ABC of Carbon Weekly Blog - F is for Fossil Fuels

Where do fossil fuels come from? Peter Doherty has the answer in A light history of hot air: 'Most of the enormous energy store originated in the small ocean organisms and the trees and ferns of the cretaceous period that occurred something like 360 million years ago'. These ancient seabeds, forests and marshlands, with a lot of help from volcanic activity, shifting of tectonic plates and anaerobic bacteria (without oxygen), formed fossilised hydrocarbons - coal, oil an natural gas. In his book How to live a low-carbon life, Chris Goodall devotes a chapter to 'the extraordinary cheapness of fossil fuels'. He says 'fossil fuel energy is so cheap and so convenient that its use permeates every aspect of our lives.' And we can expect the world will stay hooked on fossil fuels for a long time, based on the projections of the International Energy Agency in its latest World Energy Outlook released 8 November 2007. In a summary of the report: 'The world's primary energy needs are projected to grow by 55% between 2005 and 2030, at an avaergae annual rate of 1.8% per year. Demand reaches 17.7 billion tonnes of oil equivalent, compared with the 11.4 billion tonnes in 2005. Fossil fuels remain the dominant source of primary energy, accounting for 84% of the overall increase in demand between 2005 and 2030. Oil remains the single largest fuel, though its share in global demand falls from 35% to 32%. Oil demand reaches 116 million barrels per day in 2030. In line with the spectacular growth of the past few years, coal sees the biggest increase in demand in absolute terms, jumping by 73% between 2005 and 2030 and pushing its share if total energy demand up from 25% to 28%. The share of natural gas increase more modestly, from 21% to 22%. Electricity use doubles, its share of final energy consumption rising from 17% to 22%'. The US Department of Energy confirms that fossil fuels - coal, oil and natural gas - currently provide more than 85% of all the energy consumed in the US. The nation's reliance on fossil fuels will actually increase over at least the next two decades.