How does Cracking Oil help a refinery meet supply and demand?

How does cracking crude oil help an oil refinery meet supply and demand?





What are good thing about cracking oil, and some bad things (environmental)?





Thanks :)How does Cracking Oil help a refinery meet supply and demand?
first, gasoline is made of molecules that are around 6-10 carbons. since a lot of ';oil'; molecules are larger than that (10, 15, 20, 35 ... even up to 30 or 40 carbons for ';extra heavy'; crude oil), you need to break them into smaller molecules. this ';breaking'; is also called ';cracking';





without cracking, we'd have a HUGE surplus of ';heavy oil'; and a HUGE shortage of gasoline (aka ';light oil';). cracking converts heavy oil into light oil / gasoline.