Coal, one of the fossil fuels.

Fossil fuels are fuels formed by natural processes such as anaerobic decomposition of buried dead organisms. The age of the organisms and their resulting fossil fuels is typically millions of years, and sometimes exceeds 650 million years.^[1] Fossil fuels contain high percentages of carbon and include coal, petroleum, and natural gas.^[2] They range from volatile materials with low carbon:hydrogen ratios like methane, to liquid petroleum to nonvolatile materials composed of almost pure carbon, like anthracite coal. Methane can be found in hydrocarbon fields, alone, associated with oil, or in the form of methane clathrates. Fossil fuels formed from the fossilized remains of dead plants^[3] by exposure to heat and pressure in the Earth's crust over millions of years.^[4] This biogenic theory was first introduced by Georg Agricola in 1556 and later by Mikhail Lomonosov in the 18th century.

It was estimated by the Energy Information Administration that in 2007 primary sources of energy consisted of petroleum 36.0%, coal 27.4%, natural gas 23.0%, amounting to an 86.4% share for fossil fuels in primary energy consumption in the world.^[5] Non-fossil sources in 2006 included hydroelectric 6.3%, nuclear 8.5%, and others (geothermal, solar, tidal, wind, wood, waste) amounting to 0.9%.^[6] World energy consumption was growing about 2.3% per year.

Fossil fuels are non-renewable resources because they take millions of years to form, and reserves are being depleted much faster than new ones are being made. The production and use of fossil fuels raise environmental concerns. A global movement toward the generation of renewable energy is therefore under way to help meet increased energy needs.

The burning of fossil fuels produces around 21.3 billion tonnes (21.3 gigatonnes) of carbon dioxide (CO₂) per year, but it is estimated that natural processes can only absorb about half of that amount, so there is a net increase of 10.65 billion tonnes of atmospheric carbon dioxide per year (one tonne of atmospheric carbon is equivalent to 44/12 or 3.7 tonnes of carbon dioxide).^[7] Carbon dioxide is one of the greenhouse gases that enhances radiative forcing and contributes to global warming, causing the average surface temperature of the Earth to rise in response, which the vast majority of climate scientists agree will cause major adverse effects.

Origin[link]

Since oil fields are located only at certain places on earth,^[8] only a select group of countries are oil-independent, the other countries are dependent on the oil production capacities of these countries

Petroleum and natural gas are formed by the anaerobic decomposition of remains of organisms including phytoplankton and zooplankton that settled to the sea (or lake) bottom in large quantities under anoxic conditions, millions of years ago. Over geological time, this organic matter, mixed with mud, got buried under heavy layers of sediment. The resulting high levels of heat and pressure caused the organic matter to chemically alter, first into a waxy material known as kerogen which is found in oil shales, and then with more heat into liquid and gaseous hydrocarbons in a process known as catagenesis.

There is a wide range of organic, or hydrocarbon, compounds in any given fuel mixture. The specific mixture of hydrocarbons gives a fuel its characteristic properties, such as boiling point, melting point, density, viscosity, etc. Some fuels like natural gas, for instance, contain only very low boiling, gaseous components. Others such as gasoline or diesel contain much higher boiling components.

Terrestrial plants, on the other hand, tend to form coal and methane. Many of the coal fields date to the Carboniferous period of Earth's history. Terrestrial plants also form type III kerogen, a source of natural gas.

Importance[link]

A petrochemical refinery in Grangemouth, Scotland, UK

Fossil fuels are of great importance because they can be burned (oxidized to carbon dioxide and water), producing significant amounts of energy per unit weight. The use of coal as a fuel predates recorded history. Coal was used to run furnaces for the melting of metal ore. Semi-solid hydrocarbons from seeps were also burned in ancient times,^[9] but these materials were mostly used for waterproofing and embalming.^[10]

Commercial exploitation of petroleum, largely as a replacement for oils from animal sources (notably whale oil), for use in oil lamps began in the 19th century.^[11]

Natural gas, once flared-off as an unneeded byproduct of petroleum production, is now considered a very valuable resource.^[12]

Heavy crude oil, which is much more viscous than conventional crude oil, and tar sands, where bitumen is found mixed with sand and clay, are becoming more important as sources of fossil fuel.^[13] Oil shale and similar materials are sedimentary rocks containing kerogen, a complex mixture of high-molecular weight organic compounds, which yield synthetic crude oil when heated (pyrolyzed). These materials have yet to be exploited commercially.^[14] These fuels can be employed in internal combustion engines, fossil fuel power stations and other uses.

Prior to the latter half of the 18th century, windmills and watermills provided the energy needed for industry such as milling flour, sawing wood or pumping water, and burning wood or peat provided domestic heat. The widescale use of fossil fuels, coal at first and petroleum later, to fire steam engines enabled the Industrial Revolution. At the same time, gas lights using natural gas or coal gas were coming into wide use. The invention of the internal combustion engine and its use in automobiles and trucks greatly increased the demand for gasoline and diesel oil, both made from fossil fuels. Other forms of transportation, railways and aircraft, also required fossil fuels. The other major use for fossil fuels is in generating electricity and as feedstock for the petrochemical industry. Tar, a leftover of petroleum extraction, is used in construction of roads.

Reserves[link]

An oil well in the Gulf of Mexico

Levels of primary energy sources are the reserves in the ground. Flows are production. The most important part of primary energy sources are the carbon based fossil energy sources. Coal, oil, and natural gas provided 79.6% of primary energy production during 2002 (in million tonnes of oil equivalent (mtoe)) (34.9+23.5+21.2).

Levels (proved reserves) during 2005–2007

• Coal: 997,748 million short tonnes (905 billion metric tonnes),^[15] 4,416 billion barrels (702.1 km³) of oil equivalent
• Oil: 1,119 billion barrels (177.9 km³) to 1,317 billion barrels (209.4 km³)^[16]
• Natural gas: 6,183–6,381 trillion cubic feet (175–181 trillion cubic metres),^[16] 1,161 billion barrels (184.6×10^⁹ m³) of oil equivalent

Flows (daily production) during 2006

• Coal: 18,476,127 short tonnes (16,761,260 metric tonnes),^[17] 52,000,000 barrels (8,300,000 m³) of oil equivalent per day
• Oil: 84,000,000 barrels per day (13,400,000 m³/d)^[18]
• Natural gas: 104,435 billion cubic feet (2,963 billion cubic metres),^[19] 19,000,000 barrels (3,000,000 m³) of oil equivalent per day

Years of production left in the ground with the current proved reserves and flows above

• Coal: 148 years
• Oil: 43 years
• Natural gas: 61 years

Years of production left in the ground with the most optimistic proved reserve estimates (Oil & Gas Journal, World Oil)^{[citation needed]}

• Coal: 417 years
• Oil: 43 years
• Natural gas: 167 years

The calculation above assumes that the product could be produced at a constant level for that number of years and that all of the proved reserves could be recovered. In reality, consumption of all three resources has been increasing. While this suggests that the resource will be used up more quickly, in reality, the production curve is much more akin to a bell curve. At some point in time, the production of each resource within an area, country, or globally will reach a maximum value, after which, the production will decline until it reaches a point where is no longer economically feasible or physically possible to produce. See Hubbert peak theory for detail on this decline curve with regard to petroleum. Note also that proved reserve estimates do not include strategic reserves, which (globally) amount to 4.1 billion more barrels^{[citation needed]}.

The above discussion emphasizes worldwide energy balance. It is also valuable to understand the ratio of reserves to annual consumption (R/C) by region or country. For example, energy policy of the United Kingdom recognizes that Europe's R/C value is 3.0, very low by world standards, and exposes that region to energy vulnerability. Alternatives to fossil fuels are a subject of intense debate worldwide.

Limits and alternatives[link]

The principle of supply and demand suggests that as hydrocarbon supplies diminish, prices will rise. Therefore higher prices will lead to increased alternative, renewable energy supplies as previously uneconomic sources become sufficiently economical to exploit. Artificial gasolines and other renewable energy sources currently require more expensive production and processing technologies than conventional petroleum reserves, but may become economically viable in the near future. See Energy development. Different alternative sources of energy include nuclear, hydroelectric, solar, wind, and geothermal.

Environmental effects[link]

Global fossil carbon emission by fuel type, 1800–2007. Note: Carbon only represents 27% of the mass of CO₂

Even though the U.S. holds less than 5% of the world's population, due to large houses and private cars, the U.S. uses more than a quarter of the world's supply of fossil fuels.^[20] In the United States, more than 90% of greenhouse gas emissions come from the combustion of fossil fuels.^[21] Combustion of fossil fuels also produces other air pollutants, such as nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide, volatile organic compounds and heavy metals.

According to Environment Canada:

"The electricity sector is unique among industrial sectors in its very large contribution to emissions associated with nearly all air issues. Electricity generation produces a large share of Canadian nitrogen oxides and sulphur dioxide emissions, which contribute to smog and acid rain and the formation of fine particulate matter. It is the largest uncontrolled industrial source of mercury emissions in Canada. Fossil fuel-fired electric power plants also emit carbon dioxide, which may contribute to climate change. In addition, the sector has significant impacts on water and habitat and species. In particular, hydro dams and transmission lines have significant effects on water and biodiversity."^[22]

Carbon dioxide variations over the last 400,000 years, showing a rise since the industrial revolution.

According to U.S. Scientist Jerry Mahlman and USA Today: Mahlman, who crafted the IPCC language used to define levels of scientific certainty, says the new report will lay the blame at the feet of fossil fuels with "virtual certainty," meaning 99% sure. That's a significant jump from "likely," or 66% sure, in the group's last report in 2001, Mahlman says. His role in this year's effort involved spending two months reviewing the more than 1,600 pages of research that went into the new assessment.^[23]

Combustion of fossil fuels generates sulfuric, carbonic, and nitric acids, which fall to Earth as acid rain, impacting both natural areas and the built environment. Monuments and sculptures made from marble and limestone are particularly vulnerable, as the acids dissolve calcium carbonate.

Fossil fuels also contain radioactive materials, mainly uranium and thorium, which are released into the atmosphere. In 2000, about 12,000 tonnes of thorium and 5,000 tonnes of uranium were released worldwide from burning coal.^[24] It is estimated that during 1982, US coal burning released 155 times as much radioactivity into the atmosphere as the Three Mile Island incident.^[25]

Burning coal also generates large amounts of bottom ash and fly ash. These materials are used in a wide variety of applications, utilizing, for example, about 40% of the US production.^[26]

Harvesting, processing, and distributing fossil fuels can also create environmental concerns. Coal mining methods, particularly mountaintop removal and strip mining, have negative environmental impacts, and offshore oil drilling poses a hazard to aquatic organisms. Oil refineries also have negative environmental impacts, including air and water pollution. Transportation of coal requires the use of diesel-powered locomotives, while crude oil is typically transported by tanker ships, each of which requires the combustion of additional fossil fuels.

Environmental regulation uses a variety of approaches to limit these emissions, such as command-and-control (which mandates the amount of pollution or the technology used), economic incentives, or voluntary programs.

An example of such regulation in the USA is the "EPA is implementing policies to reduce airborne mercury emissions. Under regulations issued in 2005, coal-fired power plants will need to reduce their emissions by 70 percent by 2018.".^[27]

In economic terms, pollution from fossil fuels is regarded as a negative externality. Taxation is considered one way to make societal costs explicit, in order to 'internalize' the cost of pollution. This aims to make fossil fuels more expensive, thereby reducing their use and the amount of pollution associated with them, along with raising the funds necessary to counteract these factors.^{[citation needed]}

According to Rodman D. Griffin, “The burning of coal and oil have saved inestimable amounts of time and labor while substantially raising living standards around the world”.^[28] Although the use of fossil fuels may seem beneficial to our lives, this act is playing a role on global warming and it is said to be dangerous for the future.^[28]

See also[link]

	Energy portal
	Global warming portal

References[link]

External links[link]

Listen to this article (info/dl)

This audio file was created from a revision of the "Fossil fuel" article dated 2010-08-24, and does not reflect subsequent edits to the article. (Audio help)

More spoken articles

• "The Coming Energy Crisis?" – essay by James L. Williams of WTRG Economics and A. F. Alhajji of Ohio Northern University
• "Powering the Future" – Michael Parfit (National Geographic)
• "Federal Fossil Fuel Subsidies and Greenhouse Gas Emissions"
• Fossil Fuel Subsidies in Europe
• Oil companies hit by 'state' cyber attacks

Debate

• The Origin of Methane (and Oil) in the Crust of the Earth – Thomas Gold (Internet Archives)
• Abiotic theory debunked "fossil fuel" myth

Bill McKibben
Bill McKibben speaking at Rochester Institute of Technology
Born	William Ernest McKibben 1960 Palo Alto, California
Occupation	Environment activist and writer
Genres	Global warming, alternative energy, risks associated with human genetic engineering
Spouse(s)	Sue Halpern
Children	Sophie McKibben (b. 1993)
www.billmckibben.com

William Ernest "Bill" McKibben (born 1960)^[1] is an American environmentalist, author, and journalist who has written extensively on the impact of global warming. He is the Schumann Distinguished Scholar at Middlebury College.^[2] In 2010, the Boston Globe called him "probably the nation's leading environmentalist" ^[3] and Time magazine described him as "the world's best green journalist."^[4]

In 2009, he led the organization of 350.org, which organized what Foreign Policy magazine called "the largest ever global coordinated rally of any kind," with 5,200 simultaneous demonstrations in 181 countries. The magazine named him to its inaugural list^[5] of the 100 most important global thinkers, and MSN named him one of the dozen most influential men of 2009.^[6] In 2010, McKibben and 350.org conceived the 10/10/10 Global Work Party, which convened more than 7,000 events^[7] in 188 countries^[8] as he had told a large gathering at Warren Wilson College shortly before the event. In December 2010, 350.org coordinated a planet-scale art project, with many of the 20 works visible from satellites.^[9] In 2011 and 2012 he led the massive environmental fight against the proposed Keystone XL pipeline project ^[10] and spent three days in jail in Washington D.C. as leader of one of the largest civil disobedience actions in America for decades. ^[11]. Two weeks later he was inducted into the literature section of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. ^[12]

Early life[link]

McKibben grew up in suburban Lexington, Massachusetts, where he attended Lexington High School. As an undergraduate at Harvard University, he was president of The Harvard Crimson newspaper. Immediately after college he joined The New Yorker as a staff writer and wrote much of the Talk of the Town column from 1982 to early 1987. He quit the magazine when its longtime editor William Shawn was forced out of his job, and soon moved to the Adirondack Mountains of upstate New York.

Writing[link]

McKibben is a frequent contributor to various publications including The New York Times; The Atlantic; Harper's; Orion magazine; Mother Jones; The American Prospect; The New York Review of Books;Granta; National Geographic; Rolling Stone and Outside. He is also a board member at and contributor to Grist Magazine.

His first book, The End of Nature, was published in 1989 by Random House after being serialized in The New Yorker. It is regarded as the first book about climate change intended for a general audience, and has been printed in more than 20 languages. Several editions have come out in the United States, including an updated version published in 2006.

His next book, The Age of Missing Information, was published in 1992. It is an account of an experiment in which McKibben collected everything that came across the 100 channels of cable TV on the Fairfax, Virginia, system (at the time among the nation's largest) for a single day. He spent a year watching the 2,400 hours of videotape, and then compared it to a day spent on the mountaintop near his home. This book has been widely used in colleges and high schools and was reissued in a new edition in 2006.

Subsequent books include Hope, Human and Wild, about Curitiba, Brazil and Kerala, India, which he cites as examples of people living more lightly on the earth; The Comforting Whirlwind: God, Job, and the Scale of Creation, which is about the Book of Job and the environment; Maybe One, about human population; Long Distance: A Year of Living Strenuously, about a year spent training for endurance events at an elite level; and Enough, about what he sees as the existential dangers of genetic engineering and nanotechnology. Speaking about Long Distance at the Cambridge Forum, McKibben cited the work of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and Csikszentmihalyi's idea of "flow" relative to feelings he, McKibben, had had — "taking a break from saving the world", he joked — as he immersed in cross-country skiing competitions.^[13]

Wandering Home is about a long solo hiking trip from his current home in the mountains east of Lake Champlain in Ripton, Vermont, back to his longtime neighborhood of the Adirondacks. His book, Deep Economy: the Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future, published in March 2007, was a national bestseller. It addresses what the author sees as shortcomings of the growth economy and envisions a transition to more local-scale enterprise.

In the fall of 2007 he published, with the other members of his Step It Up team, Fight Global Warming Now, a handbook for activists trying to organize their local communities. In 2008 came The Bill McKibben Reader: Pieces from an Active Life, a collection of essays spanning his career. Also in 2008, the Library of America published "American Earth," an anthology of American environmental writing since Thoreau edited by McKibben.

In 2010 he published another national bestseller, Eaarth:Making a Life on a Tough New Planet, an account of the rapid onset of climate change. It was excerpted in Scientific American.^[14]

Environmental campaigns[link]

Step It Up[link]

Step It Up 2007 was a nationwide environmental campaign started by McKibben to demand action on global warming by the U.S. Congress.

In late summer 2006 he helped lead a five-day walk across Vermont to call for action on global warming that some newspaper accounts called the largest demonstration to date in America about climate change. Beginning in January 2007, he founded Step It Up 2007, which organized rallies in hundreds of American cities and towns on April 14, 2007 to demand that Congress enact curbs on carbon emissions by 80 percent by 2050. The campaign quickly won widespread support from a wide variety of environmental, student, and religious groups.

In August 2007 McKibben announced Step It Up 2, to take place November 3, 2007. In addition to the 80% by 2050 slogan from the first campaign, the second adds "10% [reduction of emissions] in three years ("Hit the Ground Running"), a moratorium on new coal-fired power plants, and a Green Jobs Corps to help fix homes and businesses so those targets can be met" (called "Green Jobs Now, and No New Coal").^[15]

350.org[link]

In the wake of Step It Up's achievements, the same team announced a new campaign in March 2008 called 350.org. The organizing effort, aimed at the entire globe, drew its name from climate scientist James E. Hansen's contention earlier that winter that any atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide (CO₂) above 350 parts per million was unsafe. "If humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed and to which life on Earth is adapted, paleoclimate evidence and ongoing climate change suggest that CO₂ will need to be reduced from its current 385 ppm to at most 350 ppm, but likely less than that." Hansen et al. stated in the Abstract to their paper.^[16]

350.org, which has offices and organizers in North America, Europe, Asia, Africa and South America, attempted to spread that 350 number in advance of international climate meetings in December 2009 in Copenhagen. It was widely covered in the media.^[17] On Oct. 24, 2009, it coordinated more than 5,200 demonstrations in 181 countries, and was widely lauded for its creative use of internet tools, with the website Critical Mass declaring that it was "one of the strongest examples of social media optimization the world has ever seen."^[18]

Subsequently the organization continued its work, with the Global Work Party on 10/10/10 (10 October 2010).

Keystone XL[link]

McKibben is the lead environmentalist against the proposed Canadian-U.S. Keystone XL pipeline project.^[19] He is active on projects having environmentally negative impacts around the world. In comparing the proposed Via Verde gas pipeline project to the Keystone XL oil pipeline project, McKibben said, "Around the world, the fossil-fuel industry is carrying out its last desperate attempt to avoid the arrival of renewable energy and to ensure the existence of its dirty fuels. They seem to be using their standard strategy in Puerto Rico as well: to act quickly and with a minimum amount of review before the opposition has time to organize and bring out the truth."^[20]

Awards[link]

McKibben has been awarded both a Guggenheim Fellowship (1993) and a Lyndhurst Fellowship. He won a Lannan Literary Award for nonfiction writing in 2000. In 2010, Utne Reader magazine listed McKibben as one of the "25 Visionaries Who Are Changing Your World."^[21] He has honorary degrees from Marlboro College, Colgate University, the State University of New York, Sterling College, Green Mountain College, Unity College, and Lebanon Valley College. In 2010 he won the Puffin/Nation Prize for Creative Citizenship for his work with 350.org^[22]

Personal life[link]

McKibben currently resides in Vermont with his wife, writer Sue Halpern. Their only child, a daughter named Sophie, was born in 1993 in Glens Falls, New York. He is a Schumann Distinguished Scholar at Middlebury College, where he also directs the Middlebury Fellowships in Environmental Journalism.^[23] McKibben is also a fellow at the Post Carbon Institute. McKibben is active in the Methodist Church, and his writing is sometimes spiritual in nature.^{[citation needed][clarification needed]}

Bibliography[link]

Books[link]

• The End of Nature (1989) ISBN 0-385-41604-0
• The Age of Missing Information (1992) ISBN 0-394-58933-5, challenges Marshall McLuhan's "global village" ideal and claims the standardization of life in electronic media is that of image and not substance, resulting in a loss of meaningful content in society
• Hope, Human and Wild: True Stories of Living Lightly on the Earth (1995) ISBN 0-316-56064-2
• Maybe One: A Personal and Environmental Argument for Single Child Families (1998) ISBN 0-684-85281-0
• Hundred Dollar Holiday (1998) ISBN 0-684-85595-X
• Long Distance: Testing the Limits of Body and Spirit in a Year of Living Strenuously (2001) ISBN 0-452-28270-5
• Enough: Staying Human in an Engineered Age (2003) ISBN 0-8050-7096-6
• Wandering Home (2005) ISBN 0-609-61073-2
• The Comforting Whirlwind : God, Job, and the Scale of Creation (2005) ISBN 1-56101-234-3
• Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future (2007) ISBN 0-8050-7626-3
  • Reviewed in Tim Flannery, "We're Living on Corn!" The New York Review of Books 54/11 (28 June 2007) : 26-28
• Fight Global Warming Now: The Handbook for Taking Action in Your Community (2007)
• The Bill McKibben Reader: Pieces from an Active Life (2008)
• American Earth: Environmental Writing Since Thoreau (edited) (2008)
• Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet (2010) ISBN 978-0-8050-9056-7
• The Global Warming Reader (OR Books, 2011) ISBN 978-1-935928-36-2

Articles[link]

• Breaking the Growth Habit in Scientific American April 2010
• McKibben, Bill (7 January 1985). "The Talk of the Town: An American Dilemma". The New Yorker 60 (47): 21.  Renaming of Sixth Avenue in Manhattan as 'Avenue of the Americas'.
• McKibben, Bill (14 January 1985). "The Talk of the Town: Notes and Comment". The New Yorker 60 (48): 23.  Friend whose prior military rank was inadvertently promoted by Geraldine Ferraro.
• McKibben, Bill (14 January 1985). "The Talk of the Town: Flowers". The New Yorker 60 (48): 28.  Textile designers Leslie Tillett and Brian Goodin.
• McKibben, Bill (28 January 1985). "The Talk of the Town: Up Front". The New Yorker 60 (50): 22–23.  Rolls Royce grille designer Tony Kent.

See also[link]

• Individual and political action on climate change

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Bill McKibben

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Bill McKibben

• Bill McKibben's Official Website
• Bill McKibben on "Earth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet" - video by Democracy Now!
• MNN.com review of 'Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet'
• Sept 1, 2010 appearance on David Letterman Show
• McKibben: Climate Talks Weakened by U.S., Major Polluters - video report by Democracy Now!
• Can China Go Green? No other country is investing so heavily in clean energy. But no other country burns as much coal to fuel its economy June 2011 National Geographic
• Bill McKibben on Charlie Rose
• Keystone: How Bill McKibben Turned a Pipeline into an Environmental Rallying Point March 5, 2012