Using the Oceans
From the earliest times, people of the world have used the oceans as a path for travel, a source of food and a highway for trading. The UK shipping industry is the fourth biggest service-sector exporter for the UK – larger than telecommunications, film and television, or computer services.
Fishing
Fishing for food
The oceans are our top source of wild protein. In the year 2004, 654 thousand tonnes of sea fish were landed into the UK and abroad by the UK fleet with a total value of £513 million. In addition the UK imported some £1473 million of fish. The UK also exported fish and fish products to the value of £881 million.
(Source: United Kingdom sea fisheries statistics 2004)
Key catches include herring, hake and anchovy.
But widespread overfishing means that many fish stocks are now falling.
Oil Platform
Energy
The oceans are rich in energy: nearly a third of today’s petroleum and natural gas production is from beneath the ocean floor. Oil and Gas are called "fossil fuels" because they have been formed from the fossilised remains of prehistoric plants and animals and are very precious resources because they are non-renewable.
Oil and natural gas are the products of the deep burial and decomposition of dead plants and animals. Heat and pressure, in the absence of oxygen, transform the decomposed material into tiny pockets of gas and crude oil. The oil and gas then migrates through the pores in the rocks to eventually collect in reservoirs. At the time this page was written, along with coal they provide around 66% of the world's electrical power, and 95% of the world's total energy demands (including heating, transport, electricity generation and other uses).
Crude oil is easier to get out of the ground than coal, as it can flow along pipes and this also makes it cheaper to transport. Crude oil is a complex mixture of hydrocarbons with small amounts of other chemicals such as sulphur. Crude oils from different parts of the world, or even different depths in the same oilfield, contain different mixtures of hydrocarbon and other compounds. This is why they vary from light coloured viscous liquids to thick, dark oils.
After extraction, crude oil is sent to an oil refinery where it is separated by a process called fractional distillation. The hydrocarbons in crude oil have different boiling points, according to the number of carbon atoms their molecules contain and how they are arranged. Fractional distillation uses the difference in boiling point to separate the hydrocarbons in crude oil.
Light crudes are refined to produce petrol, diesel and aviation fuel. Heavy crudes are refined to produce heating oil, lubricants and asphalt.
Gas Burner
Natural gas provides around 20% of the world’s consumption of energy, and as well as being burnt in power stations, it is used by many people to heat their homes. It is easy to transport along pipes, and gas power stations produce comparatively little pollution. Natural gas is a mixture of hydrocarbons with small molecules. These molecules are made of atoms of carbon and hydrogen.
The primary advantages of fossil fuels are that they are relatively cheap and convenient to use, and provide us with a great deal of energy. However, people are now concerned about whether there will be enough natural resources to meet future energy supply.
Britain's own supplies of gas from the North Sea are not what they were and according to a report published by the European Commission (European Union Energy Outlook to 2020) two thirds of the EU’s total energy requirements will be imported by 2020.
Such concern has meant that new horizons have to be opened up. Soon, for example, the sight of liquefied natural gas (LNG) ships from Algeria and Venezuela will become familiar in UK ports as the most flexible and competitive method of distributing gas over long distances, is provided by the seaborne transportation of LNG.
Liquefaction of the gas is the key component in being able to ship in bulk. In its liquid state, the volume occupied by natural gas reduces by a factor of 600, so an average-sized tanker – at more than 290m long and 45m wide – can actually transport more than 135,000m3 of useable gas. In the future, tankers capable of transporting as much as 250,000m3 are planned.