How Is Oil Used as an Energy Source and What Determines Its Efficiency?

[rockergirl]

If anyone out there is able to give a brief overview of how oil is used as an energy source, I would really appreciate it! Nothing too fancy, I just need to know the basics of how it works and how to find its efficiency. Thanks so much.

 

[Pengwuino]

That's a rather complex problem. I'm sure no one will explain it to you entirely as we aren't in the business of giving you essays (as this is the homework section). We can point you in the right direction though.

Oil by itself is kinda useless. Once refined however, it is made into a variety of different types of gas. Gasoline is just 1 type of substance you can get out of oil. Using gasoline as an example, one way (although it is actually one of the only ways) to get energy out of it is to pump it into an internal combustion engine to produce power. I'm also not sure... but as far as diesel IC engines go, the most efficient ones are around 35% efficient, I'm really not sure. Here's some sites to get you going.

http://auto.howstuffworks.com/question105.htm
http://science.howstuffworks.com/oil-refining.htm