Coal, Oil and Gas are called "Fossil Fuels"
Introduction
Coal, oil and gas are called "fossil fuels" because they have been formed from the organic remains of
prehistoric plants and animals.
At the time this page was written, they provided around 66% of the world's electrical power, and 95% of the
world's total energy demands (including heating, transport, electricity generation and other uses).
How it works:
Coal is crushed to a fine dust and burnt. Oil and gas can be burnt directly.
More Details:
Coal provides around 28% of our energy, and oil provides 40%.
Burning coal produces sulphur dioxide, an acidic gas that contributes to the formation of acid rain. This can
be largely avoided using "flue gas desulphurisation" to clean up the gases before they are released into the
atmosphere. This method uses limestone, and produces gypsum for the building industry as a by-product.
However, it uses a lot of limestone.
Crude oil (called "petroleum") is easier to get out of the ground than coal, as it can flow along pipes. This
also makes it cheaper to transport.
Natural gas provides around 20% of the world's consumption of energy, and as well as being burnt in power
stations, is used by many people to heat their homes.
It is easy to transport along pipes, and gas power stations produce comparatively little pollution.
Other fossil fuels are being investigated, such as bituminous sands and oil shale. The difficulty is that they
need expensive processing before we can use them; however Canada has large reserves of 'tar sands' , which
makes it economic for them to produce a great deal of energy this way.
The steam that has passed through the power station's turbines has to be cooled, to condense it back into
water before it can be pumped round again. This is what happens in the huge "cooling towers" seen at
power stations.
Some power stations are built on the coast, so they can use sea water to cool the steam instead. However,
this warms the sea and can affect the environment, although the fish seem to like it.
Advantages
Very large amounts of electricity can be generated in one place using coal, fairly cheaply.
Transporting oil and gas to the power stations is easy.
Gas-fired power stations are very efficient.
A fossil-fuelled power station can be built almost anywhere, so long as you can get large quantities of fuel to it. Didcot
power station, in Oxfordshire, has a dedicated rail link to supply the coal.
Disadvantages
Basically, the main drawback of fossil fuels is pollution.
Burning any fossil fuel produces carbon dioxide, which contributes to the
"greenhouse effect", warming the Earth.
Burning coal produces more carbon dioxide than burning oil or gas.
It also produces sulphur dioxide, a gas that contributes to acid rain. We can
reduce this before releasing the waste gases into the atmosphere.
Mining coal can be difficult and dangerous. Strip mining destroys large areas of
the landscape.
Coal-fired power stations need huge amounts of fuel, which means train-loads
of coal almost constantly. In order to cope with changing demands for power, the station needs reserves.
This means covering a large area of countryside next to the power station with piles of coal.
Is it renewable?
Fossil fuels are not a renewable energy resource.
Once we've burned them all, there isn't any more, and our consumption of fossil fuels has nearly doubled every 20 years since 1900.
This is a particular problem for oil, because we also use it to make plastics and many other products.
