Energy and Human Ambitions on a Finite Planet, 2021a

8 Fossil Fuels 118
16
14
12
gas
2
TW
10
8
6
4
2
oil
coal
0
1800 1850 1900 1950 2000
year
kW/person
1
oil
coal
gas
0
1800 1850 1900 1950 2000
year
Figure 8.2: Historical use of fossil fuels
worldwide, which may be viewed as a zoomin
of the left-h<strong>and</strong> side of the peak in Figure
8.1. The three types are stacked on top of one
another, so that gas makes the smallest contribution,
not the biggest. On the left is the
raw usage rate expressed in terawatts, while
the right is a per-capita measure showing
that the left-h<strong>and</strong> rise is much more than
just a reflection of population growth [16].
Coal opened the door on the Industrial Revolution 11 in the late eighteenth
century, allowing locomotion (trains), mechanized manufacturing,
large-scale materials processing, <strong>and</strong> heating applications. Somewhat
circularly, the first major use of the steam engine 12 was to pump water
out of coal mines to accelerate the extraction of. . . coal. This fact further
highlights that from the very start, the Industrial Revolution was focused
on the fossil fuel resource that enabled it.
Today in the U.S., coal accounts for 13% of total energy consumption 13 13: Fig. 7.4 (p. 107)
—
down considerably from 23% in 2000. 14 For the world at large, coal still
accounts for 25% of primary energy use. 15 The vast majority of coal (91%)
in the U.S. goes to electricity production, the remainder fueling industrial
processes requiring lots of heat. The quality of coal varies greatly. Table
15: Fig. 7.7 (p. 109)
8.1 presents properties of the four main coal categories. Anthracite is the
king of coals, but has been largely consumed at this stage. Coal grades
having lower energy content contain more non-combustible materials 16
like SiO 2 ,Al 2 O 3 ,Fe 2 O 3 , <strong>and</strong> water.
11: . . . which history may rename the Fossil
Fuel Revolution
12: The first widely adopted steam engine
design is credited to James Watt, from whom
we get the name of our unit for power.
14: As discussed in Chapter 7, coal’s decline
in the U.S. is largely due to increased
reliance on natural gas for electricity.
16: . . . sometimes called “ash” content <strong>and</strong>
volatiles
Grade Carbon Content (%) <strong>Energy</strong> Density (kcal/g)
Anthracite 86–97 6–8
Bituminous 45–86 5.5–8
Sub-bituminous 35–45 4.5–6.5
Lignite 25–35 2.5–5
Table 8.1: Four classes for grades of coal,
in order of decreasing energy content <strong>and</strong>
value. Anthracite has been largely depleted
<strong>and</strong> is a rare find today. [39, 40]
8.2.2 Petroleum (Oil)
Petroleum—also called oil—is ubiquitous in our world as the source for
gasoline, diesel, kerosene, lubricating oils, tar/asphalt, <strong>and</strong> even most
© 2021 T. W. Murphy, Jr.; Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International Lic.;
Freely available at: https://escholarship.org/uc/energy_ambitions.