Fossil Fuels

1. Fossil Fuels By Aqsa Hussain, Megan Tarr, Ella Agyeman

2. What are Fossil Fuels. • Fossil fuels are natural substances made by remains of ancient plants and animals that lived a million years ago. • We find coal, oil and natural gas inside rocks. They are all fuels because when they burn they release lots of energy. • A Fossil is the dead remains of an animal or plant preserved in a rock.

3. Why are Fossil Fuels important. • In our modern lifestyle we need a lot of energy , of which is mostly Fossil fuel. • The petrol and we use in cars and buses are made from crude oil. • We burn oil, coal and natural gas for central heating which Power stations in Britain use to make electricity for our homes.

4. What is in fossil fuels? • Coal, crude oil and natural gas are each mixtures made up of different substances, and many of these are hydrocarbons. • Natural gas contains a lot of methane. Each methane molecule has one carbon atom and four hydrogen atoms.The formula for methane is CH4. • Crude oil contains lots of different hydrocarbons.

5. The End of Fossil Fuels. The End Of Fossil Fuels • Fossil fuels, as the name suggests, are very old. North Sea oil deposits are around 150 million years old, whilst much of Britain’s coal began to form over 300 million years ago. Although humans probably used fossil fuels in ancient times, as far back as the Iron Age1, it was the Industrial Revolution that led to their wide-scale extraction. • And in the very short period of time since then – just over 200 years – we’ve consumed an incredible amount of them, leaving fossil fuels all but gone and the climate seriously impacted. • Fossil fuels are an incredibly dense form of energy, and they took millions of years to become so. And when they’re gone, they’re gone pretty much forever. It’s only a matter of time • Clearly fossil fuel reserves are finite - it's only a matter of when they run out - not if. Globally - every year we currently consume the equivalent of over 11 billion tonnes of oil in fossil fuels

6. Power Stations • Many power stations around the world still use coal to heat water to make steam to power the turbines that generate electricity. • About 35% of the UK’s electricity is still generated from coal and the largest coal-fired power station in Europe is Drax in Yorkshire. • It produces 4,000 megawatts of electricity – enough to supply electricity to 4 million homes. As well as being an important strategic national asset, Drax is also vital to the local economy. Drax power station employs some 625 people and supports many other local jobs indirectly. • It is also a major customer for the UK's remaining coal mines.

7. How do you get Fossil Fuels. • To make oil and gas there must be the remains of microscopic creatures that lived in the water column, like plankton. These will fall to the ocean bed. This will only happen if there I s no oxygen to break them down of no sea-floor creature that might eat them. Also, if there is too much sediment accumulation it might bury the creatures before they start to decay. • If these circumstances are right they will then be exposed to heat and pressure which will begin to make oil and gas. To get the oil and gas out the rock cannot be overcooked, there must be good reservoir rook like sandstone, there must be good cap-rock like clay and the reservoir and cap- rocks should be folded. • This will preserve the hydrocarbons

8. Thank You For Reading!