Trivia quiz questions about oil or petroleum, a fossil fuel and major source of greenhouse gases.
Petroleum or Oil Fossil Fuel Trivia
What is petroleum or Crude Oil?
A: Petroleum is a naturally occurring,
yellowish-black liquid fossil
fuel found in geological formations beneath the Earth's
surface.
It is commonly refined into what?
A: Various types of fuels.
Components of petroleum are separated using what
technique?
A: Fractional distillation.
Petroleum consists of naturally occurring hydrocarbons
of various molecular weights and may contain miscellaneous what?
A: Organic compounds.
The name petroleum covers both naturally occurring
unprocessed crude oil and petroleum products that are made up of what?
A: Refined crude oil.
Petroleum is formed when large
quantities of dead organisms, mostly zooplankton and algae, are buried
underneath what?
A: Sedimentary rock and subjected to intense heat and pressure.
How has petroleum mostly been recovered?
A: By oil drilling.
It is refined and separated, most easily by
distillation, into numerous what?
A: Consumer products, from gasoline (petrol) and kerosene to asphalt and
chemical reagents used to make plastics, pesticides and pharmaceuticals.
It is estimated that the world consumes about how much
petroleum each day?
A: 95 million barrels.
The use of petroleum as fuel is controversial due to
its impact on what?
A: Global warming and ocean acidification.
According to the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change, fossil fuel phase-out, including petroleum, needs to be
completed by when to avoid "severe, pervasive, and irreversible impacts for
people and ecosystems"?
A: The end of 21st century.
Petroleum, in one form or another, has been used for
how long?
A: Since ancient times.
The rise in importance of petroleum was due to the
invention of what?
A: The internal combustion
engine, the rise in commercial aviation, and the
importance of petroleum to industrial organic chemistry.
More than 4000 years ago, according to Herodotus and
Diodorus Siculus, asphalt was used in the construction of the walls and
towers of what?
A: Babylon.
Great quantities of petroleum were found on the banks
of what river?
A: The river Issus, one of the tributaries of the Euphrates.
Ancient Persian tablets indicate the medicinal and
lighting uses of petroleum where?
A: In the upper levels of their society.
The use of petroleum in ancient China dates back how
many years?
A: More than 2000.
The Chinese were the first to record the use of
petroleum as fuel as early as when?
A: The fourth century BCE.
By 347 AD, in China, oil was produced from what?
A: Bamboo-drilled wells.
Crude oil was often distilled by Persian chemists, with
clear descriptions given in Arabic handbooks such as those of whom?
A: Muhammad ibn.
The streets of Baghdad were paved with tar, derived
from petroleum that became accessible from where?
A: Natural fields in the region.
When was the world's first oil refinery built?
A: In 1856 by Ignacy Łukasiewicz.
His achievements also included the discovery of how to
distill kerosene from seep oil, and the invention of the modern kerosene
what?
A: Lamp.
The demand for petroleum as a fuel for “what”, in
North
America and around the world quickly grew?
A: Lighting.
Edwin Drake's 1859 well near Titusville,
Pennsylvania,
is popularly considered what?
A: The first modern well.
Romania is the first country in the world to have had
what?
A: Its annual crude oil output officially recorded in
international
statistics: 275 tons for 1857.
Access to oil was and still is a major factor in what?
A: Military conflicts.
The German invasion of the Soviet Union included the
goal to capture the Baku oilfields, as it would what?
A: Provide much needed oil-supplies for the German military which was
suffering from blockades.
Oil exploration in North America during the early 20th
century later led to the US becoming the leading producer by when?
A: Mid-century.
As petroleum production in the US peaked during the
1960s, however, the United States was surpassed by whom?
A: Saudi Arabia and the Soviet Union.
In 1973, Saudi Arabia and other Arab nations imposed
what against the United States, United Kingdom,
Japan and other Western
nations which supported Israel in the Yom Kippur
War of October 1973?
A: An oil embargo.
Petroleum makes up 40 percent of total energy
consumption in the United States, but is responsible for how much of the
electricity generation?
A: Only 1 percent.
In 2018, due in part to developments in hydraulic
fracturing and horizontal drilling, the United States became what?
A: The world's largest producer.
About 80 percent of the world's readily accessible
reserves are located where?
A: In the Middle East.
Petroleum includes not only crude oil, but all liquid,
gaseous and solid what?
A: Hydrocarbons.
Under surface pressure and temperature conditions,
lighter hydrocarbons methane, ethane, propane and butane exist as what?
A: Gases.
Pentane and heavier hydrocarbons are in the form of
what?
A: Liquids or solids.
An oil well produces predominantly crude oil, with some
“what”dissolved in it?
A: Natural gas.
Because the pressure is lower at the surface than
underground, some of the gas will come out of solution and be what?
A: Recovered (or burned) as associated gas or solution gas.
Many oil reservoirs contain live what?
A: Bacteria.
Petroleum is used mostly, by volume, for refining into
what?
A: Fuel oil and gasoline, both important "primary energy" sources.
Due to its high energy density, easy transportability
and relative abundance, oil has become the world's most important source of
energy since when?
A: The mid-1950s.
Incomplete combustion of petroleum or gasoline results
in production of what?
A: Toxic byproducts.
Too little oxygen during combustion results in the
formation of what?
A: Carbon monoxide.
