So, two reservations -- Standing Rock in North Dakota and Red Lake in Minnesota -- want freedom from oil.
First, I should get my "bonafides” out there, so the two tribes will understand where I get the knowledge to tell them just how wrong their desire is to get away from oil.
I worked in the oil refining industry for 35 years at the Chevron Refinery in El Segundo, Calif., and there are more than 10,000 by-products made from crude oil.
First, let's talk about that electric car that they want to use so they can get away from oil.
The first thing they need to do is get rid of everything in that beautiful electric car that comes from, or by, oil. Now that we've done that, oh wait, there's nothing left!
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The steel in the car is gone, as are the tires, the upholstery and all the plastic used in its production, and yes, even the batteries. As all that takes byproducts of crude oil to produce. Even the wires that come to and from the electric charging stations and even the charging stations themselves could not be made without byproducts from crude oil.
It all has chemicals that come directly from oil such as plastics, synthetic rubber, steel, (two major ingredients in the production of steel are sulfur and coke) and these elements are direct byproducts of crude oil refining.
God was good enough to place all that crude oil in the ground and give us the knowledge to extract it, refine it and produce all that we use in our daily lives. Including our clothes, food and the structures we live in and most of the medications we use and the little plastic bottles they come in.
Suffice it to say, our lives would be totally different if we didn't have all that comes from crude oil and the refining of it to make all the many products we use.
Oh, and one other thing, the materials used to make the roads, be they cement or asphalt also come from crude oil.
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