The Environmental Impact Of Gasoline
Life Cycle Harms From Oil Extraction To Tailpipe Pollution
Including The Consequences Of Fracking On The Environment And The Effects Of Carbon Dioxide On The Environment
Gasoline harms the environment at every stage of its life cycle — oil extraction (spills + methane leaks), transport (pipeline/train/tanker incidents), refining (toxic emissions + accidents), storage (underground tank leaks), and burning (air pollution + climate-warming CO2).
Crude oil comes from the decomposition of dead plants and animals over hundreds of millions of years.
Oil and gasoline are highly combustible — and across the oil-and-gas supply chain, spills, leaks, fires, and toxic emissions can harm water, land, wildlife, and human health.
The specific examples that follow are representative of much more widespread disasters.
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1) The Harms of Oil Extraction and Exploration for Gasoline
In 2010, the exploratory oil rig Deepwater Horizon exploded when a plug failed, killing 11 men, releasing 4.9 million barrels of crude oil, and creating an 80-square-mile "kill zone“.
Impacts of an oil spill cleanup can be as bad as the impacts of the spill itself.
After the Deepwater Horizon explosion, the U.S. Coast Guard conducted a burn to help prevent the spread of oil.
Here, clouds of harmful smoke emerge as the oil burns:
Oil and gas production can also release methane, a potent greenhouse gas.
In some cases, such as in the Arctic pictured below, oil companies burn the methane in a controlled process called flaring. Flaring produces black carbon, otherwise known as soot.
The Environmental Concerns of Fracking
Hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) uses high-pressure fluid and proppants to fracture rock and help oil or gas flow to wells. Impacts can include land disturbance, increased truck traffic and air pollution, wastewater handling risks, and methane leakage. Some widely shared figures on land and methane impacts come from non-governmental analyses (not official EPA inventory totals), so it’s best to label them clearly as estimates.
For example, one analysis estimated that infrastructure supporting fracking disturbed at least 679,000 acres of land since 2005. 
The Environmental Impact Of Fracking Wastewater
Fracking can generate large volumes of wastewater (including salts, chemicals, and naturally occurring contaminants). If wastewater leaks from pits/ponds, pipelines, or faulty disposal wells, it can contaminate soil and drinking water supplies.
2) The Harms Of Transporting Oil To Make Gasoline
Once oil is extracted, it must be transported to refineries — by tanker, train, barge, or pipeline. Each mode has a history of spills and accidents. One high-profile tanker spill was the Exxon Valdez in Alaska (1989).
Check out this YouTube video on major oil spills around the world.
The Environmental Impact of Oil Spills
Spilled oil can coat shorelines and the ocean surface, harming seabirds and marine mammals. For example, sea otters rely on clean fur for insulation — oil contamination can reduce their ability to stay warm.
Oil is also transported by trains, called “bomb trains” for the destruction they cause when they derail. This one wiped out much of Lac Megantic, Quebec in 2013. It had 72 tank cars, each carrying 30,000 gallons of crude oil. It destroyed half the downtown area and killed 42 people.
The most common way of transporting oil is by pipeline. Pipelines are created in sections held together by joints that can break. Many of the pipelines in the US are more than 50 years old. Because much of the system is underground, corrosion or failures can be hard to detect until a leak occurs.
More than 100 oil pipeline spills and leaks are reported per year, including the 2017 spill of 407,000 gallons from the Keystone Pipeline in South Dakota.
3) The Harms Of Refining Oil To Make Gasoline
Crude oil must be refined to make gasoline. Refining can release toxic air pollution — and refinery accidents can be severe.
This is the 2012 explosion at the Chevron oil refinery in Richmond, California – caused by a corroded pipe that burst. 15,000 residents sought medical treatment, and Chevron paid out claims of more than $10 million. Additional explosions and fires occurred at this Refinery in 1989, 1999, and 2014, along with a spill in 2021.
4) The Harms of Storing Gasoline
After oil is refined into gasoline, it’s delivered to gas stations, where it is stored in giant underground storage tanks.
Leaks from underground storage tanks can contaminate soil and groundwater, sometimes affecting drinking water supplies.
Across the U.S., hundreds of thousands of leaking-tank releases have been addressed, but tens of thousands of sites have remained in cleanup backlogs in recent years.
5) The Harms Of Using Gasoline
The final stage is burning gasoline in vehicles. This produces harmful air pollution that contributes to asthma and other respiratory disease, heart disease, and premature death — and it imposes major public health and economic costs.
What Pollution Comes From Burning Gasoline?
- Carbon dioxide (CO2) — the main climate-warming gas from tailpipes. Burning one gallon of gasoline produces about 8,887 grams (about 19.6 pounds) of CO2.
- Nitrogen oxides (NOx) and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) — key ingredients that form ground-level ozone (“smog”) in sunlight.
- Carbon monoxide (CO) and other tailpipe pollutants — harmful directly and/or as contributors to broader air-quality problems.
- Fine particle pollution (PM2.5) — emitted directly (especially from older engines) and formed in the atmosphere from other pollutants.
The Environmental Impact Of Carbon Dioxide (CO2)
Burning gasoline overloads the atmosphere with climate-warming carbon dioxide (CO2). In the United States, transportation (mostly from passenger vehicles) is the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions.
U.S. Shares of Energy-Related Emissions of Carbon Dioxide, by Economic Sector, 2021
Burning gasoline also harms the atmosphere by emitting carbon dioxide, or CO2. Transportation (mostly from passenger vehicles) is the largest source of CO2 emissions in California.
The US uses more gasoline than any other country by far.
CO2 itself isn’t “toxic” at everyday concentrations — it’s a natural part of Earth’s carbon cycle. The problem is scale: adding large amounts of CO2 thickens the atmosphere’s heat-trapping effect, raising average temperatures and increasing the likelihood of severe climate impacts.
CO2 itself isn’t “toxic” at everyday concentrations — it’s a natural part of Earth’s carbon cycle. The problem is scale: adding large amounts of CO2 thickens the atmosphere’s heat-trapping effect, raising average temperatures and increasing the likelihood of severe climate impacts.
We are seeing record years for natural disasters – disasters of the very type caused by rising temperatures. These disasters can cost up to $1,000 for every single person in the US in just one year -- not to mention the loss of life and property.
FAQ: Gasoline And The Environment
How Does Gasoline Affect The Environment?
Gasoline causes environmental harm across its full life cycle: oil extraction and methane leakage, spills during transport, toxic emissions and accidents during refining, groundwater risks from storage tank leaks, and air pollution plus CO2 when burned.
Why Is Gasoline Bad For The Environment?
It drives climate change through CO2 emissions and worsens local air quality through smog-forming pollutants and particle pollution — while also creating spill and leak risks throughout the supply chain.
What Pollution Comes From Burning Gasoline?
Burning gasoline emits CO2 plus pollutants like NOx, VOCs, and CO that contribute to smog and fine particles. Those pollutants are linked to respiratory and cardiovascular harms.
Does Gasoline Contaminate Soil And Groundwater?
Yes. Leaks from underground storage tanks and spills during transport can contaminate soil and groundwater — and cleanup can take years, especially when petroleum reaches aquifers.
How Do Oil Spills Affect Wildlife?
Oil can coat feathers and fur, reduce insulation, poison animals that ingest it, and smother habitats like marshes and shorelines — leading to direct mortality and long-term ecosystem damage.
How Does Fracking Affect Water Quality?
Risks include spills of fracking fluids or wastewater, well-integrity failures, and contamination from improper handling or disposal — especially where oversight is weak or infrastructure is aging.
Is Transportation Really The Biggest Source Of U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions?
Yes — the EPA identifies transportation as the largest source of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions in recent inventories.
Conclusion
Gasoline’s harms add up across its entire life cycle — from extraction and transport to refining, storage, and tailpipe pollution. Moving beyond gasoline reduces climate pollution, cuts toxic air pollution, and helps protect water, land, and public health.
What You Can Do
Ask legislators to set gasoline reduction goals
Ask automakers to speed up EV production and provide more electric models at every price
Ask your employer and landlord for EV charging
Visit our make the switch to an EV page to see if getting an EV is right for you
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