Petroleum by-products will delay electric cars

ALOT of us cash-strapped motorists are pointing gleeful fingers at the oil-exporting nations and saying: “Just you wait, you smug buggers. Soon all cars will be electrically driven, then we won’t need your petrol any more, so yah, boo and sucks to you.” Unfortunately that’s not going to happen. We live in a world that’s dominated by petroleum by-products.

In fact, about half the components in a modern car are actually made from petroleum based plastics. From the floor mats to the roof liners, door panels, headlights, upholstery fabrics, fan belts and tyres, they were all derived from crude oil. Even the paint was made from a petroleum chemical.

It costs me about R550 to fill the petrol tank of my little bakkie. This will get me (with a following wind) as far as Beaufort West. Beaufort West’s main attraction, as far as Cape Town car owners are concerned, is that you can have a nice deep bath there. Their Gamka Dam is brimming. (I do hope the Karoo National Park, which is just outside Beaufort West, has had good rain. The last time I was there it was terribly dry and the kudu were looking rather scrawny. I did see a very handsome lion, though, and he looked pretty well fed. Probably enjoying the lethargic kudus.)

I read recently that the crude oil needed to make enough petrol to fill my vehicle’s tank, could have been used to make 20 polyester shirts, 200 meters of plastic pipe, 20 acrylic jerseys, 13 bicycle tyres and 500 pairs of nylon panty-hose. So I don’t think the oil producers will particularly miss my little tank-full when I go electric. By the time I do switch to electric transport it will probably be in the form of a battery-powered wheelchair. I rather fancy driving one of those.

The production of motor fuel from crude oil was a relatively recent development. Bitumen, which is one form on natural crude oil, was used as far back as 2 400 BC for calking ships in ancient Mesopotamia and Babylon.

By the 17th century crude oil was being separated into various components for making axle grease for wagons, softening leather harness and as a basis for making paint. In the 1800s it’s most common use was in making paraffin for lamps. Cars only arrived much later.

It’s generally believed that crude oil was formed over many millions of years from plankton (tiny onecelled creatures) that died and sank to the bottom of the sea, where they were buried by mud from the rivers and were compressed to form the thick black hydrocarbon mess we know as crude oil – or natural tar. Who knows, maybe in another 20 million years we too might have been compressed into crude oil and find ourselves resurrected as fuel for intergalactic rockets. Or as panty-hose for Martian maidens.

Last Laugh

A REALLY terrible golfer hit his ball into a bunker and as he prepared to go down on to the sand he asked his caddy, “Which club do you think I should use here?”

“I wouldn’t worry too much about the club, sir,” replied the caddy.

“Just make sure you take plenty of food and water.”