Fossil Fuels

• Energy Sources


  -Renewable: replenish themselves fast enough to meet human demand --Ex: solar power

  -Nonrenewable: don't replenish fast enough to keep up with demand

  --Lots of nonrenewable do get formed over time it just happens too slow to keep up with how much we use

  --Ex: coal
• Fossil Fuels (FFs) (Nonrenewable source of energy)

  ca 81% (blue) of energy consumption in the US and globally (2015)

  -Oil = 36% (black)

  -Nat gas = 29% (red)

  -Coal = 16% (blue)

  -Nuclear = 9% (black)

  -Hydroelectric = 6% (black)

  -All others = 4% (red)

  
  

  Blue = decreasing

  Red = increasing

  Black = staying about the same
• How Much Is There?

  -Reserve- the amount of material you have ready to use

  -Resource- the total amount of that that material that is known to exist that's ready to use or not
• FFs: General Advantages


  1-Historically cheap & abundant

  2-Technology well developed

  3-Infrastructure built to run on them
• FFs: General Disadvantages


  1-Nonrenewable

  2-Deposits not uniformly distributed

  3-Costs going up

  4-Environmental damage
• Hydrocarbons


  -Combustible H-C compounds

  -Requires:

  --area of high biological productivity

  --relatively low oxygen in waters/sediments

  ---Organic material needs time

  ---Best place for these to be met is on the continental shelf
• Hydrocarbon #1: Methane (aka Natural Gas)


  -CH4

  -Advantages

  •1- Resource has grown in recent years

  • 2- Burns much cleaner than other FFs

  -30% less CO2 emitted per unit energy compared to oil

  •3- Price often cheaper than oil

  •Big reason coal use is in decline

  -Disadvantages

  1- Safety issues.

  -explosions

  -NG heat system malfunctions can create CO

  2- Still contributes to atmospheric C02 buildup
• Hydrocarbon #2: Oil


  ~66% is in the Middle East

  -22% in Saudi Arabia alone

  -2.5% in the US
• US Oil Production & Consumption

  The US uses ~ 7.2 billion barrels in 2016

  -That's much more than we produce
• Hydraulic fracturing (Fracking)


  Uses pressurized fluids to shatter rock below ground (creates permeability) so the oil can flow

  --Pump water into the well then you pump out the oil

  -Advantage: gets oil out of areas where traditional drilling cannot
• Fracking Disadvantages


  #1- Contamination

  -Pumping not just water, rather it has contaminants in it

  -Concerns of contaminating groundwater in the area

  • May 2015- Water supplies in PA contaminated with fracking fluids

  • Fights over regulating the industry

  -Fracking can be done without contaminations but industries cut corners to save time and money which results in contamination

  Disadvantage #2- Seismic activity

  -Damage to surrounding areas just like earthquakes

  Ex: Oklahoma
• How Much Oil is Left?

  -Debatable

  -Lots!

  --Find new deposits

  --Improve technology to get more out of deposits

  -Little!

  --Existing fields producing less

  --New oil fields being found less often
• Case Study: ANWR


  -Arctic National Wildlife Reserve

  -Orig resource est = 20-30 bbls

  -Orig reserve est 4-12 bbls

  Q: Should we drill for oil in ANWR?
• The Pro-Drilling Side


  1- 30 bbls = enough to last the US 60 years!

  2- Free us from foreign oil

  3- Lower gas prices

  4- Tiny area affected
• The No-Drilling Side


  1- Only 12 bbls...that's not even enough to fuel the US for even 2 years!

  2- Spills are expensive to clean and devastate the environment
• Q: Who's Right?


  Neither
• Hydrocarbon #3- Other Oil Sources

  -Oil Shales (OS) & Tar Sands (TS)

  -Shales /sands with high organic content

  -Problem: oil not fully formed

  -Can mine the rock/sed & 'cook' it
• Specific Advantages


  1- Extensive deposits

  -Est OS resource has 4x more oil than Saudi Arabia

  -Est TS resource is 2x the global oil resource
• Specific Disadvantages


  1- Produce more GGs than other fossil fuels 25-50% more CO2 produced than normal oil

  2- Not profitable at low oil prices

  3- Mining operations cause lots of environmental damage
• Coal


  NOT A HYDROCARBON

  -Similar requirements for formation

  --Lots of plant life

  --Standing water
• Stages of Coal Formation

  -Peat (50% C)

  -Lignite (70% C)

  -Bituminous coal (70-90% C)

  -Anthractie coal (90+% C)

  --Bigger number of carbon content the better

  INCLUDE PICTURES
• Specific Advantages


  1-US coal reserve big enough to last 100+ yrs at current rate of use (= 1 billion tons/yr)
• Specific Disadvantages


  1- Creates more pollution than other fossil fuels Produces 25% more CO2 than oil Mercury, arsenic, etc produced during mining & burning Ash disposal: 130 million tons/yr in the US

  2- Acid Rain. Coal burning releases sulfur from pyrite (FeS2) SO3 + H2O = H2S04

  a- Weathering damage

  b- pH changes in aqueous habitats

  c- Leaches nutrients out of soils
• The Decline of Coal

  -3 of the top 10 US coal companies declared bankruptcy in the 1st half of 2019.

  -What's the problem?

  1- Regulations due to the toxic pollutants

  2- Cheaper, cleaner, and more abundant natural gas

  3- Traditional mines replaced with mountaintop removal processing that requires little manual labor
• Decline of Coal


  -More and more coal companies declared bankruptcy despite the removal of regulations during the Trump administration

  -Regulations clearly not the main problem

  -Scapegoated b/c they're getting pushed out of the market by other energy sources that are cheaper and/or cleaner