Oil

[The-Spark]

Why is Oil so valuable, especially to countries like the united states. What is its place in economics?

[which doctor]

Umm...I thought the answer was obvious. To understand the how valuable petroleum is in today's economy, imagine if suddenly we ran out of oil.

Practically all cars, planes, trucks, boats, etc. would be useless. We wouldn't be able to move goods from the factory to the market. Many products would effectively cease to have a market in which to be sold. Plastics are created with petroleum as well. No more new plastics if we have no petroleum.

A sudden petroleum shortage would have devastating effects on first-world nations.

[Luís Henrique]

On the contrary, we should wonder why is it so cheap.

It's something we don't know how to do, and that is completely destroyed once used. But we pretend that its costs of extractions are its costs of production, and squander a non-renewable resource in the most irresponsible way.

Luís Henrique

[Big Boss]

Yeah, oil is definitely piceless to humanity right now because of it's many uses. It's derivatives are all around us and every country in the world has a deep dependency on it. We can't escape it and that fact is aggravated by the oil companies that prevent the research for an alternative source of power since the don't wan to run out of business. It crazy.

[apathy maybe]

Transport, this sort of liquid fuel is cheap, easy to transport, etc.
Plastics, imagine a world without plastics.
Fertiliser, oil is used in a shit load of fertilisers.
So many other things.

The reason oil is so important to the world (and why we shouldn't be wasting it burning it for most transport or electricity) is that it is used to make plastics etc.

For more info, visit Petrochemical (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petrochemical) and Petroleum product (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petroleum+product) though they do lack a bit of it...

[BobKKKindle$]

Remember also that OPEC (Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries) imposes restrictions on the production and sale of crude oil (thereby increasing the per unit price) in order to maximise export revenue for the members of this commercial body.

[JazzRemington]

Two main reasons: first, practically EVERYTHING is made from or with oil. Second, oil is relatively difficult to locate and bring to the surface. If it were plentiful and easy to bring to the market, it wouldn't be so valuable (i.e. people think so highly of it).

I mean, no one thinks glue is as valuable as oil because it's relatively easy to make and bring to the market.

Basically, I think it has to do with commodity fetishism.