Petrol

Petrol

 

The other day, I got to thinking about petrol, what I knew of it, and what changes I’d seen regarding it, throughout my life.

 

In the first half of the 19^th century, crude oil, or petroleum (a combination of two Latin words meaning “oil from rocks”) was first distilled into paraffin and generally used for lighting oil lamps. This was in the “horse and cart” days before internal combustion engines had been invented.

 

Mechanical Power, for manufacturing, propulsion, and pumping water (amongst other things) was provided by steam, heated by coal.

 

The basic principles of an internal combustion engine began to take shape around the same time, although initially these used hydrogen gas in the main, usually triggered by electric spark. Later on, experiments were conducted using paraffin, but paraffin was less volatile and it was harder to produce a satisfactory mixture.

 

By heating crude oil further, more volatile distillates are produced, and these are distilled into petrol. With these heavier vapours it was possible to obtain a far better explosive mix, and the internal combustion engine that we know today gradually came into being.

 

Early engines were single and sometimes twin cylinder, somewhat crude by today’s standards but they established the benefits that a few horsepower can bring. Towards the end of the 19^th century the first four-cylinder engine had been built, and the foundations of the modern car were being developed.

 

Engines continued to be developed and improved. Over the years they became considerably more powerful, light enough to allow powered flight, and efficiencies have improved to levels that were once only dreams. All this has taken place in little more than a century, and

 

Initially, petrol was sold in cans in chemist shops, and garages. Later, as demand grew, it was sold in bulk and delivered by pump from a tank. Not so long back, they were filling stations everywhere with an attendant to operate the pump, but in recent years profit margins shrank, and regulations ballooned, which made even self-service pumps a liability for all but the very biggest filling stations.

 

So now, with more vehicles on our road than ever before, we find ourselves travelling further to use fewer filling stations, which seems odd. When I was a youngster, many people ran mopeds which had perhaps a litre tank capacity, or less. There was always a local filling station where they could fill up (every couple of hundred miles?!). I wonder where they go these days? I guess a 12 mile round trip instead of no more than half a mile?

 

Anyway, I thought that occurred to me was: If petrol was invented today, would it be allowed? In our safety conscious modern world, a highly flammable liquid giving off explosive vapours, would, I think, be banned.

 

Unless, that is, we were still in a horse-drawn era!

 

Makes you think, doesn’t it.