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AfriCoal Energy Review™

Facts about Fossil Fuels

Fossil or mineral fuels are natural resources which have decomposed over a period of many millions of years, starting around 650 thousand years and older. They are very high in carbons and hydrocarbons, but also have ranges of low carbon materials such as hydrogen, methane and liquid petroleum.

This fossilizing process is caused by the dead plants and animals decomposing by the heat and pressure of the earth's crust over this time period. Terrestrial plants usually form coal, but some form a type 3 kerogen, or a source of natural gas. Coal has been used for producing energy since before history was even recorded. It was used for smelting ore as well as for other heating purposes.

Natural gas was once considered to be only a byproduct of petroleum; however, in recent years it has become a resource that is very valuable. Today, heavy crude oil that has mixed with sand and tar, or sand and clay mixed with bitumen, are becoming even more important as fossil fuel resources, although they have not been used commercially just yet, they are used in some internal combustion engines.

You'll find that fossil fuels are a non renewable source of energy because they can only be consumed one time. Because of this the principle of supply and demand and the rapid diminishing of fossil fuels have caused the price of such items to rise drastically. Oil, gas, and coal were used 79.6% of the time in 2002, and are still on the rise.

Just within America alone, fossil fuel facts have been reported by an environmental agency that better than 90% of the greenhouse gas emissions came from fossil fuel combustion, such as, nitrogen and sulfur oxides. It has been estimated that in 1982, the U.S. burned so much coal that it was releasing 155 times as much radioactivity into the air as it did at Three Mile Island. They also generate not only sulfuric and carbonic acids but nitric acid as well; which is known as acid rain. This acid rain can be strong enough to dissolve the calcium carbonate content in marble and limestone.

It wasn't until late in the last century that fossil fuels were found to contain uranium and thorium, which were being released into our planet's atmosphere, causing what is now called global warming. This global warming is slowly heating the atmosphere near earth's Polar Regions; causing the ice caps to begin to melt. Because of this there have been several very popular movies made which were to show the public what could happen in the near future if something wasn't done about global warming. Scientists have realized that the ash from these fossil fuels was also creating a hazard for all aquatic life on our planet.

Other fossil fuel facts have noted that Strip mining has caused a large loss of land as well. New and better techniques along with federal laws have been designed for the transportation of coal and oil, as well as all other types of fuel consumption.

Today, there are regulations that have been set for environmental organizations that regulate how and how much pollution is released into the atmosphere. The EPA set regulations in 2005 that coal fired power companies will need to reduce the output of harmful pollution by 70% by the year 2018.

In conclusion scientists and other companies are researching better sources of fuel other than fossil fuel. Most of these sources will be manufactured from synthetics in order to move completely away from fossil fuels.