Green Services Direct

It is difficult nowadays not to hear reports and conversations around fossil fuels and renewable energy, but what exactly are fossil fuels and why are they regarded as being harmful to our planet? We have after all, been using them for years.

The fossil fuels we use began to form millions of years ago. Large numbers of microscopic animals and plants, known as plankton which lived in shallow seas died and sank to the sea floor at the end of their life cycle. This organic material is mixed with other sediments which also sank to the sea bed. Over time, all of this was buried and crushed under millions of tons of sediment and even more layers of plant debris. As the fossil material was buried deeper underground it became subjected to increased heat and pressure.

As the heat rises, the fossil molecules begin to break apart. After millions of years underground, the mud sediment was buried by more sediment, and began to change into rock as the temperature and pressure increased. The plant and animal remains were altered chemically by this process, and slowly changed into crude oil and natural gas.

This oil and gas slowly seeps through gaps in the permeable rock structure and on reaching impermeable rock, forms into vast deep, underground reservoirs of natural gas and oil, mostly under the oceans or beneath ancient, long dried up seas. Geologists from oil companies will examine the rock structures around these sedimentary basins then drill through these layers of impermeable rock to extract the oil or gas.

Plants buried under land are similarly formed into coal which is then mined for use as fuel. Wood had for centuries been the main fuel for both heat and energy and was used as a fuel for early steam engines. Steam engines, however could be powered by either the traditional wood or by coal and very soon coal took over as the favoured fuel as weight for weight it provided more heat than wood and was used as a substitute for wood for the generation of steam. Coal then went on to generate steam to power the industrial revolution.

The Chinese were known to have used oil since around 600BC it was not until around 1900 that oil productions as we know it started. The original oil production was seen as an alternative to using coal for oil lamps and other such uses. The advent of the electric light bulb and the first cars starting to appear on the roads changed everything in the energy market. The demand for electricity soared and as the sales of cars began to rise exponentially, so did the demand for fuel for their internal combustion engines.

Around the same time woman’s groups in the US began lobbying for laws to improve air quality and reduce the dense smoke caused by burning coal which was starting to pollute the air in main urban areas. This was the first time that a fossil fuel was recognised as a pollutant and helped in the switch from coal to oil which was perceived as a cleaner alternative to coal as the primary source of energy.

The soaring demand for vehicle fuel was exacerbated by the commencement of the First World War and its heavy dependency on land vehicles, ships and latterly aircraft. By 1920 oil had become the main source of fuel with the often related gas becoming a secondary fuel for both domestic and industrial heating systems. Prior to this any produced gas had been flared off into the atmosphere. Many countries are now banning the flaring of gas as it is seen as being harmful to both the atmosphere as it produces large quantities of carbon dioxide and to the health of people living or working close to the flares as it emits chemicals such as benzene, naphthalene and black carbon into the atmosphere. Black carbon is recognised as one of the main causes of melting sea ice and glaciers in the polar regions

It is however, not only gas flaring that poses a threat to the health of the planet. All fossil fuels are hydro carbons and only produce energy when burned. Unfortunately burning fossil fuels releases large amounts of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, into the atmosphere. These greenhouse gases are responsible for global warming, the effect of which is to raise the temperature of the earth and its atmosphere.

There are three main fossil fuels which are in everyday use, coal, oil and natural gas and not all emit the same amount of carbon into the atmosphere;

• Coal – is the worst offender and is the biggest single source of global temperature rise being responsible for around one third of the global temperature rise. China is by far the world’s largest polluter of our atmosphere, contributing around 30% of global carbon dioxide. It is also the world’s largest user of coal to power its industry which produces 45% of global emissions.
• Oil – is also a big contributor to the emitted carbon dioxide and is responsible for around 35% of the world’s emissions.
• Natural Gas – is the cleanest of the widely used fossil fuels but it is still responsible for 20% of the world’s emissions, which means it is still a major contributor to global warming.

Earth's average surface air temperature has seen an increase of around 1 °C since the beginning of the 20th century, although quite alarmingly, over half of that increase has occurred since the mid 1970s. A target of a 1.5C rise in the earth’s surface temperature in comparison to pre-industrial times has been set and widely agreed by world leaders, but there is a certain amount of scepticism as to whether or not that will be met. Certain schools of thought believe that if we continue to emit carbon dioxide at our present rate we will push the climate toward an increase in temperature of somewhere between 1.8C and 2.0C.

This would see total changes in our weather patterns with more frequent extreme weather causing flooding, drought, wild fires and heat waves. All of this would see accelerated polar melting, resulting in rising sea levels which would be disastrous to many small island countries and many low lying coastal areas.

To avoid these scenarios we need to curtail our use of fossil fuels and look at more renewable sources of energy such as wind, solar, hydro and nuclear. We have the technology, time will tell if we have the will.