he oil “blowing out” of the pipe. Fire is always on the workers mind. And oil itself is a liquid and therefore can be spilled if not properly collected. Once pumped from the earth’s crust, the oil must be shipped. The most popular way to distribute oil around the world is by a supertanker. These are huge especially designed ship, that hold millions of barrels of oil. These supertankers are huge in size but, just as any other ship or boat, they are liable to sinking, or running aground. This inevitably happens from time to time. The oil is spilled into the oceans and waterways. The effects can be devastating on the environment. Even when an uneventful trip, the oil still has to be offloaded to shore. This is where the majority of spills occurs. However it is the small, frequent spills that do the most damage to the environment. They often are not reported and therefore no remediation occurs. After being offloaded, the oil is soon refined. This process involves the heating of the crude oil in large tanks where the oil is settled into layers of different products. The heating of an already combustible material has its inherent dangers. To further refine the products, the use of caustic chemicals is a common practice. Once the chemical compounds are separated, they are transported once again. This opens up another risk of spilling, fire, and environmental problems. Now once delivered to the gas stations, the consumer, mainly you, pumps gasoline into you car. The reason gasoline is used is the combustibility factor, that is its high ignition speed. So essentially, you have just filled your car with about 15 gallons of explosive liquid. This is a danger to the consumer in the fact that automobiles have defects, that go many years undiscovered. In the early 1960’s it took 3 years for the Ford motor corporation to realize and fix the early Mustangs fuel tanks. These fuel tanks were mounted behind the rear seat, and even...
