| Before the Industrial Revolution, nations required no energy fuel. People relied on human, animal, and wind and waterpower for energy need. Energy (oil) has resettled populations, elected officials in the free world, or changed the governments of the energy rich countries by force. Energy fueled wars, played the major factor in the might of those who have it or more importantly the abilities to acquire it by force. This dissertation researches the primacy of oil as an energy source from the time of oil's discovery to the present times. Between 1945 and 1960, the use of oil and gas doubled as power was generated for industries as steel, cement, metalworking and more important of all filling station hoses into automobiles gas tanks, thus energy swept people and societies quite literally off their feet. One in every six jobs in the industrial world hired by the giant automotive industries.; The big five American oil companies spurred on by special tax benefit, these companies grew to gigantic sizes by taking out the best part of the nation's oil. Then, for greater growth, they leaped overseas and built up an immensely profitable system, in alliance with Anglo-Dutch Shell and British Petroleum, known as seven sisters.; On the other side of the world, the energy producing nations form an alliance mainly to protect themselves from downward price fluctuations of oil. The struggle for survival in the global energy market forced those countries to get together and form OPEC, which is referred as an “oil cartel”. |
