manufacture gasoline (used in transportation) and petrochemicals (used in the production of plastics, pharmaceuticals, and cleaning products).
Like other resources, oil isn’t evenly distributed across the globe. The top oil-producing countries are Saudi Arabia, Russia, the U.S., Iran, China, Canada, and Mexico. Together, these countries produce more than half of the total oil resources in the world.
While some petroleum is found in gas form, the most common natural gas is methane. Methane usually occurs in small amounts with petroleum deposits and is often extracted at the same time as the petroleum. Natural gas can be found in certain rock layers, trapped in the tiny spaces in sedimentary rocks.