Every Valentine’s Day is a special day for those in love. While you are out at dinner, picking up flowers and chocolate, or on a picnic in the park today, take a moment to fathom how much of these fun activities are made possible by our great industry. Chocolates, flowers, wine and candies are the hallmark of Valentine’s Day, but how would these items get created and brought to market without oil & gas? Let’s delve into a couple of these processes to learn why Valentine’s Day loves oil & gas.
Wikipedia breaks down the process of creating chocolate: “The seeds of the cacao tree have an intense bitter taste and must be fermented to develop the flavor. After fermentation, the beans are dried, cleaned, and roasted. The shell is removed to produce cacao nibs, which are then ground to cocoa mass, unadulterated chocolate in rough form.”
The chocolate refining process as described by blog.barandcocoa.com:
Step 1: Roast the chocolate beans in an industrial oven (powered by electricity, oil & gas)
Step 2: Crack & winnow the beans using industrial pipes and machines to take the shells off (steel products are made by oil & gas)
Step 3: Grinding with sugar for sweetness & flavor using an industrial grinder (powered by electricity, oil & gas)
Step 4: Tempering & molding (molds made from plastic and rubber via byproducts of the oil & gas industry)
You might not think of the energy industry when you think of the process of cultivating beautiful bouquets of flowers to sell on store shelves. Let’s break down the seemingly simple process:
- Find a plant to grow
- Cultivate the land to prepare it to grow flowers
- Plant the seeds
- Water the seeds using hydroponic or sprinkler systems
- Wait months for plants to bloom
- Gather all the flowers from the land using industrial machinery and equipment
- Take them to market immediately (unlikely) or store them in an industrial refrigeration system
As you can see from the processes above, a lot of behind-the-scenes work goes into your bouquet of roses, orchids, tulips and carnations. One of the primary things that allows flowers to last until they’re sold is refrigerators. As Mother Earth News puts it, “Nearly all commercial flower growers have coolers, and that is something you eventually will want to acquire. The benefit of a cooler is that you can pick flowers every day and store them until you have the market for them. You can certainly get by without a cooler for a few years, if you are able to pick flowers within a day of delivery. Once harvested, flowers should be taken to a cool place and kept out of direct sunlight.” Guess how that refrigerator is powered. Yes, the energy industry willfully lends itself to even the most organic of industries for everyone’s benefit.