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Crude oil's biggest value is its wide use as
a raw material in the chemical industry. But modern industrial societies
use it primarily to achieve a degree of mobility-on land, at sea, and in
the air-that was barely imaginable less than a hundred years ago. In addition,
petroleum and its derivatives are used in the manufacture of medicines and
fertilizers, foodstuffs, plastic ware, building materials, paints, and cloth
and to generate electricity.
"Petroleum," Microsoft(R) Encarta(R) 97 Encyclopedia. (c) 1993-1996 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. It can be contended that crude oil is too valuable a raw material to waste it to run engines. It is in any case an extremely inefficient source of energy and causes a lot of pollution. It is therefore extremely important to develop more alternative fuels to preserve oit reserves.
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