Lead
What role does "oil" play in the world, can you imagine that whether it is gasoline, diesel, natural gas or kerosene, they are all refined from oil, and where does the oil come from?
According to research, oil on Earth is a fossil fuel that evolved from the earth's crust by ancient organisms such as ancient plants and animals hundreds of millions of years ago.
There is a limit to the amount of oil we can tap from the earth, and once the oil resources are exhausted, how can human beings survive?
Oil is a non-renewable energy source that occupies a very important position in human production and life, but with the growth of population and the acceleration of urbanization, the world's oil resources are becoming more and more scarce, and the oil reserves of many countries are also decreasing.
In particular, a country like Japan, which is very resource-scarce, relies on oil if it wants to survive.
As a resource-poor country, Japan has been hoarding oil for many years, and according to statistics, Japan has the largest oil reserves in the world, so why doesn't Japan make money selling oil, but instead hoards the world's oil at home?
1. Why is Japan dependent on imported oil?
Japan is an extremely resource-poor country, and the level of resource poverty in Japan is very different from that of some resource-rich countries.
Although Japan's land area is very small, but the population is very dense, which leads to the uneven distribution of resources in Japan, coupled with the fact that Japan is a mountainous country, natural topography and landform, resulting in very little land in Japan, so Japan's land resources can be said to be quite valuable.
There is also a general lack of large-scale mineral resources on the island of Japan, only a part of the small mineral resources such as coal, iron ore, and copper ore, so it is difficult for Japan to meet its own oil demand, and can only continue to rely on oil imports, in order to ensure the operation of the country, Japan can only continue to hoard oil, which makes Japan one of the largest oil reserves in the world.
In order to ensure the operation of the country, Japan has established a variety of storage methods and facilities when building oil reserves.
There are four main types of oil storage facilities in Japan:
1. Onshore oil tank reserves: This type of reserve refers to the fact that Japan has established a lot of oil storage facilities on its own territory, most of which are underground oil storage facilities, because the underground oil storage facilities are easy to use and simple to operate, so they occupy the vast majority of Japan's oil storage facilities.
2. Offshore oil tank reserves: Japan has been a big fishing country since ancient times, and there are many ports in the country, so Japan has also established a lot of offshore oil reserve facilities, most of which are used to store imported oil.
3. Oil tanker reserves: Japan has also established a lot of oil tanker reserves, which refers to the establishment of many oil storage facilities in international waters outside Japan's own territory, and the advantage of this reserve method is that it is convenient to transport.
4. Petroleum Reserve Fund: Japan must not only protect its own domestic oil reserves, but also protect its foreign oil reserves, so Japan has also established a lot of oil reserve funds, so that if there is an emergency abroad, Japan can also use its own oil reserve fund to protect its own oil reserves.
2. The history and discovery of oil.
Oil is not only the key energy source for the development of modern human industry, but also has a long history in the history of mankind, as early as the primitive society of human beings, people in ancient times have begun to use oil, it can be said that oil has an important role in all aspects of human production and life.
Ancient people had a lot of records about the use of oil in their lives, such as ancient Egypt, ancient Babylon, China and other civilizations, there were many records about the use of oil
However, how did the ancients discover oil without expertise?
Regarding the discovery process of oil, according to research, it may be that some people in ancient times discovered oil later in the process of exploring and developing natural gas.
Ancient people often encountered some problems in production and life, such as when mining minerals, the underground gas will be excavated, and there will be some gas accumulated in the ground to endanger their lives, the ancients in the absence of scientific knowledge, they will distinguish between these two gases, but the gas is colorless and odorless, it is difficult for the ancients to find its existence, so they can only use the harm of gas to find its existence.
When the ancients mined coal mines, they would find that the underground gas would penetrate into the ground, and a large amount of gas would endanger people's lives, so that the ancients would know that these colorless and odorless gases were coal gas, and natural gas was a colorless and odorless gas, so the ancients would find a way to deal with it after discovering this gas, so the ancients would use fire to deal with these invisible gases.
In the process of processing, the ancients discovered that natural gas is a gas that can be burned, and the ancients would use natural gas to meet the needs of their own lives, but natural gas was not very easy to find, so the ancients would use this natural gas with burning properties, and later discovered oil.
In the process of burning natural gas, the ancients discovered an oil with the same characteristics as natural gas, which has very good combustion performance and plays a very big role in the production and life of the ancients, and this oil is oil.
After the ancients discovered oil, they would use it, but oil was not very easy to find, so in ancient times, oil has always been a very scarce energy source, and it has a very high price, and many people have never seen oil.
In the process of using oil, the ancients found that oil is a very good fuel, but when the ancients burned oil, the ignition point of oil was very low, so the ancients had to heat the oil before burning it, so that the oil could be burned.
3. History of the use of oil.
In the process of burning oil, the ancients found that oil is not only a good fuel, but also has very good antiseptic properties, so in ancient times, people will use oil to smear something, which can play a role in embalming, and the ancients will also use oil to make some handicrafts, which are very precious at that time.
The use of oil in human society can be traced back to more than 6000 BC, when in ancient Babylon, people would use oil to make something called "petroleum coal", which was a good fuel, so it was very precious at that time, and only kings and nobles could use it.
Ancient Egypt is also rich in oil resources, people will use oil to make something called "asphalt", asphalt is a very good building material, so in ancient times, it was very popular with construction workers, and people would also use asphalt to waterproof and anti-corrosion.
Ancient China also has rich oil resources, people will carry out oil exploitation in places rich in oil resources, including China's Changxing Island, the oil resources of Changxing Island have been exploited in ancient times, and there are very rich oil resources, the oil resources of Changxing Island are also called China's "oil ancestors", and there are also rich oil resources.
With the continuous progress and development of human society, the use of oil has also been continuously promoted, especially in the late 19th century, people are exploiting more and more oil, which has led to the price of oil getting lower and lower, and people are more inseparable from oil in their lives.
The discovery and use of oil is produced with the continuous development of human society, oil as an energy source, has a very important position in human production and life, but oil is also a limited resource, just one or two hundred years will exhaust the earth's oil resources, which is enough to show the scarcity of oil resources, how should we deal with the scarcity of oil resources?
Fourth, the geopolitical impact of oil resources.
Petroleum resources play a very important role in the production and life of human beings, but in human society, oil resources also have a very large geopolitical impact, people in the competition for oil resources, not only will break out a war, but also will change the pattern of the world.
In the world wars of the twentieth century, almost all of them had a very great relationship with oil, and both Germany and Japan launched wars of aggression because of oil, which led to the outbreak of World War II.
After the United States launched the Pacific War against Japan, it soon established US military bases in the surrounding areas of Japan, so that US warships could more easily patrol the surrounding areas of Japan, ensure that Japan could not import oil from other countries, and at the same time prevent the use of oil reserves in Japan.
After World War II, the blockade of Japan by the United States was not lifted, and Japan not only used its domestic oil reserve facilities in the absence of oil, but also carried out frenzied plundering of foreign oil resources to ensure the operation of its own country, but the result of this was that the world's oil resources were plundered by Japan.
In the post-war reconstruction, Japan gradually recovered from the plundering of oil, but in the process of post-war reconstruction, Japan had to ensure not only its own domestic oil demand, but also its own foreign oil demand, so in the process of post-war reconstruction, Japan has never stopped hoarding oil.
After the establishment of the International Energy Agency, aimed at coordinating oil trade and reducing dependence on oil, Japan did not give up the hoarding of oil after knowing the establishment of the International Energy Agency, and further increased the hoarding of oil on the original basis, Japan even formulated a plan called "oil policy", this plan is to ensure the operation of the country, Japan has also established a lot of oil reserve facilities at home and abroad, this reserve facilities are mainly used to ensure the country's fuel needs, After World War II, Japan's domestic fuel facilities were blocked by the United States, so Japan's domestic fuel facilities were forced to be used, and Japan carried out large-scale oil hoarding in order to ensure the operation of the country.
However, China started late in terms of oil reserves, and it was not until 1993 that China included oil reserves in the national key projects, and the state planned to gradually strengthen oil reserves.