Fossil fuel
hideFossil fuels or mineral fuels are fuels formed by natural resources such as anaerobic decomposition of buried dead organisms. The age of the organisms and their resulting fossil fuels is typically millions of years, and sometimes exceeds 650 million years. These fuels contain high percentage of carbon and hydrocarbons.
Fossil fuels range from volatile materials with low carbon:hydrogen ratios like methane, to liquid petroleum to nonvolatile materials composed of almost pure carbon, like anthracite coal. Methane can be found in hydrocarbon fields, alone, associated with oil, or in the form of methane clathrates. It is generally accepted that they formed from the fossilized remains of dead plants and animals by exposure to heat and pressure in the Earth's crust over hundreds of millions of years. This biogenic theory was first introduced by Georg Agricola in 1556 and later by Mikhail Lomonosov in the 18th century.
It was estimated by the Energy Information Administration that in 2006 primary sources of energy consisted of petroleum 36.8%, coal 26.6%, natural gas 22.9%, amounting to an 86% share for fossil fuels in primary energy production in the world. Non-fossil sources included hydroelectric 6.3%, nuclear 6.0%, and (geothermal, solar, tide, wind, wood, waste) amounting 0.9 percent. World energy consumption was growing about 2.3% per year.
Fossil fuels are non-renewable resources because they take millions of years to form, and reserves are being depleted much faster than new ones are being formed. The production and use of fossil fuels raise environmental concerns. A global movement toward the generation of renewable energy is therefore under way to help meet increased energy needs.[citation needed]
The burning of fossil fuels produces around 21.3 billion tonnes (21.3 gigatonnes) of carbon dioxide per year, but it is estimated that natural processes can only absorb about half of that amount, so there is a net increase of 10.65 billion tonnes of atmospheric carbon dioxide per year (one tonne of atmospheric carbon is equivalent to 44/12 or 3.7 tonnes of carbon). Carbon dioxide is one of the greenhouse gases that enhances radiative forcing and contributes to global warming, causing the average surface temperature of the Earth to rise in response, which climate scientists agree will cause major adverse effects.
For more information about Fossil fuel, read the full article at
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News tagged with fossil fuels
Oceans' uptake of manmade carbon may be slowing
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Nov 18, 2009 |
3.7 / 5 (20) |
9
The oceans play a key role in regulating climate, absorbing more than a quarter of the carbon dioxide that humans put into the air. Now, the first year-by-year accounting of this mechanism during the industrial ...
Fighting climate change by turning CO2 to stone
Nov 17, 2009 |
3.6 / 5 (11) |
4
(PhysOrg.com) -- While politicians debate the best ways to cut global carbon dioxide emissions, researchers at Idaho National Laboratory's Center for Advanced Energy Studies are charging ahead on a strategy ...
Fossil fuel CO2 emissions up by 29 percent since 2000
Nov 17, 2009 |
4.1 / 5 (18) |
7
The strongest evidence yet that the rise in atmospheric CO2 emissions continues to outstrip the ability of the world's natural 'sinks' to absorb carbon is published this week in the journal Nature Geoscience. ...
Argonne 'homegrown' hybrid solar cell aims for low-cost power
Nanotechnology / Nanomaterials
Nov 10, 2009 |
4.2 / 5 (11) |
3
(PhysOrg.com) -- Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory have refined a technique to manufacture solar cells by creating tubes of semiconducting material and then "growing" ...
Tesla Roadster Goes 313 Miles on a Single Charge
Nov 09, 2009 |
4.4 / 5 (14) |
2
(PhysOrg.com) -- Tesla is becoming synonymous with high performance electric cars. Indeed, the Tesla car company has been making efforts to create a brand of sports car that runs on electricity, and does so ...
Airborne nitrogen shifts aquatic nutrient limitation in pristine lakes
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Nov 05, 2009 |
3.3 / 5 (4) |
3
The impact of airborne nitrogen released from the burning of fossil fuels and wide-spread use of fertilizers in agriculture is much greater that previously recognized and even extends to remote alpine lakes, ...
3 Questions: Sergey Paltsev on the costs of climate-change legislation
Nov 05, 2009 |
2.3 / 5 (6) |
4
Sergey Paltsev, a principal research scientist in MIT’s Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change, was the lead author of a recent report that analyzed the costs of climate legislation currently ...
Mapping nutrient distributions over the Atlantic Ocean
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Nov 03, 2009 |
not rated yet |
0
Large-scale distributions of two important nutrient pools - dissolved organic nitrogen and dissolved organic phosphorus (DON and DOP) have been systematically mapped for the first time over the Atlantic Ocean in a study led ...
INL scientist is harnessing the power of plasma
Oct 27, 2009 |
4.9 / 5 (14) |
5
Most schoolchildren learn that everything in the universe is a solid, a liquid or a gas. But those lessons miss the fourth and by far most common state of matter: plasma.
NASA Researchers Explore Lightning's NOx-ious Impact on Pollution, Climate
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Oct 23, 2009 |
4.9 / 5 (10) |
1
(PhysOrg.com) -- Every year, scientists learn something new about the inner workings of lightning. With satellites, they have discovered that more than 1.2 billion lightning flashes occur around the world ...
Shifting the world to 100 percent clean, renewable energy as early as 2030 -- here are the numbers
Oct 19, 2009 |
3.5 / 5 (31) |
21
Most of the technology needed to shift the world from fossil fuel to clean, renewable energy already exists. Implementing that technology requires overcoming obstacles in planning and politics, but doing so ...
UM Professor: Consumers 'key part of solution' to global warming
Oct 16, 2009 |
1 / 5 (7) |
3
(PhysOrg.com) -- Consumers can have a major impact on the world’s efforts to reduce global warming, a major report has concluded.
US army to be powered by waste
Oct 12, 2009 |
4.5 / 5 (11) |
9
(PhysOrg.com) -- Defense company Qinetiq has been awarded a contract to supply the US army with a system that generates electricity from garbage.
Do dust particles curb climate change?
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Oct 06, 2009 |
4.6 / 5 (5) |
4
(PhysOrg.com) -- A knowledge gap exists in the area of climate research: for decades, scientists have been asking themselves whether, and to what extent man-made aerosols, that is, dust particles suspended ...
Corals 'could starve in high CO2'
Oct 05, 2009 |
2 / 5 (4) |
1
(PhysOrg.com) -- As human activity pumps more and more carbon into the atmosphere, a new threat has emerged to the world's coral reefs - starvation.
