Talk:Health and environmental impact of the petroleum industry

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Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Peer reviewers: Nick Hajaly.

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Environmental impact of petroleum

The quote that "It only takes one quart of motor oil to make 250,000 gallons of ocean water toxic to wildlife" cites an unsupported claim in a blog post, and I can't think of anything that's toxic at one part per million. In fact, it was in trying to verify that claim (the post has become a viral e-mail) that I came here. I suggest verifying the claim or deleting it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.77.200.67 (talk) 20:19, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

http://www.state.nj.us/dep/watershedmgt/waterbook_chp10.htm contains that quote. But the important part is that it is discussing USED MOTOR oil. To quote that page:

The harmful effects of used motor oil in an aquatic environment arise from both characteristics of the oil itself and the contaminants being picked up during use.

The toxicity of unused motor oil is presumably lower given that is has no use-caused contaminants, but I have no idea how much so. And the toxicity of oil recently removed from the earth is undoubtedly different from motor oil. SteveLetwin (talk) 20:22, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Their number is a little high, but it depends on the type of petroleum as noted above. The primary cause of toxicity to aquatic organisms by motor oil is the creation of a sheen on the water. The question is, how many gallons of water does it take to dissolve one quart of oil? The solubility of motor oil is between 1 and 5 mg/L. Let's call it 5 mg/L for simplicity. If more than 5mg of oil are added to a liter of water, you should get a sheen. To put this in perspective, one drop of oil weighs around 25mg, so in theory you should get a sheen if you put one drop of oil into less than five liters of water, and no sheen if you use more than five liters of water. One quart of oil weighs around 900g or 900,000 mg, assuming a density of 0.9 Divide this by the solubility of 5mg/L and one quart of oil will dissolve into 180,000 liters of water (i.e., each liter contains five grams, for a total of 900,000 mg). This is equal to approximately 50,000 gallons of water. So, one quart of oil will create a sheen on just under 50,000 gallons of water and pose an acute, aquatic toxicity hazard. Gasoline and diesel are much more toxic to aquatic life. Based on laboratory tests California developed a chronic, aquatic toxicity factors of 500 ug/L for gasoline. That's equal to one quart of gasoline in approximately 500,000 gallons of water.

Thank you for that info. Benzene, a component of petroleum, is toxic in parts per billion, because it directly attacks DNA and causes leukemia. Thus water exposure is set at 5 parts per billion by the US EPA. Benzene#Benzene_exposure_limits WriterHound (talk) 02:32, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

References

Neutrality

This article in its current stage is not neutral nor encyclopedic. It starts with insisting that impact of petroleum is often negative. True, but without defining what the impacts are it reads like campaigning page. The lack of neutral tone is an issue through the whole article. Also, it needs additional and better, preferably scientific references. Beagel (talk) 05:56, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: page moved. Vegaswikian (talk) 03:06, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

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Environmental impact of petroleum → Environmental impact of petroleum industry – Petroleum has been a part of Earth geology (environment in general) for eras. Impacts described in this article are not related to petroleum as a geological resource — they are related to the usage of petroleum by humans. It is more precise to say that these are impacts of petroleum industry. Beagel (talk) 06:02, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

• Support oil and gas seeps and tar pits are natural occurances and this article does not cover any of that (LaBrea Tar Pits have a big regional impact... oil seeps frequently spill oil into the Gulf of California) 70.24.248.23 (talk) 07:44, 23 November 2011 (UTC)
• Prefer Environmental impact of petroleum use. Usage includes burning it in cars, which is not "industry". Peterkingiron (talk) 17:19, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

At the same time, 'use' excludes environmental impacts of oil production. Beagel (talk) 18:34, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

• Perhaps this whole page should actually be a subsection in Petroleum industry. It could be headed 'Environmental Concerns' - environmental impact implies that the impacts are matter of fact...when they are always potential impacts. (570ajk (talk) 22:23, 29 November 2011 (UTC))

Impact on the footprint of the food supply

This is a complex argument and maybe too difficult, but if we're talking about threat to biodiversity this may be the biggest factor.

The use of petrochemicals in agriculture, particularly petrochemical-based fertilizer, has enabled higher yields supporting a higher human population per area. This has enabled the Earth to support a far higher population than would otherwise have been possible. But this situation is unsustainable because petrochemicals are a finite resource, which are becoming more energy intensive and expensive to extract, because the human population is growing, as is per capita consumption, and because there is pressure to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Without petrochemicals, agriculture requires more land to maintain food supplies. The effects of this are already being seen because there are always large numbers of agricultural producers at the margins whose use of fertilizers is very price sensitive. The effect could be seen during the global financial crisis when the price of petrochemicals doubled, fertilizer price increased fivefold and an additional area roughly the size of Italy was deforested.

I have recently published a paper on this: Are changes in global oil production influencing the rate of deforestation and biodiversity loss? R Eisner, LM Seabrook, CA McAlpine - Biological Conservation, 2016

Other have also written on land-fertilizer substitution. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rowaneisner (talk • contribs) 01:46, 29 May 2016 (UTC)

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