World War II and Petroleum

Since the beginning of civilization there have been wars. Even though wars are mostly associated with negative ideals, more often than not war gives rise to the creation of new inventions and pushes the creative mind into overdrive. World War II’s effects on the petroleum refinery process were no exception. The military needed better lubricators for their war machines and accessible sources of combustible energy such as gasoline and diesel fuel increased greatly in demand for weapons such as tanks. The world Second World War had the effect of many different countries collaborating in order to fight against their oppositions. This included the collaboration of many different international refinement companies to ultimately find more effective ways to increase the octane number and overall yield of fuels such as diesel and gasoline. They improved upon ionic and catalytic cracking processes and concentrated all their efforts on supplying readily available fuel for deploying soldiers on war fronts as well as energy to fuel their vehicles as mentioned above. War has always had a major impact on the technology sector because at its core nature, war is a last ditch effort to get the upper hand on an opponent. I believe that there will still be many, many large-scale wars to come, along with the technological advancement they bring, before humanity as a whole is united under a singular government.

Leave a Reply