Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover in the Coolidge administration proposed curbing oil discharges from shore plants as well as from ships, which resulted in the Oil Pollution Act of Only after World War II, with a system of production controls in place, did attention turn to preventing oil field pollution.
Population growth, urbanization, and industrialization in the oil-producing states in particular influenced this effort. Most important, the increased demand for water by cities, farms, and industry encouraged the passage of laws to prevent the contamination of fresh water supplies. In the late s, several states adopted more sophisticated petroleum conservation laws to protect groundwater and to reduce external damage caused by oil-field discharges.
Much more limited success was achieved in controlling petroleum-related pollution in the Gulf Coast refining region. Hydrocarbons and other chemical pollutants blanketed the skies over Beaumont-Port Arthur and along the Houston Ship Channel.
Water pollution in estuaries , tidelands , and especially in the Ship Channel added to the environmental deterioration. The oil industry preferred to deal with pollution questions internally. However, those most directly affected by the contamination did speak out. Additional successes were thwarted by the state court, which handed down several decisions making it more difficult to prosecute companies responsible for the pollution. In the s, the argument that further pollution threatened economic growth was persuasive.
Charges by federal investigators that the Houston Ship Channel had the worst water pollution problem in the state, among other things, encouraged the Texas legislature to pass a clean air act in and a water quality act in Enforcement proved minimal, however. World attention turned to the problem of oil pollution in March , when the supertanker Torrey Canyon ran aground off the coast of England, spilling most of its , tons of crude into the sea.
In May, President Lyndon Johnson initiated a study of oil pollution problems, but no major change came in federal offshore policy in the United States. The hole was capped quickly, but thousands of gallons of oil escaped from a fissure in the ocean floor. By February 1, the pollution extended along five miles of beach, and the leak ultimately released , gallons of crude with a slick of miles. Throughout February and into March, the crisis continued with no immediate end to the pollution of the beaches.
Efforts to use chemical dispersants on the oil were started and stopped several times. Union Oil attempted other methods but to no avail. Washington and Sacramento responded with investigations and studies.
The investigatory process offered little immediate relief to Santa Barbara, however. Lawsuits against Union Oil from commercial fishermen and owners of beachfront property soon followed, as well as state lawsuits against the federal government. Efforts to permit Union Oil to resume offshore production simply led to renewed blowouts and leaks.
By March 6, the oil was washing up on San Diego beaches, and it was not until the end of the month that the worst leaks were plugged. The Santa Barbara oil spill brought into question the rush to exploit offshore oil, corporate responsibility for environmental disasters, and the need for environmental protection. At the time of the spill, wells had been constructed along the coastal tidelands from Santa Barbara to Los Angeles.
Beyond a state-imposed three-mile coastal limit barring drilling, the federal government controlled the leases, granting its first one in Fearing that poorly regulated wells in the "federal zone" could pollute the state's beaches, California demanded jurisdiction beyond the three-mile limit, but the request was denied. Industrial concern over oil leaks was negligible before the Santa Barbara incident.
The aftermath of the Santa Barbara crisis was significant. Union Oil assumed liability for the blowout, but the financial settlements were well below the total damage costs. Congress tightened regulations on leases and made offshore operators liable for cleaning spills. Luckily, the worst fears about the damage to the California coast were not realized. While more than 3, birds died, damage to wildlife and the beaches was not permanent.
But the spill was a dramatic event that helped stimulate the growth of the modern environmental movement, and moved the federal government toward the passage of the omnibus environmental law, the National Environmental Policy Act NEPA , in Despite the Santa Barbara spill, the search for new sources of petroleum inevitably led to increased interest in offshore wells. Ocean drilling and greater tanker traffic guaranteed more blowouts and spills. In February , the New York Times reported three Exxon oil spills in one month: 15, gallons off the coast of Florida, 3 million gallons in Nova Scotia Bay, and 50, gallons a day for several weeks in the Gulf of Mexico.
During alone, there were 12, reported spills resulting in 21 million gallons of oil dumped into U. In , the Coast Guard initiated more stringent regulations for tankers, but illegal flushing continued. An exploratory well some fifty-seven miles off the Yucatan Peninsula experienced a massive blowout on June 3, —the same year the Amoco Cadiz tanker spilled , tons of oil off the coast of Brittany, France. While the Ixtoc well in the Bay of Campeche was a Pemex venture, it threatened the Texas coast as much as the Mexican coast.
The explosion and fire destroyed the rig and created a slick sixty to seventy miles long. The ultimate discharge not only exceeded the Santa Barbara spill but also exceeded the Ekofisk blowout in the Norwegian North Sea—the largest on record at the time.
A cutaway of a rotary engine — The rotary engine is an early type of internal combustion engine, usually designed with an odd number of cylinders per row in a radial configuration. Technology History Aviation Mechanical pic. There are two different types of combustion engines: an internal combustion engine and an external combustion engine. With the latter, fuel, like coal, is burned outside of the engine. The burning fuel heats up a fluid located on the inside of the engine to give it the energy it needs to run.
This is how a steam engine is powered. An internal combustion engine works a bit differently. Instead of heating the fuel on the outside, a mixture of fuel and oxygen is injected into the engine and a spark ignites the fuel that causes it to make tiny explosions or combustions. A car engine is made up of moving pistons and fixed cylinders.
Once the fuel is ignited, the small explosion forces the pistons to go through the cylinder which then drives the crankshaft. The crankshaft then converts the energy into rotational energy, which enables the car wheels to turn. After which, Nicolaus August Otto, a German Engineer, took on the task of making this engine more efficient.
He started exploring the potentiality of Ethyl Alcohol as fuel and installing four strokes to improve engine efficiency. After twelve years of rigorous experimentation and a number of failures, in , he succeeded in developing a functional four-stroke engine based on the principles of Alphonse Beau de Rochas and established the principles of intake, compression, combustion, and exhausts.
To date, all internal combustion engines in cars and motorcycles function on the principles stated by Otto. Otto's engine and its developments were undoubtedly more potent than the Lenoir's; however, its weight became a matter of concern for automobiles. They worked quite well for factories but were not the best fit for vehicles. Gottlieb Daimler and Wilhelm Maybach then took the task of optimizing this engine.
Once, associates of Otto started conducting their own experiments from to develop engines that were small, fast, and capable of powering vehicles on land and water. Their first success came in when they developed a petrol gas engine with hot-tube ignition that could generate one hp at revolutions per minute. It was small and relatively light, making it ideal for use in vehicles. The duo went further on to enhance its capabilities, which resulted in the development of the precursor of motorcycles which they named 'Retiwagen'.
In they installed an engine named 'Grandfather Clock' in a four-wheeled carriage, and in , they created the first completely self-propelled vehicle with a 1. Following these groundbreaking inventions, the internal combustion engine has gone through several developments over the years. The establishment of a number of automobile companies played a significant role in it.
When the world experienced two devastating wars, the performance requirements of vehicles changed entirely. This contributed much to the need for inventions and developments of engines on land, water, and sky.
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