Continental Oil Co., C.A.T.C., Gulf of Mexico, 1955.
The Age of Oil,[1] also known as the Oil Age,[2][3] the Petroleum Age,[4][5] or the Oil Boom, refers to the era in human history characterised by an increased use of petroleum in products and as fuel. Though unrefined petroleum has been used for various purposes since ancient times, it was during the 19th century that refinement techniques were developed and gasoline engines were created.
Although crude petroleum oil has been used for a variety of purposes for thousands of years, the Oil Age is considered to have started in the 1800s with the advance of drilling techniques, as well as the processing of products made use in internal combustion engines. Alternatively, the age of oil can be placed in the first period until the early 1900s, when oil consumption and combustion engines utilization increased. Contemporary industrial society is built largely on petroleum resources, but the future of the Oil Age has become increasingly controversial as the effects of climate change have become apparent, and use of alternative energy sources increases.
- ^ The Age of Oil: The Mythology, History, and Future of the World's Most Controversial Resource. By Leonardo Maugeri. Globe Pequot, 2007.
- ^ The End of the Oil Age. By Dale Allen Pfeiffer. 2004.
- ^ The Great Oil Age: The Petroleum Industry in Canada. By Peter McKenzie-Brown, Gordon Jaremko, David Finch. Detselig Enterprise Limited, 1993.
- ^ The Petroleum Age: A Tale of Innovation, Risk and Enterprise. By Ruth Sheldon Knowles, Phillips Petroleum Company.
- ^ Beyond the petroleum age: designing a solar economy. By Christopher Flavin, Nicholas K. Lenssen. Worldwatch Institute, 1990.