Air pollution from the use of petroleum

Abstract

To many people oil pollution of the environment means oil tanker wrecks, like the Torrey Canyon or the Christos Bitas; lumps of tar on the sea shore and perhaps local pollution in their neighbourhood caused by a spill or leak from an oil storage installation on to land or into a stream. The previous chapter has discussed the effects which oil spills can have on the living creatures and plants of the sea, the shore and the land, and mention has also been made of the possible harmful effects of oil on man himself. What is often not considered or thought of as oil pollution, and which is the subject of this chapter, is the air pollution that can be produced by substances emitted when petroleum is refined and its products burnt in engines and furnaces. The chapter also considers practicable methods of abating whatever pollution may occur..