Fossil fuels: natural gas petroleum

Other important natural sources of organic chemicals are the so-called fossil fuels - natural gas, petroleum, and coal - all deposited in the earth from the decay of plant and animal remains, and containing thousands of degradation products. Most of these are simple compounds containing only carbon and hydrogen (technically and even reasonably known as hydrocarbons). Natural gas is relatively simple... 

Propane is most widely available as a component of petroleum and natural gas, fossil fuels that formed many millions of years ago when marine organisms died, sank to the bottom of seas, and were eventually buried under massive layers of debris. The decay of those organisms without access to oxygen resulted in the formation of so-called fossil fuels natural gas, petroleum, and coal. All fossil fuels are complex mixture of some free carbon and a very large variety of... 

Fossil fuels—natural gas, petroleum, and coal—are the principal sources of hydrocarbons. Natural gas is primarily methane with small amounts of ethane, propane, and butane. Petroleum is a mixture of hydrocarbons from which gasoline, kerosene, fuel oil, lubricating oil, paraffin wax, and petrolatum (themselves mixtures of hydrocarbons) are separated. Coal tar, a volatile by-product of the steel industry s process of making coke from coal, is the source of many valuable chemicals, including the aromatic hydrocarbons benzene, toluene, and naphthalene. 

The three major sources of alkanes throughout the world are the fossil fuels natural gas, petroleum, and coal. Fossil fuels account for approximately 90% of the total energy consumed in the United States. Nuclear electric power and hydroelectric power make up most of the remaining 10%. In addition, fossil fuels provide the bulk of the raw material for the organic chemicals consumed worldwide. 

The primary cause of rising atmospheric CO2 concentration is the burning of fossil fuels. Fossil fuels— natural gas, petroleum, and coal— provide approximately 90% of our society s energy. Combustion of fossil fuels, however, produces CO2. As an example, consider the combustion of octane (CgHjg), a component of gasoline. 

Hydrocarbons are the principal component of fossil fuels. Natural gas is primarily methane, crude petroleum is a complex mixture of thousands of hydrocarbons, and coal is an even more complex mixture of hydrocarbons. Many of the fuels we use, such as gasoline and jet fuel, are obtained from petroleum. 

The fuels of modem society—natural gas, petroleum products, and coal—are called fossil fuels because they are formed from the decomposition of green plants over many millions of years. Like glucose, fossil fuels release energy when they react with oxygen to form carbon dioxide and water. 

Fossil fuel resources a gaseous, liquid, or solid fuel material formed in the ground by chemical and physical changes (diagenesis, q.v.) in plant and animal residues over geological time natural gas, petroleum, coal, and oil shale. 

Natural gas, petroleum, tarsands, oil shale, and coal are called fossil fuels because of their presumed biogenic origin in buried decaying remains deposited in layers and geochemically transformed through heat and pressure over the course of time into their present form. For this reason, fossil fuels contain nitrogen compounds. 

The Vision 21 Program [73] is promoting research and innovation to maintain cost-competitive options for using a diverse mix of fossil fuels for power generation. A key element of this program is the effective removal of current environmental concerns and impediments associated with producing electricity and transportation of fuels from fossil fuels, including natural gas, petroleum, and coal. 

Although it constimtes only about 0.09 percent by mass of Earth s crust, carbon is an essential element of living matter. It is found free in the form of diamond and graphite (see Figure 8.17), and it is also a component of natural gas, petroleum, and coal. (Coal is a natural dark-brown to black solid used as a fuel it is formed from fossilized plants and consists of amorphous carbon with various organic and some inorganic compounds.) Carbon combines with oxygen to form carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and occurs as carbonate in limestone and chalk. 

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