carbon cycle

• the lithosphere is the largest store of carbon within rocks and as fossil fuels
• tar sands are a mixture of clays, sands water and thick viscous bitumen. It is extracted by water
• oil shale is when solid bitumen is formed under pressure but not enough pressure to become oil. It is heated to extract the oil
• shale gas is methane trapped in rock that can be removed by fracking which is when water is forced into rock with a drill
• the Athabasca oil sands provide 150,000 jobs
• the fracking industry in Pennsylvania supports 190,000 jobs
• Over half of Pennsylvania households use natural gas as their primary home heating fuel
• More than 17.6 million people live within a mile of a fracked oil or gas well in the US
• Fracking has been linked as a cause of health problems including cancer, asthma attacks, lower infant birth weights
• in 2023 there was a methane leak from a storage facility in Pennsylvania, one of the largest gas leaks in US history. As well as causing local health problems, the leak was a ‘super-emitter incident’ which released a huge amount of methane (a GHG) into the atmosphere. The leak took 2 weeks to plug.
• 16% of Brazil’s energy comes from biofuels 
• in 1967 there was a war between Egypt and Israel. The US backed Israel. As a result Egypt and the OPEC reduced oil sales to the US by 5% a month. USA had to use oil reserved for a military emergency in Elk Hills, California as a result of oil prices being too high
• coal is formed on land in swamps by the cementation of animal waste and dead matter
• crude oil can form on land or in the sea when plant and animal remains are cemented under rock and anaerobic conditions
• tar sands emit three times more CO2 in extraction than when conventional oil is extracted
• 79% of U.S. natural gas is produced by fracking
• the US is the leading natural gas producer, taking over Russia
• In 2008 the Sirius star, which carried oil worth $100m to the USA, was hijacked off of the Somali coast.
• energy mix depends on: availability of resources, cost/ease of extraction, energy needs of the country, international policies that affect home policies (Paris Agreement, EU), environmental concerns and historical legacies
• carbon capture and storage involves capturing carbon released from power plants and then injecting it into underground reserves
• when the ocean absorbs more carbon it leads to ocean acidification which can threaten coral
• warming temperatures means tropical storms are more frequent and may occur further away from the equator. They need temperatures of 27 degrees to form
• the Paris Agreement limits warming to 1.5 degrees and aims to reach net zero by 2050
• between 2004 and 2012 Brazil cut rates of deforestation by 80% by protecting forests and indigenous rights to land
• solar radiation management is an adaptation strategy which involves continuously spraying aerosol into the atmosphere to reflect sunlight back into space
• adaptation strategies are water management, resilient agricultural systems, land-use planning, flood-risk management and solar radiation management
• mitigation strategies are carbon taxation, renewable switching, energy efficiency, afforestation, carbon capture and storage
• iceland is one of the leading countries in renewable energy, using mostly hydro-power and geothermal
• energy efficiency has increased with more efficient energy-saving technology like kettles
• The UK originally promised to stop selling petrol and diesel cars by 2030 but this has been extended to 2035
• sweden has the highest carbon tax in the world and between 1990 and 2018 has reduced its emissions by 27% as a result
• humus (decomposed animal and plant matter) is made up of 60% carbon
• some carbon is released from soil through soil respiration
• forest dieback is the premature death of a population of trees which may be due to disease or drought and soil acidification, which can increase with climate change
• plants release carbon containing compounds from photosynthesis into the soil
• more carbon is stored in soil than the atmosphere
• in order of slowest to fastest: geological, biological, terrestrial
• warmer water can absorb less CO2 than water in polar regions. This means the ocean is not a reliable carbon store due to climate change
• soils store more carbon in colder temperatures, as the rate of decomposition is lower, and in places with high rainfall
• deforestation decreases the capacity of soil to store carbon as it is more susceptible to erosion by rain and microorganisms could die without nutrients from plants