Crudely put: Oil is everywhere

By Peter A. Coclanis 
Real Clear Wire

“A century ago, petroleum – what we call oil – was just an obscure commodity; today it is almost as vital to human existence as water,” James Buchan.

For years now, climate change alarmists ranging from Greta (“Fridays for Future”) Thunberg to Bill (“Keep it in the Ground”) McKibben have railed against fossil fuels. When criticizing petroleum specifically, they have focused much of their attention on crude oil, particularly its ostensibly pernicious role in powering vehicles, heating and cooling buildings, and generating electricity. In their views, the world would be a much better place if we could just wean ourselves off oil and substitute alternative energy sources for the aforementioned functions.

Defenders of fossil fuels have long put paid to simplistic views about an ‘energy transition,” but much of the population even today is not totally aware of the profound role of oil in areas other than transportation, HVAC, and power production. I was recently reminded of oil’s pervasiveness while reading an article on the environmental costs of “fast fashion’ – in a lefty publication, not surprisingly. In the piece, the authors pointed out in passing that  synthetics comprise nearly 70 percent of textile production in the world and  that nearly “342 million barrels of crude oil…go into the making of synthetic fabrics every year.” 

These facts got me digging a bit deeper into the role of crude oil in our lives. For one thing, while a lot of oil is going into the production of synthetics, such is the size and scale of the oil industry – over 32 billion barrels were produced in 2024 – textile production accounts for only a little over 1 percent of crude oil output.

However small that percentage figure, synthetic textiles obviously make a real difference to lots of people worldwide, as do other products made from crude oil not going directly into the production of energy. 

Indeed, because around 18 percent is devoted to uses other than energy, there is a lot of crude available for other uses, and these uses include the production of a vast array of goods and products that, taken together, go a long way toward making the world modern. In 2024, for example, when world output of crude oil was about 32.3 billion barrels, this means that roughly 6 billion barrels went into non-energy uses.

What uses? For starters, there are huge and hugely important product categories derived from crude oil such as plastics, petrochemicals, lubricants, synthetic rubber, fertilizers (urea, ammonia, UAN, etc.), pesticides, asphalt, waxes, pharmaceuticals, paints, and cosmetics. The resins derived from one such category alone – plastics – go into the making of a staggering array of goods and products ranging from packaging/storing materials to auto components (dashboards and bumpers, anyone?). 

Resins are indispensable to both the construction industry – here, think roofing materials, insulation, and piping – and the furniture industry (particle board), and are essential to the electronics industry and in the production of various and sundry medical devices. Why?  Because in comparison to traditional materials, especially metals, they are lightweight, durable, water-resistant, easy to process and customize, and cheap.

In 2024, journalist-energy consultant Ron Stein pointed out that over 6000 products widely used today are based in full or in considerable part on crude oil and natural gas (another fossil fuel). The range of products he mentions merely for illustrative purposes – replicated below – is simply staggering:

“toothbrush, safety goggles, lipstick, airplane, contact lenses, smart phone, laptop computer, rubber gloves, crayons, helmet, washing machine, ski jacket, wind turbine, dentures, fitness tracker, yoga outfit, shampoo, headphones, garden hose, syringe, running shoes, carbon-fiber bicycle, toy blocks, electric piano, kayak, saran wrap, cotton towels, pills, chemical fertilizer and electric car.” 

When critics of fossil fuel wax on about transitioning from fossil fuels, they are deluding themselves in two major ways. First, as the French historian of technology Jean-Baptiste Fressoz has recently pointed out, in history there has never been a true energy transition. As “new” energy sources become more prominent, that is to say, they add to rather than replace the energy sources they are intended to replace. Not for nothing is Fressoz’s 2024 book entitled "More and More and More."

Secondly, critics of petroleum focus too closely – and crudely, as it were – on the complex mixture of hydrocarbon’s role in energy generation alone, in so doing paying insufficient attention to oil’s role as a key ingredient in and building block for modern life. Not for nothing do carbon critics such as Al Gore, John Kerry, Bill McKibben, and, recently, even  Saint Greta, take to the sky in flying machines powered by aviation fuel and constructed largely of carbon composites.

Peter A. Coclanis is Albert R. Newsome Distinguished Professor of History and Director of the Global Research Institute at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.

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