Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Fossil fuel divestment or fossil fuel divestment and investment in climate solutions is an attempt to reduce climate change by exerting social, political, and economic pressure for the institutional divestment of assets including stocks, bonds, and other financial instruments connected to companies involved in extracting fossil fuels.
Sankey diagram for the United States 2016 shows that 66.4% of primary energy ends up as waste heat. Where primary energy is used to describe fossil fuels, the embodied energy of the fuel is available as thermal energy and around two thirds is typically lost in conversion to electrical or mechanical energy. There are very much less significant ...
Natural gas (also called fossil gas, methane gas, or simply gas) is a naturally occurring mixture of gaseous hydrocarbons consisting primarily of methane (95%) [1] in addition to various smaller amounts of other higher alkanes. Traces of carbon dioxide, nitrogen, hydrogen sulfide, and helium are also usually present. [2]
A fossil fuel power station is a thermal power station which burns a fossil fuel, such as coal, oil, or natural gas, to produce electricity. Fossil fuel power stations have machinery to convert the heat energy of combustion into mechanical energy , which then operates an electrical generator .
Commonly, the term fossil fuel also includes hydrocarbon-containing natural resources that are not derived entirely from biological sources, such as tar sands. These latter sources are properly known as mineral fuels. Fossil fuels contain high percentages of carbon and include coal, petroleum, and natural gas. [12]
A non-renewable resource (also called a finite resource) is a natural resource that cannot be readily replaced by natural means at a pace quick enough to keep up with consumption. [1] An example is carbon-based fossil fuels. The original organic matter, with the aid of heat and pressure, becomes a fuel such as oil or gas.
Fossil fuels do not originate from dinosaur fossils. Petroleum is formed when algae and zooplankton die and sink in anoxic conditions to be buried on the ocean floor without being decomposed by aerobic bacteria, and only a tiny amount of the world's deposits of coal contain dinosaur fossils; the vast majority of coal is fossilized plant matter.
An energy transition is a broad shift in technologies and behaviours that are needed to replace one source of energy with another. [14]: 202–203 A prime example is the change from a pre-industrial system relying on traditional biomass, wind, water and muscle power to an industrial system characterized by pervasive mechanization, steam power and the use of coal.