To decode the science of crude oil formation we first need to go back in time. Waaaay back! We have to set our geologic clocks back tens and even hundreds of millions of years to a time when ancient seas covered much of North America. Small lifeforms, mostly algae, and tiny creatures known as zooplankton lived in these ancient seas. They produced their life energy by using CO2, water, and sunlight. Like all living things, these plants and animals eventually died. Their remains fell to the bottom and mixed with and were buried by sediment. Their remains and seafloor sediment piled up for millions of years.
Eventually, the pressure from the piled sediment and heat caused changes in the plant and animal, or organic, materials into a wax-like material called kerogen. Another by-product of this pressure is a tar-like substance known as bitumen, which we will learn more about later.
Catagenesis happens next. Big word. Essentially, catagenesis is the cracking of kerogen into smaller, hydrocarbon molecules that make up crude oil. Hydrocarbons are carbon atoms that have their “outer shell” filled only with hydrogen atoms. The minerals contained in the plant and animal remains mentioned earlier have an important role in catagenesis. They function as catalysts, materials that speed up or change the outcome of a reaction without being used up in the reaction itself. The catalyst helps catagenesis continue and, if the levels of pressure and temperature are just right, it forms crude oil – ta-da!
When you're ready to drill even deeper into the science of crude, click on the "Learn More" tab below to discover more about the mysteries of crude oil formation and exploration. Filling up your gas tank will never be the same again.
Plus, take a moment and check out the jazzed petroleum industry careers video on the right. Then, click the link of our educational partner here to dig even deeper into the science of refining and transporting crude oil.
Okay, we admit that harnessing the biochemical reaction of yeasts converting the carbohydrates in corn mash into ethanol is pretty slick (as ancients discovered eons ago, though they didn't use fancy enzymes in the process).
And we suppose the ancient cultures may have used the leftover fermented mash to feed animals. But unlike ages ago, today's ethanol production facilities produce something called DDG or "dried distiller's grain" that is shipped around the world.
Before we get into what we do with the co-products of ethanol production, let's first get that ethanol into your fuel tank. The process is pretty straightforward. Once it's extracted, it's stored then shipped to terminals where it's blended with conventional hydrocarbon based fuels such as gasoline. One very cool reason they blend it is that ethanol actually increases the "octane" or combustion performance of fuels plus reduces burnt fuel emissions. That's one "two-for" in dealing with ethanol. Watch the video here to get the full story.
The second "two-for" is the co-products they produce from the by-products of the process. The first biggie is DDG (dried distiller's grain). It's a high-protein dried corn meal that is used primarily for animal feed for both livestock and poultry. It's gained such widespread use that it's shipped on freighters around the world and ultimately helps feed populations in distant lands such as the far-east nations.
And just when you thought you were done with the co-products, some engineer holds up a bottle of oil... distiller's corn oil that's a prime feed-stock that's used in making biodiesel. But that's another story for later on. Be sure to check out those biodiesel science videos and lesson under the Energy category.
To further decode the technology of ethanol and co-product production, have your teacher download the lesson activities below for hours of peer-driven learning in your classroom with your peeps. You can also learn lots more by reading the advanced information in the Learn More section below by clicking on the icon.
To learn about the production of biodiesel, another important biofuel, explore our videos and lessons ethanol. You’ll find them in the Energy Category on the Home page.
For fun, also take a moment and check out the jazzed ethanol industry careers video on the right. Then, click the link of our educational partner here to dig even deeper into the science of ethanol production.
Calling all recruits! This is Director V speaking here.
Are you looking for an exciting career that uses creativity and innovation? Inspires leadership? Solves real-world problems? And impacts the world? Then our data streams say a career in energy may be the right fit for you!
Not sure? Well try to imagine a world without electricity … There would be no lights, no air conditioning, no refrigerators, no showers, no phones … almost everything we need to survive! So it’s no joke that electric power is one of the most important innovations of all time. And it miraculously always seems to be there, just ready to do work for us. So here is a puzzle for you to solve: How many careers do you think it takes to deliver electricity to the 300 million people in the U.S.?
The truth is that there are tons of jobs that make up the energy industry and power up our daily lives! And these careers not only offer exciting challenges and good pay, but also chances for you to put your STEM skills to the test. STEM is a term we use to describe education and careers that relate to Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math. And with a job in energy, you can become a whiz in STEM fields to power up communities and improve peoples’ lives. Now doesn’t that sound fulfilling?And because clean energy is growing, these STEM careers in energy will be in high-demand.
Are you curious to know more about those careers? Are you ready to put your detective skills to work? Then snoop on the investigative report below!
Dan Clausen
Construction Management Engineer
Madison Gas & Electric
Job Duties:
Education Needed:
Bachelor's degree in Mechanical or Electrical Engineering, also opportunities for bachelor's degree in Civil Engineering, Construction Management or Associate Degree in Energy Technology.
Favorite parts of the job:
“I like working in the utility industry because there is a lot of equipment and ways of producing electricity. We have the solar panels, the boilers, the wind turbines … and it’s equipment that comes from all over the world!”
Impacts on the world:
“Electricity is an integral part of everyday from your alarm clock to your lights to your cellphones. You are constantly relying on electricity throughout the day. And myself and the industry get to be a part of that and provide an important service to the community.”
Dennis Besaw
Lead Mechanical Technician
Kaukauna Utilities
Job Duties:
Education Needed:
Technical Degree as Maintenance Mechanic or Electro/Mechanical Technician
Favorite parts of the job:
“I like the variety of work, troubleshooting problems, making repairs, and doing overhauls."
Impacts on the World:
“I am very proud of myself and the guys and girls I work with when the Badger Plant stays running 24/7. That means I am doing my job right and making good clean energy for people to use at home. [And] I get to go home every day and turn on electricity and watch my favorite TV show or make dinner or turn on the backyard lights, knowing that I did something today that is very productive and everyone gets to use it. Including myself."
Dave Keller
Transmission Line Superintendent
MJ Electric
Job Duties:
Education Needed:
High school diploma and 4-year apprenticeship with on the job training to start in the position of journeyman line worker. Annual on-the-job training thereafter ranges from CPR and first aid to helicopter work on energized lines. Strong math and mechanical engineering skills are a plus. Strong work ethic and ability to work through unknown challenges make for a great start in this career.
Favorite Part of Job:
“It’s challenging, it keeps me outdoors, and the people I get to meet and work with are some of the best people I have met in the world. [Also], technology has changed so much in just my short career of building power lines. And the need for power has increased immensely. I enjoy being on the leading edge of new technology and new ways of doing things. I think that is a great way to spend your career.”
Impacts on the World:
“Weather and storms create havoc on the electrical system. Our maintenance and upgrades are able to combat that by building stronger structures and lines that are less likely to go down in significant weather.”
Tom Dagenais
Manager of Reliability Planning
American Transmission Company
Job Duties:
Education Needed:
Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering
Favorite Part of Job:
“I love my job because we are doing something here for the benefit of the public. Everybody knows how frustrating it is when their power goes out. [But] we’ve got a great team of professionals that work together well, and there’s no problem we can't solve.”
Impacts on the World:
“We have a more reliable and more cost-effective way to serve customers' needs then we did 5-15 years ago. And the fact that we have a reliable system that can serve customers with renewable energy when they need it makes me feel proud of the impacts we’ve had and the job we have done.”
Jay Johannes
Substation Engineer
American Transmission Company
Job Duties:
Education Needed:
Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering
Favorite Part of Job:
“If you think about it, everything needs electricity: where you work, the industry, your homes. We make sure that that power gets to your homes every day, 24 hours, 7 days a week reliably. And what’s great about my job is I solve problems to make sure that happens day in and day out.”
Impacts on the World:
“What I am most proud about with my job at ATC is I can be a good influence to younger engineers and to youth so they also can contribute to society. Being a substation engineer allows me to utilize the gifts that I have and be an example to our next generation.”
Stephanie Pierce
System Control Operator
American Transmission Company
Job Duties:
Education Needed:
Favorite Part of Job:
"I love doing my job because it’s different every day, and it poses a lot of mental challenges to figure out that happen without warning. Millions of people rely on our power [and] it’s really important to keep power going to each and every family and each and every household. We know you guys rely on it a lot every day to do what you do at home and at work.”
Impacts on the World:
“I take pride in my job because I get to help people. Whether they know it or not, we are always here. All holidays, all weekends, all nights. Here to protect the grid and to keep the lights on for you guys so that when you wake up in the morning to your alarm clock and your phone’s all charged, you are ready to go to work. You’re ready to go to school. And to be a part of society, just like us.”
Chris Dailey
Team Leader of Transmission Line Maintenance
American Transmission Company
Job Duties:
Education Needed:
Bachelor's Degree in Engineering
Favorite Part about the Job:
“I really enjoy the variety of my job. One day I may be in a helicopter flying down the power line. The next day, I may be in the field with somebody going up in a bucket truck to look closely at facilities way up in the air. I also spend time in the office, reviewing data and engineering solutions to problems. So there is a wide variety of things I get to do throughout the week.”
Impacts to the World:
“I take pride in knowing my awesome team and I have the responsibility for the maintenance of the 10,000 miles of transmission line that deliver power to our communities. I feel good at the end of the day being behind the scenes, making a difference, and ensuring the safe and reliable transmission of electric power.”
Jamie Arndt
Cybersecurity Engineer
American Transmission Company
Job Duties:
Education Needed:
Computer Science degree
Favorite Parts of the Job:
“The best part of my job is investigating and ripping apart the malware and malicious documents used by attackers to try and trick people! It's true! I get paid to do that and it is so fun!”
Impacts to the World:
“My job is important because I help to protect the electrical system of the United States. This allows everyone to be able to charge their phones, to be able to turn on lights, to turn on dishwashers, to live at home, to turn on computers, and more. Since everyone relies on electricity, what I do truly matters. A lot of people in this state depend on me to protect the electrical grid.”
Troy Brumfield
Regulatory Compliance Manager
American Transmission Company
Job Duties:
Education Needed:
Bachelor’s degree from an accredited college or university with emphasis in engineering, accounting, physics, information technology or other business-related curriculum.
Favorite Parts of the Job:
“The thing I love most about my job is I rarely do the same thing two days in a row. I could be spending time in the office performing research and reading documents one day, and then I am traveling another day, drafting grid reliability rules with regulators.”
Impacts on the World:
“My job as a utility compliance professional gives me a great sense of satisfaction mainly because I am here to help people. I know that some of the things that I bring to the table help this company keep the lights on for everybody, keep hospitals up and running, keep 911 going. And anytime there is an emergency, people have the power that they need.”
Michelle Stokes
Manager of Vegetation Management
American Transmission Company
Job Duties:
Education Needed:
Favorite Parts of the Job:
“I love my job here because it allows me to take the passion I have for providing safe, reliable electric power to people so they can do the things they love to do. They can be healthy, they can have electronics, they can have food. But I am doing in a responsible way that also protects the environment and allows habitat to be developed for things like pollinators in our rights-of-way.”
Impacts on the World:
“It allows me to have a bigger impact on the environment and the community. So aside from providing reliable electric power, I have the opportunity to help promote a right-of-way that is sustainable and protects pollinators and promotes pollinator species, which then has a much larger effect on other species, humans, and what we need to flourish and survive.”
Don’t these jobs look neat? In fact, if any of these careers peak your interest, it may be worth job shadowing a person in the field. Just contact a utility near you for help!
Our educational partner, American Transmission Company (ATC), supported the video content above.
What keeps the lights on? More like WHO! There are many people that play a part in keeping our electricity flowing throughout our cities, neighborhoods and homes! But who are they? Join our Adventure Team as they get the behind the scenes tour of the careers that maintain the transmission of electricity to your community.
Our educational partner, American Transmission Company (ATC), supported the video content above. To learn more about their role in reliable electric power, check out the link below.
We depend on electricity to power just about everything, but what would happen if we could no longer rely on electricity? That’s a reality that we can prevent by taking care of where our electricity comes from…the planet! Join our Adventure Team on their mission to learn about how we manage the environment to keep ourselves, our electricity and the planet safe!
Our educational partner, American Transmission Company (ATC), supported the video content above. To learn more about their environmental management system, check out the link below.
What is electricity? You may know what it powers, like the lights in your home or the battery in your phone! But do you know what it really is? Join our Adventure Team as they go undercover to get the REAL scoop on what electricity is and the many ways we can generate it!
Our educational partner, American Transmission Company (ATC), supported the video content above. To learn more about their role in electric reliability, check out the link below.
Eighty-seven percent of people in the world have access to electricity, but how do those electrons arrive at our homes? From the giant poles that hold the cables, to the cables themselves that carry the electricity, join our Adventure Team member as she explores the electrical transmission system and how it all works!
Our educational partner, American Transmission Company (ATC), supported the video content above. To learn more about their transmission of electrical power, check out the link below.
In the first video and website section on Waste Oils Into Biodiesel you learned about the creation of biodiesel using a variety of feedstocks, including different waste oils that can be recycled. So, yes, the fictional scenes in the movie, Back To The Future 2 are in part reality today. Plus, the advanced technology at biodiesel plants such as the Duonix Beatrice plant are charting a pathway into the future of bioenergy.
As you'll see in this video, this plant uses ENSEL™ technology, which is a patented catalytic process for refining feedstocks such as animal tallow, recycled cooking oil and distillers corn oil into high-quality biodiesel. Where some plants require multiple processes to make biodiesel, this place uses one sophisticated process. And once it's fully operational, the plant will produce approximately 50 million gallons of biodiesel annually.
The distillers corn oil arrives by tanker truck and the biodiesel goes out by tanker rail cars, a lot to California, where it is in high demand because of aggressive clean air policies. Once inside the facility, the feedstocks are run through a innovative catalyst that combines “esterification” with “transesterification” into a one-step process that's more efficient. It also allows the plant to be feedstock flexible because distillers corn oil, used cooking oil and animal tallow have high free fatty acids which are difficult to breakdown using traditional biodiesel refining methods.
During the refining process, they also produce a valued co-product that almost everyone uses... glycerin. Also known as glycerol, this sugary oil separates out and is used in a variety of products from toothpaste, to soaps, to cosmetics. Glycerol is a trihydroxy sugar alcohol that is an intermediate in carbohydrate and lipid metabolism. It is used as a solvent, emollient, pharmaceutical agent, and sweetening agent. Saweet. huh?
To really decode the science behind this biodiesel and glycerin production, have your teacher download the discussion guide and lesson activities below for hours of peer-driven learning in your classroom with your peeps. You can also learn lots more by reading the advanced information in the Learn More section below by clicking on the icon.
To learn about the production of ethanol, another important biofuel, explore our videos and lessons ethanol. You'll find them in the Energy Category on the Home page.
For fun, also take a moment and check out the jazzed bioenergy industry careers video on the right. Then, click the link of our educational partner here to dig even deeper into the science of biodiesel production.
Despite how important the refining process is in producing the fuels that feed our society, it’s not worth much if it sits in a huge tank somewhere. It needs to get to the refinery from oil fields and from refineries to distribution systems. And that’s mostly accomplished by building and using pipelines.
It’s a huge task to transport millions of gallons of crude and refined fuels efficiently, safely, and cheaply. Especially since pipelines sometimes travel thousands of miles across all kinds of landscapes and in a wide range of weather conditions.
Crude oil begins its journey from underground where it flows or is pumped to the surface into tanks. From there it’s trucked locally or more often pumped into gathering lines. These small lines typically range from two to eight inches in diameter. They “gather” oil from producing oil fields in places like North Dakota, Texas and Canada. Then it moves through larger pipelines that stretch for hundreds, and sometimes thousands of miles. These larger pipelines, known as trunk lines, have a diameter of eight to twenty-four inches (about the diameter of a tree trunk) and connect regional markets. Believe it or not, there are over 55,000 miles of trunk lines in the U.S. alone.
The other type of pipeline used is called a refined product pipeline. Not surprisingly, this type of pipeline carries refined products from a refinery to either storage containers or directly to facilities like airports, industrial plants, or power plants. If refined products end their pipeline journey at a storage tank, tanker trucks carry them the last few miles to their final destination – like your local gas station.
Take a moment to guess two ways that crude and refined products flow through pipelines? (Hint – feel your heartbeat) Now consider the physics involved. Discover the rest of the pipeline story by watching the video and reading the advanced information in the "Learn More" section below. Just click on the icon. Also, check the link to our educational partner here to learn more about pipelines.
The first major step (shown in another video) in refining crude oil is fractional distillation where they heat the crude and literally “boil off” the different hydrocarbon chains. This causes the vertical separation of the different hydrocarbon molecules in the tower.
But because fractional distillation only produces about 20% gasoline from the crude, petroleum engineers get techy by using some sophisticated combinations of physic and chemistry in a process called "cracking”.
Cracking is the process of breaking apart longer hydrocarbon molecular chains into smaller pieces. The process breaks or cracks the heavier, higher boiling-point petroleum fractions into more valuable products such as gasoline and diesel fuel. Though that may sound simple, it’s far from it. In fact, they use several different sophisticated methods of cracking hydrocarbon molecules in a modern refinery.
The first is thermal cracking that they do inside a unit called a “coker” where they subject the hydrocarbons to extreme heat and pressure. Coking is a severe method of thermal cracking used to upgrade heavy residuals into lighter products or distillates. Coking produces straight-run gasoline (naphtha) and various middle-distillate fractions used as catalytic cracking feedstock. The process so completely reduces hydrogen that the residue is a form of carbon called "coke." 
Another form of cracking is hydrocracking. A hydrocracking unit, or hydrocracker, takes heavier and higher boiling range molecules and cracks the heavy molecules into distillate and gasoline using hydrogen and a catalyst.
When you’re ready to crack into more layers of refining science, click on the “Learn More” tab below. Also, don’t miss exploring the other videos and lesson activities on our website that complete the rest of the crude oil refining and transportation story.
Plus, take a moment and check out the jazzed petroleum industry careers video on the right and the link to “Careers for Petroleum Engineers” below. Then, click the link of our educational partner here to discover bonus info about refining and transporting crude oil.