Fossil Fuels
What
do you think when you hear the words Fossil Fuel? Do you think of the plants
and animals that died millions of years ago? Well if you do then that’s a good
start. Fossil fuels are used in many things and are made mostly by organisms
that died and were buried millions of years ago. Fossil fuels are used to power
our cars, generate electricity and various other uses. They also create many
problems for the environment. In this report I will include information about
alternatives to fossil fuel as energy sources such as Solar, and Nuclear power.
Fossil
fuels are energy rich substances that were formed by many different organisms
that died millions of years ago. There are many kinds of fossil fuels, though;
there are three main types; Petroleum, Coal, and Natural Gas. These fossil
fuels are made of hydrocarbons, which is a compound that is mostly made of
hydrogen and carbon. Increasing pressure and temperature formed each of these
fuels.
Petroleum,
also called crude oil, is a naturally occurring oily liquid made of Organic
material, or dead plants and organisms. It is used in the making of:
fertilizers, some food products, plastics, paint, and various other items. It
is also useful in the generation of electric power. The many Petroleum deposits
have been plentiful, though, they are slowly being depleted and it is expected
that by the mid-21st Century it will not be as common a product as
it is today.
Ancient
microscopic plants and bacteria formed petroleum over time. When they died and
settled on the bottom of the sea or ocean they mixed in with the sand, and
sediment. This new mud was slowly heated and was compressed, and then, over
millions of years, became the energy rich substance we call Petroleum. The
petroleum, which is less dense than water, makes its way up to the earths crust
through porous rocks. Most of the petroleum eventually runs into impermeable
rock and creates a reservoir of Petroleum, Natural Gas, and water. The water is
on the bottom; the Petroleum is in the middle; on the top is the Natural gas.
Natural Gas
has formed mostly from plankton, which includes algae and protozoans. These
organisms fell to the ocean floor and were covered by many layers of sediment.
The sediment caused increasing heat and pressure on the organisms and through
millions of years was converted to natural gas. Natural gas is composed of
methane and other lighter gasses.
In locating
Petroleum and Natural gas deposits geologists search for areas where there are
rock formations that can trap the petroleum and natural gas. They look for
areas with conditions that could have been suitable for the formation of them.
When these geologists find an area that they think are petroleum-rich they will
drill wells through the sedimentary basin. If the well finds an area of porous
rock that contains petroleum and natural gas deposits, the pressure inside the
well will rise potentially may force the liquid hydrocarbons to the surface.
After the petroleum is extracted from the earth it is transported to a refinery
where thy separate the liquid and the gasses. It is then refined into gasoline
and various other fuels, the heavier molecules of the fuel is made to be engine
lubricants, asphalt, and waxes.
Coal is a solid and dark fuel made up of plants that decomposed millions of years ago and were buried under many layers of sediment. Coal is made up of hydrocarbons. Coal is a solid fossil fuel formed mostly by ancient plants that lived in swamps or along coastlines. The plants were buried under many generations of plants and then covered by sediment. The organic material was then subjected to increasing temperatures. The organic material goes from being rich in carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen rich to rich carbon, poor hydrogen, and poor oxygen. The different stages in coal formation are: peat, lignite, bituminous coal, and anthracite coal. The peat stage is when the organic material is partially carbonized. The lignite stage is a soft brownish colored coal that has a low carbon substance. The bituminous coal stage is when it is a soft coal with a higher amount of carbon and very little moister. The anthracite stage is when the coal is hard and has the most carbon and the least moisture.
‘Most of the
worlds coal beds have already been identified. Though they already know where
most of these coal beds are they still need to find a way to remove the coal
that is economical and efficient. There are many coalmines around the world
being mined.’(Whitley, 2000)
Fossil fuels
can be used to power cars or heat homes; it can also be combusted to generate
electric power. ‘Power plants that burn coal to produce electricity produce 37%
of the world’s electric power. Natural gas and Petroleum together makeup 25% of
the world’s electric power. The rest of the world’s power is produced by
Nuclear power, which is 17%, hydroelectric power, which is 19%, solar, and
other sources makeup 2% of the world’s electric power. In 1996 the
world consumed 26.1 billion barrels of petroleum, 2.32 trillion cubic meters
(82.0 trillion cubic feet) of natural gas, and almost 4.7 billion metric tons
of coal.’(Whitley, Encarta 2000).
The burning of
fossil fuels affects the environment. The gasses released from the coal, when
burned, create acid rain. The burning of fossil fuels also contributes to
global warming. When fossils fuels are burned they emit sulfur, nitrogen, and
carbon, which combine with oxygen. These oxides react when they run into the
water vapor in the air; these then form sulfuric acid, nitric acid, and
carbonic acids. Because of the water in these compounds they are eventually led
into the water cycle. The United States government has taken many steps to stop
acid rain and to stop these acids from being released directly into the
atmosphere. One such step was the Clean Air Act. Companies are now made to
clean the air produced by burning these fossil fuels before being sent into the
atmosphere.
Fossil Fuels are also partially blamed for global warming. One of the major causes of global warming is too much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. When Fossil Fuels are combusted, for example by a car engine, humans release carbon dioxide into the air. Because fossil fuels are used to generate power all over the world, great amounts of carbon dioxide into the air. The carbon dioxide traps heat from the sun that is reflect off the earths surface inside the atmosphere causing the general temperature of the earth to rise.
The burning of
fossil fuels are not the only sources of energy that we as human have found.
There are several different ways of creating energy though there are only a few
that are widely known. These methods that are most widely known are solar power
and Nuclear power.
The fuel used
in nuclear power is Uranium ore. Nuclear energy uses Uranium to create fission.
‘Fission is a nuclear process in which a heavy nucleus splits into two smaller
nuclei.’(Nuclear Science Division, 2001) which produces heat and steam that
runs large turbines to create electricity. ‘The cost to run and maintain a
nuclear power plant is about 2/3 the cost of a power plant ran by Fossil Fuel
or other methods of creating power’ (Business Week, 2001). In nuclear waste
there is not a great amount of waste because only 2% of the initial amount of
Uranium is turned into plutonium, a substance used to make bombs. The rest of
the nuclear waste is uranium, which can be reused once the plutonium is
removed. ‘If the waste is incorporated into a waste glass, the total weight is
15 tons. If the density is 3 times water, that means the volume of the waste is
.05 cubic meters, and the volume of the waste glass is 5 cubic meters.’(Cohen,
1995)
Solar energy
is energy produced in the sun by nuclear fission. For solar power you need to
have solar panels, which contain hazardous material such as arsenic and galena.
Solar collectors contain many solar cells, which turns the solar radiation from
the sun directly to electricity. With solar you also need a storage source to
store excess energy. When there is little demand for this you need batteries.
Fossil fuels
can be used for many purposes in our world, but are a limited resource.
Currently Fossil fuels the main source of power around the world, and are
likely to be in the future, for now. As stated above it is predicted that
around the middle of the 21st century the fossil fuel deposits will
be nearing depletion. Before this happens we need to have refined and perfected
another source to produce mass amounts of power to fuel our world with the
growing demand for electricity to power our lives.