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The Effects of Fossil Fuels
Using
fossil fuels involves the extraction of resources from the Earth. These
extractions disrupt many habitats such as the coastal and pristine wilderness.
When we burn these natural fuels only part of the their energy is actually
used, a lot of it is returned back to the atomosphere as heat plus it's
by products go into the atmosphere in the forms of carbon dioxide, sulfur
oxides, carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons, nitrogen oxides, and solid particles.
These disrupt the carbon cycle and the nitrogen oxides contrubute to acid
rain. Acid rain falls down to earth and can make soil acidic down to a
depth of three feet. This kills the plants roots and soon the plant will
die. Many forests have been destroyed do to acid rain.
| Important Fact |
| To generate energy at a power plant, fossil fuels needs three times as much than the amount of energy that reaches your home. |
The burning of fossil fuels result
for 75 percent of the human-made carbon dioxide that goes into our atomosphere
every year. Examples of these are the oil, coal, and natural gas heat which
are used as energy in airplanes, ships, trains trucks, buses and cars.
In 1988 there was 21.6 billion tons of carbon dioxide released into the
air through the burning of fossil fuels. The United States is the home
of the world's biggest vehicular fleet although they only account for 6%
of the world's population. This huge sum of vehicles accounts for 20% of
the fossil fuel carbon dioxide that was emitted in 1988. Imagine what the
figures are now.
They Could Mean the End
There are fossil fuels which are non-traditional, which we haven't been able to tap into. These are shale, and tar oils. These represent an enormous potential supply of energy, but these are dirty fuels, and if we were able to discover a way to tap them our climate would be devastated. There would be no hope to controlling it.
There is Hope for Fossil Fuels
It is possible however that we may be able to remove a large portion of the carbon dioxide from the gases which are let our from power plants like the ones that are by utilities and industries. However removing 50% would double the cost of electricity, and removing 90% will raise the cost for electricity six or seven times.
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