Transcript Energy: Electricity, Fossil Fuels, and Coal

Non-Renewable Energy
Unit 3: Resource Sustainability
Fuels for Different Uses
• Cooking, transportation, manufacturing, heating/cooling, and generating
electricity
• Suitability is determined by the fuel’s energy content,
cost, availability, safety, and
byproducts of its use
• i.e. Airplanes cannot
be powered off of coal
• Campfires are not made
by burning airplane fuel
Fossil Fuels (FF)
• Remains of ancient organisms that changed into coal, oil,
or natural gas
• Most of our energy comes from them, yet…
• They’re limited
• Obtaining/using them causes environmental problems
Formation of FF Deposits
• Coal comes from the remains of 300 MY old swamp plants
• As sea levels went up and down, sediment would cover those plants
and then become compressed
• Oil and natural gas come from the decay of tiny marine
organisms that lived on the ocean floor
• Over time, heat creates energy-rich molecules found in rocks where
we get oil and natural gas from
Electricity
• Power on Demand
• Quickly transported near or far
• Generated in a power plant, transported through a grid
• Converts motion into electricity by moving an electrically
conductive material within a magnetic field
• Disadvantage: hard to store and other energies (burning of
coal) are used to produce it
Coal
• Inexpensive and needs little refining
• Effects on the environment:
• Toxic chemicals can leech into water
• Mountaintop removal - video
• Lower grade, more sulfur, more air pollution (acid rain)
Posters: Global FF Distribution
• Each group will be assigned a region of the world
• With shading/markings/etc. (color/pictures) your group will
map where the coal, oil, and natural gas is in the region
• Outside of the outline of the region include the following
information:
1. Other major industries of the region
2. (At least) Two implications from this distribution of fossil fuels
Petroleum/Oil
• Oil that is pumped from the ground is petroleum.
Anything that is made from petroleum (fuels, chemicals,
plastics) is a petroleum product.
• 45% of the world’s commercial energy use
• Found near major geologic features in the earth’s crust
that trap it – folds, faults, salt domes.
Environmental Effects of Oil Use
• Burning of fuels releases pollutants –
formation of smog and acid rain; cause of
health problems and global warming
• Catalytic converters
• Oil Spills – Free Willy and BP
• Double hulls
Natural Gas
• FF that comes from decayed marine organisms
• About 20% of the world’s nonrenewable energy;
transported in pipelines
• Produces fewer pollutants
• Clip from The Promised Land
The Future
• Today, fossil fuels supply about 90% of energy in
developed countries
• Oil – 50 more years (though
there is untapped in the ocean)
• As they run low, cost will
increase, and we’ll be forced
to look into renewables (or die)