Fossil fuels

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Fossil fuels
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FOSSIL FUELS

• Carbon or hydrocarbons (a compound made of
  hydrogen and carbon) found in the earths crust
• Formed from the bacterial decay of plant and
  animal life in ancient (a few hundred million
  years ago) seas.
• The decomposing material was covered with mud and
  sediment
• This increased the pressure and temperature on
  the material and deprived it of oxygen.
• A variety of hydrocarbon molecules are created in
  solid, liquid and gas states.
• The gas and liquid could travel through the
  porous rock and collect in geological traps (rock
  features that prevent further movement of the
  hydrocarbons).

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Petroleum traps
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Why is there oil in Texas?
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A little history.

• 1859 Colonel Drake first drilled for oil and
  found it in Titusville, PA.
• Previous to this, the only oil known were surface
  springs.
• Other wells were drilled and the oil was refined
  into kerosene.
• Oil was soon found in Ohio, Indiana, California
  and Texas.

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What about Kentucky or Tennessee?
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Oil in KY

• Well that didnt really happen but there are oil
  fields in KY and TN!
• Largest in KY is Big Sinking, spanning Estille,
  Lee, Powell and Wolfe counties.

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Current KY oil reserves
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US Oil Reserves
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All good things must come to and end..

• It looks like there is a lot left, but it wont
  last very long.
• It takes about 11 years from the time an oil
  reserve is discovered until the oil reaches
  production.
• Also, the production of any energy resource has
  to be economically feasible it cant take more
  energy to get the energy produced than the energy
  itself produces.
• Q8 denotes the amount of a resource available for
  all time, until it is exhausted

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M.K. Hubbart The Nostradomus of petroleum

• Predicted Q8 to be 165 X 109 barrels of oil for
  the US in 1956, (this did not include Alaska).
• Much smaller value than his contemporaries and he
  predicted that US oil production would peak
  between 1966 and 1971 and then fall off,
  independent of anything the oil industry did.
• Not a popular prediction, but it rang true, US
  oil production peaked in 1970.

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Hubbart Curve
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Oil production around the world
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World Oil Production
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Petroleum From the ground to your gas tank

• What comes out of the ground is not immediately
  useful
• It has to be treated, or refined, to produce
  useful fuels
• First step is fractional distillation
• This process separates the various petroleum
  based products.

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Fractional Distillation

• The petroleum is heated to about 400 C which
  vaporizes it.
• The vapors are sent into a tower called a
  fractionating column. As they rise and cool
  different fuel products condense at different
  heights.

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Further treatments

• What comes out of the distillation process is not
  quite ready for use yet. It still needs to be
  modified.
• For example Gasoline needs octane added and tar
  needs heavy molecules removed from it.

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Treatment processes

• Thermal cracking The product is exposed to high
  temperatures and pressures which break heavy
  molecules into lighter ones.
• Catalytic conversion petroleum vapor is passed
  over a alumina-silicate mixture or clay which
  creates a chemical reaction and adds octane to
  the gas
• Polymerization light hydrocarbon molecules are
  joined and they produce heavier molecules.
  Natural gas is made into high octane fuels this
  way.

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Alkane Hydrocarbons

• You have heard these names before methane,
  ethane, propane, butane, pentane, hexne, heptane,
  octane.
• Methane and ethane are the main components of
  natural gas
• Propane and butane can be liquefied at fairly low
  pressures, and are well known as liquefied
  petroleum gas (LPG)
• Pentane, nexane, heptane and octane are
  volatile liquids. They are used as fuels in
  internal combustion engines, as they vaporize
  easily on entry into the combustion chamber
  without forming droplets, which would impair the
  uniformity of the combustion.

• Methane
• Carbon atom is black, H atom
• is white
• Ethane

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How long?

• Good site to look at is http//www.physics.emich.e
  du/ebehringer/FossilFuels/oil_simple.html

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Natural gas

• Used since the 6th century BCE in China and
  Japan. They used bamboo pipes to carry it to
  lights.
• For the most part, it was considered an annoying
  by product of petroleum exploration and was often
  burned off of oil wells.
• 1821 Fredonia, New York. A pipe provided NG to 30
  burners
• Development was slow due to the lack of pipeline
  infrastructure
• During and after WWII, its use became more
  widespread because it was inexpensive and
  pipelines were laid across the country.

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Uses

• Power plants gas turbines have a higher
  efficiency in converting the fuel to power than
  steam turbines (we will talk about these turbines
  later) . Plants are cheaper to build and more
  environmentally friendly.
• Transportation Use is growing, but limited by
  range (need to store the fuel in the vehicle
  under high pressure and there is not a widespread
  distribution system).