What is oil?

Crude oil is formed from the remains of small animals and plants that died and fell to the bottom of the sea. Their remains were covered by mud. As the sediment was buried by more sediment, it started to change into rock as the temperature and pressure increased.

What Is Oil Used For?

Some of the more popular uses of oil, or petroleum, are transportation fuels, fuel oils for heating and electricity, asphalt and road oil. However the uses don't end there, there are SO MANY uses for oil, they range from printer ink and to oil filters, to frying pans and prescription glasses.

How Much Money Does oil make canada?

The Oil Sands in Alberta ALONE injected almost 23 billion dollars into the economy in 2015. Also it is expected that 4 TRILLION dollars will be contributed to the Canadian economy from the oil sands sector over the next 20 years.

How Is It extracted/Developed?

The extraction of petroleum is the process by which usable petroleum is extracted and removed from the earth. The bitumen in tar sands cannot be pumped from the ground in its natural state; instead tar sand deposits are mined, usually using strip mining or open pit techniques, or the oil is extracted by underground heating with additional upgrading. It is then it is refined (cleaned) of any unwanted substances, i.e. gravel, dirt, and small amounts of metal.

What are some issues?

One example would be the threat of an oil spill. An oil spill is the release of a liquid petroleum into the environment, especially marine areas, due to human activity, and is a form of pollution. The term is usually applied to marine oil spills, where oil is released into the ocean or coastal waters, but spills may also occur on land.

Another issue would be when when oil or petroleum distillates are burned usually the combustion is not complete. This means that incompletely burned compounds are created in addition to just water and carbon dioxide. The other compounds are often toxic to life. Examples are carbon monoxide and methanol. Also, fine particulates of soot blacken humans' and other animals' lungs and cause heart problems or death.

What do we need to change in order for the industry to be more sustainable?

Firstly, we can use oil more sustainably by investing in energy efficiency, so that your need for oil decreases at the same rate that the supply of oil decreases. Another way is we can extract oil more sustainably by investing the profits in projects to benefit future generations. Although future generations can't benefit from the oil once it's gone, they'll benefit from new resources of equivalent value, like universities and hospitals, if you use oil profits to build them now. So, in summary, to make oil more sustainable, give future generations the tools to be less oil dependent, and invest oil profits to create new resources. These will help future generations to maintain the same level of wealth and prosperity even as oil declines and disappears.