ABSTRACT
For more than a century, the world has run on petroleum. It powers nearly all vehicles and vessels, it creates electrical power, and it is distilled into thousands of products, from synthetic fabrics (nylon, polyester, etc.) to all the cheap plastic we throw away to heating our homes. We even eat oil, since enormous quantities of oil are used to make our food. A single acre of corn currently uses about 80 gallons of oil in the form of pesticides, fertilizers, and fuels for the machinery.
