HOW FOSSIL FUELS ARE FORMED?

HOW FOSSIL FUELS ARE FORMED?

by Ciara Paddayuman

TYPES OF FOSSIL FUELS

• ​Fossil fuels form from organisms that lived long ago. Those organisms were either plants that captured the energy of sunlight, or they were organisms that got energy by eating plants or organisms that ate plants. When organisms died, some of the energy stored in their bodies was changed into the energy of the fossil fuels.

1. ​Coal is a solid fossil fuel. Until 1960, it was the world's primary energy source. At one time, it was the most common fuel used in the US. It was burned in power plants.

TYPES OF FOSSIL FUELS

• Petroleum, also called crude oil or oil, is a liquid fossil fuel. It has been used for more than 5,000 years. The ancient Egyptians used it as a medicine for wounds and as a fuel in lamps. Today we use petroleum products such as gasoline, jet fuel, home-heating oil, and kerosene.

• ​Natural gas, is a fossil fuel that is a mixture of gases. More than 2,000 years ago, the Chinese used bamboo poles to pipe natural gas from shallow wells. They burned the gas to heat large pans of seawater. As the water evaporated, the dissolved salt in the water remained.

USING FOSSIL FUELS

• When fossil fuels burn, gases are produced. Some of these gases - called greenhouse gases - trap heat in the air. The result is called the greenhouse effect. Some scientists are concerned because as more greenhouse gases are produced, more heat is trapped. The extra heat might cause Earth to become warmer.

• Acid precipitation - rain or snow that is more acidic than normal precipitation. ​

• Burning fossil fuels also leads to smog, a brownish-yellowish haze that settles over some areas on sunny days. ​

REDUCING FOSSIL FUEL PROBLEMS

• Carpool, ride a bike, use public transportation, walk - these are a few things you can do. Also turn off lights, and appliances when aren't using them.

• Being informed will help you make better decisions. ​

ACTIVITY

• Use the Internet to find out where large deposits of natural gas and petroleum can be found. ​Draw a world map that shows the location of those deposits.

  1. Materials to be used​:

     1. ​Paper (Bond paper)

     2. Pencil/Pen

     3. Coloring Materials

     4. Internet​

Draw

DRAW A POSTER ON HOW YOU CAN HELP IN REDUCING FOSSIL FUEL PROBLEMS

HOW COALS FORMS

• Coal, petroleum, and natural gas formed from the buried remains of organisms that lived million of year ago. But each formed in a slightly different way and from different kinds of organisms.

• Coal formed from swamp plants. When the plants died, they were buried in the water and mud of the swamps. ​There the dead plants formed a layer of dead material, called peat.

• Overtime, more dead plants, mud, sand, and other sediments were deposited over the peat layer. Pressure from the layers of sediment above the heat within the Earth changes the peat into lignite, a soft form of coal. ​

HOW COALS FORMS

​Stage 3. Bituminous coal, the most common form of coal used in the United States

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Stage 4: Anthracite is the last stage of coal formation. It is the hardest form of coal​

OIL AND NATURAL GAS

​Oil and natural gas formed in processes similar to those that produced coal. But they formed from the remains of tiny organisms that lived in ocean water. Since natural gas is lighter than oil, it is often found on top of soil. The areas of trapped oil and natural gas can be drilled into and the deposits recovered for energy.

PROCESSING AND DELIVERING PETROLEUM

When petroleum is removed from the ground, it is a mixture of many different kinds of products. These products can be separated at an oil refinery.

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There, the crude oil is heated. as the temperature of the oil rises, different parts of the oil can be removed at different temperatures.

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These substances are then processed to make them pure, removing materials such as water, salts, or oxygen. ​