Yet with all the optimism that can be justified I would urge a policy of
saving as to petroleum that should be rigid in the extreme. If we are to
long enjoy the benefits of a petroleum age, which we must frankly admit
fits into the comfort-loving and the speed-loving side of the American
nature, we must save this oil.
We must save it before it leaves the well; keep it from being lost; keep
it from being flooded out, driven away by water. Through the cementing
of wells in the Cushing field, Oklahoma, the daily volume of water
lifted from the wells was decreased from 7,520 barrels to 628 barrels,
while the daily volume of oil produced was increased from 412 barrels to
4,716. These instances show what can and should be done in our known oil
fields.
We must save the oil after it leaves the well, save it from draining off
and sinking into the soil, save it from leaking away at pipe joinings,
save it from the wastes of imperfect storage.
Then we come to the refining of the oil. How welcome now would be the
knowledge that we could recover what was thrown away when kerosene was
petroleum's one great fraction. (The loss in refineries is still
startling, some 14,556,000 barrels last year--4-1/2 per cent of the
crude run in the refineries.)
The self-interest of the American refiner, notably the Standard Oil Co.,
has done a work that probably no mere scientific or noncommercial
impulse could have equaled, in torturing out of petroleum the secrets of
its inmost nature. And yet the thought will not altogether give place
that in that residue which goes to the making of roads or to be burned
in some crude way there may be things chemical that will work largely
for man's betterment. This is the fact, too--that where the oil is
produced by some small companies which have not the financial ability to
make it yield its full riches there is a greater danger of loss of this
kind. It would be well indeed if there could be such regulation as
would require that all petroleum must be refined. That this is done
generally is not denied. It should be universal. And all the skill and
study and knowledge of the ablest of chemists and mechanicians should
find themselves challenged by the problem of petroleum.
Coming to the use of petroleum in its various forms we find a field of
promise. The engine that doubles the number of miles that can be made on
a gallon of gasoline doubles our supply. There is where we can apply the
principle of true conservation--find how little you need; use what you
must, but treat your resource with respect. Has the last word been said
as to the carburetor? Mechanical engineers do not think so. Have all
possible mixtures which will save oil and substitute cheaper and less
rare combustibles therefor been tried? Men by the hundred are making
these experiments, and almost daily the quack or the stock promoter
comes forward with the announcement of a discovery which proves to be a
revelation--a revelation of human stupidity or criminal cupidity. On
this line the men of science do not sing a song of the richest hope;
they shrug their shoulders, exclaiming with uplifted hands: "Well, may
be, may be."
There are possible substitutes for some petroleum products, but not for
the whole barrel of oil; furthermore, petroleum is the cheapest
material, speaking quantitatively, from which liquid fuels and
lubricants can be made; therefore, any substitutes obtained in quantity
must cost more. Alcohol can be substituted for gasoline, but only in
limited quantity and at increased cost. Benzol from byproduct coking
ovens also can be used, but quantitatively is totally inadequate. For
kerosene no quantitative substitute is known. Lubricants can be obtained
from animal and vegetable fats, but mostly are inferior in quality, and
there seems no hope of obtaining them in quantity. Fuel oil can be
largely supplanted by coal, but for the internal-combustion engine there
is no quantitative substitute.