What Are Fossil Fuels?

Coal, crude oil, and natural gas are all considered fossil fuels because they were formed from the buried remains of plants and animals that lived millions of years ago.

Currently fossil fuels are the world’s primary energy source. The fossil fuels include coal, petroleum, and natural gases. Fossil fuels are organic materials formed from decayed plants and animals that due to heat and pressure from hundreds of

Barbara Ehrenreich describes what fossil fuel is in her terms, it’s corpse juice. She discusses it’s an old human habit to live off dead animals. Human’s used road kill for meals before we learned how to hunt for ourselves.

It has come to conclusion that fossil fuels are organic materials that are buried in combustible geologic deposits of organic materials. These fossil fuels are formed from decayed organic materials, animals and rocks that have been converted to crude oil, coal, natural gas, or heavy oils by exposure to heat and pressure in the Earth's crust for a very long time. Changing the use of energy can cause effects such as; economic issues and environmental issues. Although, energy is in need of production, many

From the moment we wake up in the morning and turn our alarm clock off, to the moment we turn the lights off and fall asleep, we are using energy. Throughout the day an average person will use a cell phone, a computer, a television, an oven or microwave, and many will ride in a car or bus: all of this takes energy. Energy is even being used while we sleep to power the same alarm clock that wakes us up each morning. Individuals in first world countries are large consumers of energy, but where does it all come from? What powers most of our modern day conveniences? The United States Energy Information Administration (EIA) estimates that as much as eighty-two percent of the United State’s energy demand is met by using fossil fuels (Fossil Fuels), and in 2012, fossil fuels made up eighty-seven percent of the energy consumed worldwide (Gonzalez & Lucky, 2013). What are fossil fuels then?

From the moment we wake up in the morning and turn our alarm clock off, to the moment we turn the lights off and fall asleep, we are using energy. Throughout the day an average person will use a cell phone, a computer, a television, an oven or microwave, and many will ride in a car or bus: all of this takes energy. Energy is even being used while we sleep to power the same alarm clock that wakes us up each morning. Individuals in first world countries are large consumers of energy, but where does it all come from? What powers most of our modern day conveniences? The United States Energy Information Administration (EIA) estimates that as much as eighty-two percent of the United State’s energy demand is met by using fossil fuels (Fossil Fuels), and in 2012, fossil fuels made up eighty-seven percent of the energy consumed worldwide (Gonzalez & Lucky, 2013). What are fossil fuels then?

Contradictory to what many people believe, fossil fuels are not dead dinosaur remains. “In fact, most of the fossil fuels we find today were formed millions of years before the first dinosaurs” (“Fossil Energy: How Fossil Fuels Were Formed,” n.d.). They were formed from prehistoric plants and animals that lived many millions of years ago and are considered non-renewable because they are not sustainable and cannot be easily replaced due to their formation taking billions of years. “When these ancient living things died, they decomposed and became buried under layers and layers of mud, rock, and sand. Eventually, hundreds and sometimes thousands of feet of earth covered them” (“Fossil Energy: How Fossil Fuels Were Formed,” n.d.). In some

Contradictory to what many people believe, fossil fuels are not dead dinosaur remains. “In fact, most of the fossil fuels we find today were formed millions of years before the first dinosaurs” (“Fossil Energy: How Fossil Fuels Were Formed,” n.d.). They were formed from prehistoric plants and animals that lived many millions of years ago and are considered non-renewable because they are not sustainable and cannot be easily replaced due to their formation taking billions of years. “When these ancient living things died, they decomposed and became buried under layers and layers of mud, rock, and sand. Eventually, hundreds and sometimes thousands of feet of earth covered them” (“Fossil Energy: How Fossil Fuels Were Formed,” n.d.). In some areas, these materials were covered by ancient seas before they dried up. “During the millions of years that passed, the dead plants and animals slowly decomposed into organic materials and formed fossil fuels. Different types of fossil fuels were formed depending on what combination of animal and plant debris was present, how long the material was buried, and what conditions of temperature and pressure existed when they were decomposing” (“Fossil Energy: How Fossil Fuels Were Formed,” n.d.). For example, oil and natural gas were created from plants and/or animals that lived in the water and were buried under bodies of water such as oceans, rivers, etc.

Firstly, and put very simply, fossil fuels are non-renewable! Once the finite deposits of brown and black coal are exhausted around the planet there will be no more energy generated by this process. Current estimates predict that all known coal deposits will be exhausted within the next 120 years.

For nearly everyone on earth, fossil fuels are a part of our daily lives. Some of the more obvious places to find petroleum products would be gas and diesel in cars and trucks, but it is in more than just your tank. Without fossil fuels, we would not have things such as plastic to make a wide variety of things such as tires, kayaks, or even computers. The question remains, do we need fossil fuels?

The formation of the other two fossil fuels (crude oil and natural gas) took millions of years just like coal. Oil and gas come from the remains of small animals and plants. Long ago, when the animals and plants died, they sank to the bottom of the sea. The dead matter formed a large mass, which over time was covered by layers of sand, silt, and mud. As the weight of the sediment increased, the mass became more and more compressed. Then, the heat and pressure of the Earth eventually turned the mass into oil and gas. If the heat applied during the formation was low, then more oil was produced than gas. If the temperature was

This paper will discuss the three main fossil fuels which are oil, coal, and natural gas. This research shows how the fossil fuels are formed, where they could be found, and explain how they were formed over millions of years. This paper will show the numerous advantages of fossil fuels compared to the disadvantages and how they are hurting the Earth. Fossils fuels are critical to the function of everyday life. The world would be a different if fossil fuels and their uses were not to of use.

Fossil fuels are essential to life on earth as we know it today. Our world would certainly be much different if it weren’t for such seemingly simple things such as coal, oil, and natural gas. These basic elements of life on earth may not seem like a major concern to some people until we put into perspective how they have shaped our world today. Civilizations have been built, economies have risen and crumbled, and even wars have been fought over these precious fossil fuels. However, these fossil fuels serve us in ways we may never truly appreciate, as long as we use them as recklessly as we do now. The major entity about fossil fuels is concerning their longevity and permanence in our world, and we all know, they will be around forever.

CO2 is one the gases in the greenhouse gas family and with “a stronger greenhouse effect [it] will warm the oceans and partially melt glacier and other ice, increasing sea level” (Climate Change). As humans continue to emit greenhouse gases into the air it is inevitable that sea levels will raise, temperatures will increase throughout the globe, and ultimately change the climate drastically damaging many ecosystems and impacting the way in which humans live on Earth. Many make the argument that the reason fossil fuels are the primary source of energy is due to their density amount of energy, but there is another source of energy that has energy even more dense than fossil fuels.

Fossil fuels are hydrocarbons, primarily coal, fuel oil or natural gas created from the decade of dead plants and animals. Fossil fuels are formed through the natural process. So they are considered as un-renewable resources because the formation of fossil fuels may take millions of years and the feasible reserves are being run-down much faster than new ones are being made. The use of fossil fuel was started in the industrial revolution with the invention of the steam engine. All fired power stations like nuclear, coal, gas and oil are still working on the same principle of the steam engine. Still, fossil fuels are controlling to change the structure of our global economy. After the invention of the steam engine by James Watt (1769) brought widely increased the energy efficiency. After this invention, the use of fossil fuels is increased rapidly. This helps to give a