What are fossil fuels?
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M$6 Answers
They include oil (petroleum), coal, and gas (natural).
The distinction between fossil fuels and other hydrocarbon fuels such as wood, charcoal, and ethanol is that those other fuels involve carbon that circulates between living things and the atmosphere, while fossil fuels involve carbon that has been buried in the earth for millions of years and is now being set free in the atmosphere.
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M$This is an important question, particularly because many experts are arguing that it is OK to use biomass as a fuel, but not fossil fuels. But if fossil fuels come mainly from plant biomass in the first place, what is the difference?
The difference has a lot to do with time scale. The atmosphere contains a certain amount of CO2, and global warming is happening because that amount is increasing. Why is it increasing? The experts say because we are burning too much fossil fuels. So why is it ok to use biomass for fuel? The basic idea with biomass fuel is that it comes from plants that were grown specifically to produce the fuel. So although biomass fuels release the same CO2 that fossil fuels do when they are combusted, all of that CO2 was taken up CO2 by the plants when they were grown to produce the biomass. We can think of this as "paying in advance" for the CO2 that is emitted. Fossil fuels also came originally from plants, so the CO2 emitted from burning fossil fuels also is CO2 that was originally taken up from the atmosphere by plants. But this was done over a long long period of time - millions of years. And now we are pumping all of that CO2 back into the atmosphere in less than 100 years. That is why we are seeing the sharp increase of CO2 concentration that scientists have been tracking and people like Al Gore have been bringing to the popular media.
I hope that you find this answer useful.
I used to teach and do research related to this stuff, so my source is just what I was able to pull out of my head. :-)
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M$
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M$
-quote-
"Fossil 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."
-end of quote-
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M$
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M$Fossil fuels principally consist of carbon and hydrogen bonds, in short, the remains gradually get transformed into Hydrocarbons.
The fossil fuels are formed as a result of accumulating sediment layers. As the sediment layers go on adding over years, there is an increase in temperature as well as pressure and after hundreds of years due to these physical conditions the organic materials get transformed into
hydrocarbons.
The most commonly used fossil fuels are petroleum, coal, diesel and natural gas. These substances are extracted from the earth’s crust and, if necessary, refined into suitable fuel products.
The reason these fossil fuels are used is that they produce significant amount of energy. The most commonly used fossil fuels are natural gas, coal, petroleum..which we use on a larger extent.
Fossil fuels are non-renewable resources i.e., these are natural resources which cannot be regenerated and are exhausted when once used. They take millions of years to form, and reserves get depleted much faster until the ones are formed.
Also, since that fossil fuels are non renewable resources, many alternatives are now been used like hydroelectric energy, geothermal energy, solar energy, wind energy, etc. which can be made available in abundance and the fossil fuels are also used in a limit.
Hope this helps a bit.
Thanks.
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M$
