Figure 1. Figure 2. An oil well with an electrically-powered pump. Image: Famartin, Wikimedia Commons. Figure 3. A section of the Trans-Alaska oil pipeline. Image: Luca Galuzzi, Wikimedia Commons. Figure 4. An oil refinery at Anacortes Washington. Image: Walter Siegmund, Wikimedia Commons. Figure 5. A basic schematic of the crude oil refining process. Image: American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers. However, due to safety concerns this was removed in the s. Today, gasoline is only one source of energy used to drive automobiles.
Battery powered, and solar powered cars are also being developed and sold as alternatives to the gasoline-driven cars. The clear liquid of gasoline, drove the change from the horse-drawn carriage to our modern-day vehicles.
The use of new alternative energy sources will, like gasoline, propel the automobile industry forward into the future. Toggle navigation. Gasoline - History of Gasoline. In the late s, several states adopted more sophisticated petroleum conservation laws to protect groundwater and to reduce external damage caused by oil-field discharges. Much more limited success was achieved in controlling petroleum-related pollution in the Gulf Coast refining region.
Hydrocarbons and other chemical pollutants blanketed the skies over Beaumont-Port Arthur and along the Houston Ship Channel. Water pollution in estuaries , tidelands , and especially in the Ship Channel added to the environmental deterioration. The oil industry preferred to deal with pollution questions internally. However, those most directly affected by the contamination did speak out. Additional successes were thwarted by the state court, which handed down several decisions making it more difficult to prosecute companies responsible for the pollution.
In the s, the argument that further pollution threatened economic growth was persuasive. Charges by federal investigators that the Houston Ship Channel had the worst water pollution problem in the state, among other things, encouraged the Texas legislature to pass a clean air act in and a water quality act in Enforcement proved minimal, however.
World attention turned to the problem of oil pollution in March , when the supertanker Torrey Canyon ran aground off the coast of England, spilling most of its , tons of crude into the sea. In May, President Lyndon Johnson initiated a study of oil pollution problems, but no major change came in federal offshore policy in the United States. The hole was capped quickly, but thousands of gallons of oil escaped from a fissure in the ocean floor. By February 1, the pollution extended along five miles of beach, and the leak ultimately released , gallons of crude with a slick of miles.
Throughout February and into March, the crisis continued with no immediate end to the pollution of the beaches. Efforts to use chemical dispersants on the oil were started and stopped several times. Union Oil attempted other methods but to no avail. Washington and Sacramento responded with investigations and studies. The investigatory process offered little immediate relief to Santa Barbara, however.
Lawsuits against Union Oil from commercial fishermen and owners of beachfront property soon followed, as well as state lawsuits against the federal government.
Efforts to permit Union Oil to resume offshore production simply led to renewed blowouts and leaks. By March 6, the oil was washing up on San Diego beaches, and it was not until the end of the month that the worst leaks were plugged.
The Santa Barbara oil spill brought into question the rush to exploit offshore oil, corporate responsibility for environmental disasters, and the need for environmental protection. At the time of the spill, wells had been constructed along the coastal tidelands from Santa Barbara to Los Angeles. Beyond a state-imposed three-mile coastal limit barring drilling, the federal government controlled the leases, granting its first one in Fearing that poorly regulated wells in the "federal zone" could pollute the state's beaches, California demanded jurisdiction beyond the three-mile limit, but the request was denied.
Industrial concern over oil leaks was negligible before the Santa Barbara incident. The aftermath of the Santa Barbara crisis was significant. Union Oil assumed liability for the blowout, but the financial settlements were well below the total damage costs. Congress tightened regulations on leases and made offshore operators liable for cleaning spills. Luckily, the worst fears about the damage to the California coast were not realized.
While more than 3, birds died, damage to wildlife and the beaches was not permanent. But the spill was a dramatic event that helped stimulate the growth of the modern environmental movement, and moved the federal government toward the passage of the omnibus environmental law, the National Environmental Policy Act NEPA , in Despite the Santa Barbara spill, the search for new sources of petroleum inevitably led to increased interest in offshore wells.
Ocean drilling and greater tanker traffic guaranteed more blowouts and spills. In February , the New York Times reported three Exxon oil spills in one month: 15, gallons off the coast of Florida, 3 million gallons in Nova Scotia Bay, and 50, gallons a day for several weeks in the Gulf of Mexico. During alone, there were 12, reported spills resulting in 21 million gallons of oil dumped into U.
In , the Coast Guard initiated more stringent regulations for tankers, but illegal flushing continued. An exploratory well some fifty-seven miles off the Yucatan Peninsula experienced a massive blowout on June 3, —the same year the Amoco Cadiz tanker spilled , tons of oil off the coast of Brittany, France.
While the Ixtoc well in the Bay of Campeche was a Pemex venture, it threatened the Texas coast as much as the Mexican coast. The explosion and fire destroyed the rig and created a slick sixty to seventy miles long.
The ultimate discharge not only exceeded the Santa Barbara spill but also exceeded the Ekofisk blowout in the Norwegian North Sea—the largest on record at the time. The new spills reignited the controversy over oil exploration along the continental shelf. In the wake of the energy crisis in the s, the Nixon administration and its successors had continued to authorize leasing of federally controlled sites through the Department of the Interior.
Coastal states, especially California, were concerned about leaving the fate of their coastlines to the Interior Department and the oil companies. Even after the passage of NEPA, many environmentalists were concerned that regulation was more ceremonial than substantive.
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