Renewable Resources Resource That Can Be Replaced

Fossil Fuel Notes

Renewable resources – resource that can be replaced

Ex. Water, air , sun, and plants (trees)

Nonrenewable resources – resources that cannot be replaced in a reasonable amount of time.

EX. Rocks, minerals, fossil fuels

Fossil fuels – substances made from dead plants and animals through overmillions of years.

• Why are fossil fuels non-renewable?

Coal – solid

Oil - liquid

Natural gas – gas

Coal

Solid brittle rock

Most abundant fossil fuel

Used mostly for electricity

Cheapest fossil fuel

Most pollutant fossil fuel when burned – gases mix with the clouds and makes acid rain

Coal must be mined from the ground

1)underground mines

- dangerous: collapse, explosive gases, poisonous gases, miners get black lung

2)strip mining – removing the rock above the coal when large machinery

-safer but destroys the land, pollutes the water

-water reacts with minerals in the mines making the water acidic. This acid water leaks into streams killing aquatic organisms. This is called

acid mine drainage

Natural Gas

-colorless, odorless gas

-often found with oil

-found throughout the world – large amounts found in shale rock formations in Pennsylvania

(See the fracking video and article

Fracking video

- Cleanest of the three fossil fuels

` - produces the most energy of all fossil fuels

- used mostly for many industrial purposes, it is being used more for heating and transportation (CNG buses – Penncrest)

Oil (petroleum)

-taken out of the ground by drilling – called crude

-liquid fossil fuel

-mostly in Venezuela and Saudi Arabia

-OPEC – group of countries that set most of the world’s oil prices

-In the U.S. – Texa, Louisiana, Alaska, and California, have the most

-Oil is now being recovered from the oil shale rock in the Midwest

-Least abundant fossil fuels – When will we run out?

-Crude oil is refined into gasoline and other fuels and products (plastics)

-Used mostly for transportation fuels

Environmental Impacts of oil and natural gas

- burning oil and gas products produces air pollution

-drilling destroys the land (fracking for gas)

-oil and gas and seep into and pollute groundwater

-oil leaks into ocean when drilling offshore

-Massive oil spills could occur

-

1)Exxon Valdez spilled 250,000 barrels into an Alaskan Bay killing the wildlife there

2) BP spill in the Gulf of Mexico was the largest environmental disaster in this country’s history (see video)