Unit 3 – Fossil Fuels

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PHY 305
Lecture 5 – Introduction to Fossil Fuels

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PHY 305
Fossil fuels are forms of stored solar energy

Why?

❖ The vast majority of the biomass that turn into fossil fuels was
photosynthetic. This is because plants are solar energy collectors that
convert solar energy to chemical energy through photosynthesis. This
implies that the energy in fossil fuels initially came from the sun.

❖ The main fossil fuels used today were created from incomplete biological
decomposition of dead organic matter (mostly land and marine plants).

❖ Buried organic matter that was not completely oxidized was converted
by chemical reactions over hundreds of millions of years to oil, natural
gas, and coal.

❖ Biological and geologic processes in various parts of the geologic cycle

produce the sedimentary rocks in which we find these fossil fuels

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For most of human history our ancestors relied on
very basic forms of energy:
❖ human muscle
❖ animal muscle
❖ burning of biomass such as wood or crops.

However, the Industrial Revolution unlocked a whole

new energy resource: fossil fuels.

Fossil energy has been a fundamental driver of the

technological, social, economic and development
progress which has followed.

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Advantages:

❖ Fossil fuels (coal, oil, gas) have, and continue to, play
a dominant role in global energy systems.

Disadvantages:

❖ When burned, they produce carbon dioxide → they

are the greatest drivers of global climate change.
❖ They are also a major contributor to local air
pollution, which is estimated to be linked to millions
of premature deaths each year.

Solution?
❖ As low-carbon sources of energy – nuclear and
renewables – become readily available, the world
needs to rapidly transition away from fossil fuels.

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The burning of fossil fuels for energy began around the onset of
the Industrial Revolution.

But fossil fuel consumption has changed significantly over the

past few centuries – both in terms of what and how much we
burn.

Changes in quantity of consumed fossil fuels:

Fossil fuel consumption has increased significantly over the past

half-century, around eight-fold since 1950, and roughly
doubling since 1980.

Changes in the types of consumed fossil fuels:

But the types of fuel we rely on has also shifted, from solely
coal towards a combination with oil, and then gas. Today, coal
consumption is falling in many parts of the world. But oil and
gas are still growing quickly.

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This map shows the amount of
primary energy from fossil
fuels that is consumed each
year.

This is the sum of energy from

coal, oil and gas.

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Looking at energy consumption at the country
level is often a strong reflection of population size
rather than actual fossil fuel consumption per
person.

In this chart, we see the amount of energy from

fossil fuels consumed per person. This is the sum
of primary energy from coal, oil and gas
combined.

How do these comparisons look when we adjust

for population?

Across the world we see that the largest

consumers use more than ten times the amount
of fossil energy than some of the smallest
consumers.

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How do fossil fuels fit in within the rest of
the energy mix?

What share of primary energy comes from

fossil fuels?

In 2019, around 84% of global primary

energy came from coal, oil and gas.

Over the coming decades we need to rapidly

reduce this share by displacing them with
low-carbon energy sources.

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This figure reflects energy consumption
– that is the sum of all energy uses
including electricity, transport and
heating.

Many people assume energy and

electricity to mean the same, but
electricity is just one component of total
energy consumption.

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Electricity is one component of
total primary energy
consumption – the other two
being transport and heating.
(as per the equation we
previously covered).

Globally, fossil fuels account for

a much smaller share of
electricity production than the
energy system as a whole.

In 2019, around 64% of our

electricity came from fossil fuels.

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