Chapter 5

Fossil Energy

Prepared by: Eng. Wais Ahmad

Contents

• The Origin of Fossil Fuels

• The Fossil Fuels
• Energy From Fossil Fuels
• Fossil Energy Technologies
• Fossil Fuel Resources
• We will Run Out?
• Policy Issue: A Price on Carbon?
Earth
• 300 Million Years Ago, The Place Is A Steamy Swamp.
• Earth is a much warmer planet than today, thanks to an atmospheric
CO2 concentration some three times what it is now and more than four
times what it was at the dawn of the industrial era.
 Earth
• In our ancient swamp, the tropical
heat and abundant CO2 promote
rapid plant growth.

• Plants take in CO2 from the

atmosphere and water from the
ground. Using energy from sunlight,
they rearrange the simple CO2 and
H2O molecules into sugars and other
complex molecules that store this
solar energy.
 5.1 The Origin of Fossil Fuels

• Coal, oil, and natural gas are the fossil fuels that power modern
society.
• These fuels provide close to 90% of the energy we humans consume.

• They’re also sources of air pollution and of greenhouse gases that are
altering Earth’s climate.
Coal
• Coal takes millions of years to form.
• Coal contains the energy stored by plants that lived hundreds of
millions of years ago in swampy forests.
• Layers of dirt and rock covered the plants over millions of years. The
resulting pressure and heat turned the plants into the substance we call
coal.
Peat
• Peat contains some of the energy that was originally fixed by photosynthesis when
the plants were alive.
• Peat formation is the result of incomplete decomposition of the remains of plants
growing in waterlogged conditions.
• This may happen in standing water (lakes or margins of slow flowing rivers) or
under consistently high rainfall (upland or mountain regions).
Coal
• Coal is the largest source of energy for generating electricity in
the world, and the most abundant fossil fuel in the United
States.

• As the plant debris sifted deeper under Earth’s surface, it

encountered increased temperatures and higher pressure. Mud
and acidic water prevented the plant matter from coming into
contact with oxygen.
• Due to this, the plant matter decomposed at a very slow rate and
retained most of its carbon (source of energy).

• Coal is quite a concentrated energy source; the highest-quality

anthracite contains some 36 MJ/kg, or about 10,000 kWh per ton.
Types of Coal
• Coal is very different from mineral rocks, which are made of
inorganic material. Coal is made of fragile plant matter, and
undergoes many changes before it becomes the familiar black
and shiny substance burned as fuel.
Types of Coal
• Coal is ranked according to how much it has changed over time. Hilt's Law states
that the deeper the coal seam, the higher its rank.
• At deeper depths, the material encounters greater temperatures and pressure, and
more plant debris is transformed into carbon.
OIL AND NATURAL GAS
• Both oil and natural gas are made up primarily of hydrocarbon (H),
which is a chemical compound consisting entirely of carbon (C) and
hydrogen (H).
Petroleum
• Petroleum and natural gas are non-renewable sources of energy.
• Petroleum is a liquid mixture found underground that can be used
to make gasoline, diesel fuel, and many other products.
• Petroleum is also called crude oil or oil.
 Natural Gas

• Natural gas is a mixture of

gases –
mostly methane. Natural gas is
sometimes just called gas.
• Natural gas is found underground
with petroleum.
• Natural gas is flammable (burns
with a flame).

• Natural gas is the cleanest-

burning fossil fuel.
 5.2 The Fossil Fuels
• COMPOSITION - Fossil fuels are hydrocarbons comprised primarily
of the following elements: carbon and hydrogen and some sulfur,
nitrogen, oxygen, and mineral matter.
• Mineral matter turns into ash when burnt.

Typically, crude oil is about 85% carbon by

weight, and most of the rest is hydrogen.

Sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen are also present

in significant quantities.
5.3 Energy from Fossil Fuels
• When we burn a fossil fuel, we bring the fuel into contact with
atmospheric oxygen and raise the temperature so that chemical
reactions occur between the fuel and the oxygen.
PRODUCTS OF FOSSIL FUEL COMBUSTION

• Because fossil fuels consist largely of hydrocarbons, their complete

combustion produces mostly carbon dioxide gas (CO2) and water
vapor (H2O).
PRODUCTS OF FOSSIL FUEL COMBUSTION

• Coal is mostly carbon, so CO2 is the main product of coal burning.

• Oil consists of hydrocarbon molecules with roughly twice as many
hydrogen as carbon atoms.

• So when oil burns, a good deal of the energy released comes from the
formation of H2O, and so, for a given amount of energy, less CO2 is emitted.

• Finally, natural gas is largely methane (CH4), so it contains still more

hydrogen and produces even less CO2.
PRODUCTS OF FOSSIL FUEL COMBUSTION

• Carbon dioxide emission per gigajoule

of energy released in the combustion
of the three main types of fossil fuels.
• Natural gas produces just over half the
CO2 of coal, which makes it a more
climate-friendly fuel.
5.4 Fossil Energy Technologies
• If we want high-quality energy, such as electricity or energy of
motion, then we need to run a heat engine that converts some of the
heat released from burning fuel into high- quality energy.
EXTERNAL COMBUSTION ENGINES
• The first steam locomotives had a long, cylindrical boiler heated by a
wood or coal fire. The water boiled to steam, and steam pressure
drove pistons that turned the locomotive’s wheels.

• This Steam Locomotive,

Built In The Early
Twentieth Century, Is An
Example Of An External
Combustion Engine.

• The Efficiencies Of Steam

Locomotives Were Low,
Typically In The Single
Digits.
INTERNAL COMBUSTION ENGINES

• In an internal combustion engine, the products of fuel combustion

themselves provide the pressures that ultimately produce mechanical
motion.

• There’s no transfer of heat to a secondary fluid, as in the steam boiler

of an external combustion power plant.

• In continuous combustion engines, fuel burns continuously and

generally produces rotary motion directly.
• Jet aircraft engines are a good example; so are devices used in some
advanced power plants.
INTERNAL COMBUSTION ENGINES

• In intermittent combustion engines, fuel burns periodically, usually in

a cylindrical chamber containing a movable piston.
Energy Flows In A Typical Gasoline-Powered Car
HYBRID AND ELECTRIC VEHICLES
• Gas– electric hybrids combine gasoline engines with electric motors.
• In these vehicles, motive power to the wheels may come directly
from the gasoline engine, from the electric motor, or from a
combination of the two.
• Hybrids are noted for their high fuel efficiency compared with
conventional cars of similar weight and configuration
 HYBRID AND ELECTRIC VEHICLES

• Fuel efficiencies of
conventional, hybrid,
and diesel vehicles for
2015 and 2016 model
years.
5.5 Fossil Fuel Resources
• Where do we find fossil fuels, and how large is the fossil energy
resource?
• We’ve seen that fossil fuels began forming hundreds of millions of
years ago under fairly common circumstances, primarily acidic
swamps for coal and ancient seas for petroleum.
Resource and Reserves

• The term resource refers to the total amount of a fuel in the

ground—discovered, undiscovered, economically recoverable, or not
economically recoverable.
• Obviously, estimates of fossil fuel resources are necessarily uncertain
because they include fuel we haven’t yet discovered.

• Reserves, in contrast, describe fossil fuels that we’re reasonably

certain exist, based on geological and engineering studies, and that
we can recover economically with existing technology.
COAL RESOURCES

• World coal reserves in

gigatonnes (billions of metric
tons).

• The full height of each bar

gives the total coal reserves
for the indicated continent,
while the lower part shows
reserves for the listed
country, which has the most
coal in that continent.
OIL RESOURCES
• The following figure shows that the politically volatile Middle East
holds nearly half the world’s crude oil.
• The United States, by far the largest oil consumer with more than one-
fifth of total world oil consumption, has only 2% of the global
reserves.
NATURAL GAS RESOURCES
• Natural gas often occurs in conjunction with crude oil, so its distribution
is somewhat like that of oil.
• However, quantities of oil and gas don’t necessarily correlate; thus
Russia has far and away the world’s largest gas reserves.
 5.6 Will We Run Out?
• Fossil fuels take hundreds of millions of years to form, and we’re using
them much faster than they’re forming.
• If we continue to rely on fossil fuels, it’s clear that we’ll run out at some
time— but when?
5.6 Will We Run Out?
• It’s a difficult question. Although fossil fuels have been around for
millions of years, we’ve only been using them for around two
centuries. In that relatively short space of time, though, we’ve
consumed a massive amount and it continues unabated.
• So, if we continue at our current rate, it is estimated that all of our
fossil fuels will be depleted by 2060.
 5.7 Policy Issue: A Price on Carbon?
• Carbon pricing is an instrument that captures the external costs of
greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions—the costs of emissions that the
public pays for, such as damage to crops, health care costs from
heat waves and droughts, and loss of property from flooding and
sea level rise.
The End