Fossil Fuels

Fossil Fuels Types

Origin

Exponential Growth

Hubbert’s PeakUnit 06 – Fossil Fuels and Growth – Slide 1

Fossil Fuels

Ultimate origin of energy stored in

fossil fuels is the sun.

Coal – from peat (plant material)

Oil/Natural Gas – from plankton (small

animals)

Most originated in “Carboniferous Period”

~300,000,000 years ago

Unit 06 – Fossil Fuels and Growth - Slide 2

Carbon

Unit 06 – Fossil Fuels and Growth - Slide 3

6 electrons

How do you

connect them

together?

How is energy released?

Coal Burning

More complex the hydrocarbon

High chemical energy

CH4 + 2*O2 CO2 + 2*H2O

C + O2 CO2Low chemical energy

+ Thermal Energy

Natural Gas Burning

High chemical energy Low chemical energy

+ Thermal Energy

the higher the chemical energy

Unit 06 – Fossil Fuels and Growth - Slide 4

CO2 for each fuel

Coal:

90 kg CO2 / Gigajoule (106 Joule)

Oil:

70 kg CO2 / Gigajoule (106 Joule)

Natural Gas:

50 kg CO2 / Gigajoule (106 Joule)

Unit 06 – Fossil Fuels and Growth - Slide 5

Ex 6.1 – Coal and Natural Gas CO2

An older coal-burning power plant

produces electricity at a rate of

1GWe and is 35% efficient. Those

are typical number for a coal plant.

Estimate how much CO2 it puts out

each year.

What would be the reduction if it

were replaced with a newer natural

gas plant that is 44% efficient?

Example 5.1 in our book

Unit 06 – Fossil Fuels and Growth - Slide 6

Top Ten Oil Countries

Unit 06 – Fossil Fuels and Growth – Slide 7

rank country proven reserves (bbl)

1 Venezuela 298,350,000,000

2 Saudi Arabia 267,900,000,000

3 Canada 173,100,000,000

4 Iran 154,600,000,000

5 Iraq 141,400,000,000

6 Kuwait 104,000,000,000

7 United Arab Emirates 97,800,000,000

8 Russia 80,000,000,000

9 Libya 48,010,000,000

10 Nigeria 37,200,000,000

Top Ten Natural Gas Countries

Unit 06 – Fossil Fuels and Growth - Slide 8

Rank CountryReserves (billiion cubic

meters)1 Russia 47,805

2 Iran 33,721

3 Qatar 24,072

4 United States 15,484

5 Saudi Arabia 8,619

6 Turkmenistan 7,504

7 United Arab Emirates 6,091

8 Venezuela 5,740

9 Nigeria 5,475

10 China 5,440

Top Ten Coal Country

Unit 06 – Fossil Fuels and Growth – Slide 9

Rank Country Millions of Tons World's Share

1 United States 246,643 27.1

2 Russia 157,010 17.3

3 China 114,500 12.6

4 India 194,447 10.2

5 Australia 78,500 8.6

6 South Africa 48,750 5.4

7 Ukraine 34,153 3.8

8 Kazakhstan 31,279 3.4

9 Poland 14,000 1.5

10 Brazil 10,113 1.1

Exponential Growth?

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y=A*x2 y=(1+r)x

Unit 06 – Fossil Fuels and Growth - Slide 10

Exponential Curves

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Unit 06 – Fossil Fuels and Growth - Slide 11

Question

A. 2 hour

B. 3 hours

C. 6 hours

D. 8 hours

E. 64 hours

A colony of bacteria live in a jar.

The colony doubles in size every

hour. If the colony originally takes

up 1/64 of the jar, how long before

it up 1/8?

Unit 06 – Fossil Fuels and Growth – Slide 12

Question

A. 2 hour

B. 3 hours

C. 6 hours

D. 8 hours

E. 64 hours

A colony of bacteria live in a jar. The

colony doubles in size every hour. If

the colony originally takes up 1/64 of

the jar, how long before it takes up

the entire jar and begins to die out

from lack of food?

Unit 06 – Fossil Fuels and Growth – Slide 13

Question

A. 2 hour B. 3 hours

C. 6 hours D. 8 hours

E. 65 hours

A colony of bacteria live in a jar. The

colony doubles in size every hour so

that in six hours, it has taken up the

entire jar. What if the room available to

the colony is suddenly greatly

increased so that there are now a total

of four jars available. How much

additional time did this buy the

bacteria?

Unit 06 – Fossil Fuels and Growth – Slide 14

Rule of 70

If you divide the number 70 by the annual rate of increase, it will tell you approximately how long it takes the material to double.

Example:

My retirement fund earns about 5% in interest and dividends per year. If I have $100,000 in my fund, how long until I have $200,000?

Unit 06 – Fossil Fuels and Growth - Slide 15

Ex 6.2: Rule of 70

The US got 1.34 Quads of energy from

coal in November of last year and 0.18

Quads from wind. If the production of

electrical energy from wind is growing at

30% a year, around how many years will it

be until the production from wind matchs

the production from coal?

By the way, how many kilowatts-hours is 1.34 Quads?

How many watts is 1.34 Quads in one month?

(Notice we didn’t assume the production from coal went down.)

Unit 06 – Fossil Fuels and Growth - Slide 16

Question

Fossil Fuels and Growth – Unit 6, Slide 17

The world use of oil increases by

about 1.25% every year. About how

long before the oil use doubles?

A. 56 years B. 80 years

C. 125 years D. 500 hours

E. 650 hours

King Hubbert (1956)

Fossil Fuels and Growth – Unit 6, Slide 18

Hubbert’s Peak

Fossil Fuels and Growth – Unit 6, Slide 19

Unit 06 – Fossil Fuels and Growth - Slide 20

Alaska

Unit 06 – Fossil Fuels and Growth - Slide 21

Tight Oil

World Oil Production

Unit 06 – Fossil Fuels and Growth - Slide 22

Tight Oil

Unit 06 – Fossil Fuels and Growth - Slide 23

Tar Sands?

Unit 06 – Fossil Fuels and Growth - Slide 24

2 trillion barrels?

Energy (and money) needed to get energy out

Energy Return on Investment (EROI)

EROI =Eout

Ein

Unit 06 – Fossil Fuels and Growth - Slide 25

Hubbert’s Peak for Natural Gas

Unit 9, Slide 26

Fracking makes natural gas cheap

Unit 06 – Fossil Fuels and Growth - Slide 27

Production Forever?

Unit 9, Slide 28

Oil Derricks in

North Baltimore, Ohio

Top Oil Producing State

1895 to 1903

Oil Derricks in Marland,

Oklahoma

First or Second Top Oil

Producing State 1907 to

1930

Currently 0.8% of US

Production

Currently 3.8% of US

Production

Hubbert’s Peak for World Production

Unit 9, Slide 29

More important….

Fossil Fuels and Growth – Unit 6, Slide 30

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Remember example?

Unit 06 – Fossil Fuels and Growth – Slide 31

It took six hours to fill up

the first jar.

But it only took two hours to fill

the next four jars.

And most important….

Unit 06 – Fossil Fuels and Growth - Slide 32

It doesn’t matter when you

run out…..

it matters when your

production starts to

decrease.