Fossil Fuels
Fossil fuels are a type of energy source that is used 90% worldwide these days. Fossil fuels are in three different forms: oil, coal, and natural gas. We started to use fossil fuels because first of all it was easy to find and we figured out that they give heat and light when they are ignited, then we started to find new ways to use it such as converting it to other energies and that it can be used to make other things such as fabric. Fossil fuels are being very useful source since the 1800s, but even though fossil fuel is very useful and has lots of advantages it also has disadvantages. How are fossil fuels are created and to make electricity.
Fossil fuels are non-renewable energy sources. Fossil fuels were created in the Paleozoic Era, during the Carboniferous Period. Fossil fuels were formed by dead plants or animals, when they died they sank to the bottom of swamps, forming layers, which are called peat. Over hundreds, thousands, millions of years, the peat was covered by different types of minerals, sand, soil, rocks, etc then which turned the peat into a rock called, sedimentary. As years passed by more dirt, sand, soil, rocks etc piled on top of the sedimentary, and the layers above the sedimentary started to get heavier and heavier since new layers were made. Eventually, it got very heavy and they started to press down the peat, then the water came out of it and over long periods of times it became coal, oil, and natural gas. Since, the fossil fuels were created in layers of other minerals, to find it you have to dig in deep in the ground to find it.
This is a diagram how the Paleozoic era might have looked since no one knows how the exact Paleozoic era looked like because no one has gone to the past and seen it. But these trees and the grass of this forest would eventually die and get drowned and get stacked underground until millions of years pass and you find these and use it as fossil fuels.
Fossil fuels can be used in different ways, and one of the most commonly used ways is to create electricity, and more than 90% of world’s electricity is produced from fossil fuels. But since it is very useful and has lots of advantage it also has disadvantages. Advantages are that fossil fuels are easy to find and when it is used it can last long and it is easy to convert to other type of energies and that it is easy to make huge amounts of electricity in a single location. Fossil fuels also have disadvantages and they are that we have limits of fossil fuels and it runs out quickly and it causes lots of pollution such as, when it burned it creates different type of chemicals but especially nitrous oxide and sulfur dioxide. These two types of gases would float up to the atmosphere and it allows them to stay up there for more than 100 of years which cause greenhouse effect or when it rains it could rain acid rain.
To create electricity using fossil fuels is very simple. But to ignite the fossil fuels better it’s better that not a lot of time has passed since you dug it so you could use pipes to send them quickly or when you find a location with a lot of fossil fuels putting a power plant near the field be a way to move the fossil fuels faster. This shows how fossil fuels are used to create electricity by using burning coals. First the coal gets ignited and boils the water, steam is created from boiling water and the steam travels through the pipes and the steam starts to turn the turbine which activated the generator and creates electricity.
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