Pollution Problems

In its early days, the oil industry generated considerable environmental pollution. Through the years, however, under the dual influences of improved technology and more stringent regulations, it has become much cleaner. The effluents from refineries have decreased greatly and, although well blowouts still occur, new technology has tended to make them relatively rare.

The policing of the oceans, on the other hand, is much more difficult. Oceangoing ships are still a major source of oil spills. In 1990 the Congress of the United States passed legislation requiring tankers to be double hulled by the end of the decade.

Another source of pollution connected with the oil industry is the sulfur in crude oil. Regulations of national and local governments restrict the amount of sulfur dioxide that can be discharged by factories and utilities burning fuel oil. Because removing sulfur is expensive, however, regulations still allow some sulfur dioxide to be discharged into the air.

Many scientists believe that another potential environmental problem from refining and burning large amounts of oil and other fossil fuels (such as coal and natural gas) occurs when carbon dioxide (a by-product of the burning of fossil fuels), methane (which exists in natural gas and is also a by-product of refining petroleum), and other by-product gases accumulate in the atmosphere (see Greenhouse Effect).

These gases are known as greenhouse gases, because they trap some of the energy from the Sun that penetrates Earth’s atmosphere. This energy, trapped in the form of heat, maintains Earth at a temperature that is hospitable to life. Certain amounts of greenhouse gases occur naturally in the atmosphere.

However, the immense quantities of petroleum, coal, and other fossil fuels burned during the world’s rapid industrialization over the last 200 years are a contributing source of higher levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. During that time period, these levels have increased by about 28 percent.

This increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide, coupled with the continuing loss of the world’s forests (which absorb carbon dioxide), has led many scientists to predict a rise in global temperature. This increase in global temperature might disrupt weather patterns, disrupt ocean currents, lead to more violent storms, and create other environmental problems (see Global Warming).

In 1992 representatives of over 150 countries convened in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and agreed on the need to reduce the world’s emissions of greenhouse gases. In 1997 world delegations again convened, this time in Kyōto, Japan. During the Kyōto meeting, representatives of 160 nations, including the United States, signed an agreement known as the Kyōto Protocol, which would require 38 industrialized nations to limit emissions of greenhouse gases to levels that are an average of 5 percent below the emission levels of 1990.

In order to reduce their fossil fuel emissions to achieve these levels, the industrialized nations would have to shift their energy mix toward energy sources that do not produce as much carbon dioxide, such as natural gas, or to alternative energy sources, such as hydroelectric energy, solar energy, wind energy, or nuclear energy.

While the governments of some industrialized nations have ratified the Kyōto Protocol, others have not. A major blow to the protocol came in March 2001 when United States president George W. Bush rejected it, saying it would damage the U.S. economy. Under the previous administration of President Bill Clinton, the United States had volunteered to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 7 percent below 1990 levels.

Bush’s rejection meant that the world’s largest consumer of fossil fuels would not participate in the Kyōto Protocol.