Dmitri Mendeleev, a famous Russian chemist who developed the Periodic Table in 1869, said that burning petroleum 'would be akin to firing up a kitchen stove with banknotes'. Why did he believe that petroleum was too valuable to burn?
2007-07-15 16:57:32 · 4 answers · asked by lilangelsarah23 1 in Science & Mathematics ➔ Earth Sciences & Geology
It's also 'too dirty' to burn, & he may have been considering the cost of cleaning up.
:-)
2007-07-15 17:11:23 · answer #1 · answered by J9 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I"m not exactly sure, but it stands to reason that in 1869 it would be very difficult to drill for oil. Also, refining oil wouldn't exactly be cheap either given the complexity of the refining process. When you think about what it takes to get oil out of the ground, pumped or tanked to a refinery, have it refined, tanked to bulk plants then shipped to gas stations, it's amazing that they can sell it for $3.00 per gallon. By contrast, Milk is pumped from a cow, pasturized, packaged, and sent to store for about the same as a gallon of gas.
2007-07-16 00:19:42 · answer #2 · answered by rcoli 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Yes, but that won't stop us.
Petroleum contains a whole suite of useful chemicals,
feedstocks for dyes, medicines, & plastics, (which Mendeleev would have been unlikely to have considered).
2007-07-16 00:20:46 · answer #3 · answered by Irv S 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Because, at the time, it was scarce. "Experts" have been predicting that the current supply would last about another forty years; they have been doing this for over a century.
2007-07-16 00:48:19 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋