Fuel Oil
A wide generalisation of oils used for fuel would be any petroleum product that is burned in a furnace to produce heat or in a engine to generate power. It is obtained during petroleum distillation and may be a distillate or a residue. Fuel oil can be catagorised into six groups, arranged by boiling point and carbon chain length (in atoms).
We use oil for many different purposes. We use it to heat our home, power our cars, trucks and ships. Some electricity is actually produced using diesel but this is more expensive and more polluting to the environment than its natural gas alternative. This is usually used for the purpose of being a back up energy source for powerplants should the natural gas supply be interrupted or occasionally as the primary fuel supply to some small generators. Across Europe diesel use tends to be restricted to fuelling trucks, cars and SUV's. The use of fuel oil to heat peoples homes is in decline and this is primarily because of the penetration of natural gas in many areas.
Residual fuel oil was used extensively in the past to fuel boilers, trains and steam ships. Some industrial boilers in New York City still use fuel oil, although most ships and trains now use diesel as fuel. The main drawback of fuel oil can be the fact that it unfortunately has a very high viscosity and so requires a specialised engineered system for storage, pumping and burning of the oil. Although the weight of the oil used is still lighter than water it is heaver that gasoline or kerosene. Damage to fuel lines, furnaces and other related equipment was often done by attempted to pump high viscosity oils at low temperatures.
