Oil and coal, as the modern day person knows them today, appear to be vastly different from one another, not only by the means in the ways required to extract either energy sources, but in the way that it functions and how it can be used as energy. However, both of these energy sources do have their similarities, and one of which is their revolutionizing characteristics that transformed their eras and toward present-day times. Coal may have been bulky and required to burn much more of itself in order to travel long distances than was required of oil, but navigation over waters and over land drastically changed in the creation of the steamship and the railway because of the rise of this energy source. Conversely, oil, as aforementioned, did …show more content…
While gasoline is widely used for automobiles, to use this fuel for other types of transportation such as that of long-distance travel would not be as beneficial as diesel due not only to the price of gasoline, which is much more expensive than diesel, but its energy content is also lesser than that of diesel and not as plentiful. Diesel engines are also much more efficient than gasoline engines due to the way these engines are built and function. Conversely, as aforementioned, coal based ships and vessels were much more troublesome than oil-based vessels. Coal ships required larger crews than those on an oil based ship, which can be composed of only 18 people, while crews on coal ships were much larger as the ship required one set of workers that would continually be shovelling and burning coal while also having another crew who would take care of the rest of the ship’s functions. Furthermore, while coal-based vessels required having coaling systems in specific strategic places, diesel engines could instead refuel at sea and not as often as coal due to its fuel having a much higher energy content and was therefore much more efficient. With the introduction of the diesel engine came longer distances of travel to bring goods and raw materials across the sea or the air and making ocean shipping the cheapest of long distance transportations of goods, primarily because the kind of oil used in shipping ocean vessels is the cheapest kind found and is also the dirtiest of
Initially, charcoal and wood were used a fuel source, but as those resources became scarce, coal became a necessity. As shown in Document 1, England was fortunate enough to have a readily available coal supply that other countries in Europe were not able to have. As England became industrialized, more coal was needed to fuel steam engines and furnaces. The development of factories and the improvement of the steam engine also increased the demand for coal. As a result, coal mines that were once mined at the surface, now got deeper and deeper, and there was too much water to safely get more coal. When the Newcomen engine was put into use at the coal mines, coal was put into the steam engine to pump more coal out. Similarly almost every other piece of technology in that time period used coal as the main fuel source so the need for coal skyrocketed. Document 4 explains how England had the natural conditions necessary to succeed such as coal, which is a major reason the Industrial Revolution started in England and not in any other
We want instant gratification and coal fits the bill. I noted in my book review of Crude World that Peter Maass didn’t present a balanced picture of the oil industry; it was all bad. He was intended to highlight the negative aspect of our oil dependency. Big Coal is the same in that respect. It is hard to argue that coal hasn’t improved the lives of a great many people around the world, and we know a number of people who would argue that these improvements outweigh the negatives. Further, it is fair to say that the coal industry has come a long way in cleaning up their emission profile over the past few
Coal discovery dates to the 1300s with the Hopi Natives. This would prove significant some five hundred years later when coal became the predominant source of power in the mid to late 1800s. This would prove even more significant when the Government started surveying the landscape for the best route for the Transcontinental Railroad in 1853. Upon completion of the research, one thing the scouts made clear was the presence of coal in Wyoming and some of the western states. To run supplies from the eastern states to the west they needed the presence of coal to be close and readily available for the coal fueled trains. This played a major role in the industrial revolution the United States was about the experience.
The pollution is leaving our footprint rate out of control! Knowing that they have gotten rid of all the coal generators is a big reduction of the ecological footprint. Without the generators burning off the coal, the pollution will stay at a lower rate causing the footprint to decrease. It is more sustainable now than before because our city doesn't have to worry about trying to maintain the pollution levels as much as we used to and we can focus on more of the major projects.
The use of coal which is most common today started in the 700’s CE and it is the use of coal as an energy source. Though not officially used as a heat source until the 1100’s CE, many methods of burning it for protective smoke were used. While the use of coal for heat was cheaper than wood, the side effects of it shortly began to show. As the mass used of coal came to be, the price of it rose sharply as up to ½ of lower class family wages were used only for the minimal amount of coal needed to survive harsh cold months. London also grew dependent on coal and many signs were showing just why this statement was true. The coal smoke smudged the city and thick black clouds could be seen from miles away surrounding London. These plus other negative effects of coal explains how the misuse of coal led to more negative occurrences than positive and beneficial use it gave.
Different types of fossil fuels that were consumed were products such as Coal, Natural Gas, and conventional crude oil, the use of these different types of fossil fuels provided consumers with energy to complete their everyday living. It is important to know the advantages and disadvantages of Fossil fuels, some advantages would be; as of right now fossil fuels are readily available for use and there are about 100 trillion barrels of oil to still be mined (Coté, Michael 1). Another advantage is that they are very energy efficient; this means that they can produce large amounts of energy while using little of them. The last advantage is that they generate thousands of jobs for Canadians which helps with the way our economy is shaped, without oil, there would be thousands of people either unemployed or scouting for jobs that they qualify for. A disadvantage of fossil fuels can be that there are huge amounts of pollution entering the air and atmosphere every day, which is now having effects on the polar ice cap that is now melting because the earth’s average temperatures are changing every day. The pollution that comes with fossil fuels is having huge medical effects of our countries. Another disadvantage is that when there is an oil spill it is a huge disaster, when the trucks are travelling along the highway they can crash, which can lead to oil spilling all over the road, which is money lost for the government as well. When oil is being transported underground or in the ocean, if there is a leak it can do great damage to all of its surroundings such as, pollute the wildlife around it, pollute the waters of the ocean, but since oil always separates from water it sits on top of the ocean, which can provide an easier disinfection of the waters. If oil is spilt on the road it make’s a huge mess for people to clean because crude oil is not something that can be easily cleaned (Coté,
Coal was used for just about everything. It was used for the iron and steel industry, for steam powered transportation, and, of course, for home heating in coal furnaces and in stoves. It was seemingly the major fuel for industry. Coal was increasingly abundant in the mountains from West Virginia to Alabama. The production of coal rose from five million tons to fifty million tons in the twenty five years between 1875 and1900.
It is no secret that oil has revolutionized the way we live in our world. Its importance was birthed during the nineteenth century with the invention of the incandescent lamp, using oil as a source of lighting. At the same time, however, the internal combustion engine revolutionized transportation in peace and war. Henry Ford and other early automobile manufacturers became the new heroes, and Winston Churchill ordered the British navy to turn from coal to oil just in time for the outbreak of World War I. The navy played only a secondary part in the war, but another of Churchill’s favorite, the tank, was a key element in breaking through the trenches of uninhabited land. There were far more horses than trucks in combat when the fighting began
What is Pollution? Pollution is the introduction of contaminants into the natural environment that cause adverse change. Pollution can be in forms of chemical substances, such as heat noise or light. What are pollutants? A pollutant is a substance that pollutes something, especially water or the atmosphere. How is coal related to pollution? Coal is related to pollution in two ways . . . the first one is by CO2 emissions that absorb ultraviolet rays from the sun which causes temperatures to rise, the second one is causing pollution because when it’s being mined it’s destroying public land and mountains. The CO2 emissions are caused by the chemicals in the coal. Coal is made up of mostly Carbon but also has many traces of Sulfur, Nitrogen, Hydrogen,
Coal has been around for 250 million years, but only has been used since the 1800’s first by trains and now for energy all around the world and many other things that people couldn't think of! Coal is a combustible sedimentary organic rock which is composed of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen. It is formed from vegetation which has been consolidated between two other rock strata and altered by the combined effects of pressure and heat over millions of years to form coal seams. There are over 174,000 jobs in the U.S associated with coal and 83,000 of them are mining jobs, Coal miners have found many ways to extract coal from the ground which includes, surface mining, longwall mining, room and pillar mining, and underground mining. “Surface
The Industrial Revolution created a society and energy consumption based on coal. However, in a more traditional society, natural gas has been obtained through oil drilling. While
1 What is coal? Coal is a substance we consider today a fossil fuel, created from all the dead plants millions of years ago. Coal is formed from prehistoric plants that when they die are not able to release the energy they built up from photosynthesis Typically the plants had fallen into large swamps and bogs, and then over time the dead plants lying on the bottom of the swamps and bogs were slowly covered with other dead plants and sediment build-up. Once buried the plants were subjected to high amounts of pressure and temperatures, which over long periods of time it becomes peat then eventually creates coal. We refer to coal as a “fossil fuel” today because it is created from prehistoric plants and the coal we have today has been millions of years since it was in plant form. Today we coal is still being created we just don’t fully recognize it because how long the process actually takes.
To begin, coal is a combustible black rock which consist mainly is carbonized plant matter, and it found mostly in underground deposits and it is widely used for fuel. As time went on we could see the advantages of coal however, gradually we could see the disadvantages. One advantage of coal is that I can easily burn therefore making it easier to produce more quick energy. Another advantage would be that coal energy is affordable due to its stable price unlike other different energy producers. However, on the opposite side there are many disadvantages. For one, coal energy is depleting rapidly because many people consume large amounts of it daily. Also, the process in which it is obtained is very dangerous. Situations like cave-ins and explosion could and have occurred while men were mining.
According to Waters (2010) water transport has not been used to it’s full potential therefore there has been a decline in sea transport, this is due to the lack of proper terminals. But according to Harrison & Fichtinger (2013) containerised ocean transport has become the lifeline of nearly all global supply chain, because of the increased amount of global processes, outsourcing and offshoring. Mason & Nair (2013) states that today, there are more than 80% of world trade by sea, such as raw materials and manufacturing outputs are carried inter-regionally around the globe.
This paper will discuss the three main fossil fuels which are oil, coal, and natural gas. This research shows how the fossil fuels are formed, where they could be found, and explain how they were formed over millions of years. This paper will show the numerous advantages of fossil fuels compared to the disadvantages and how they are hurting the Earth. Fossils fuels are critical to the function of everyday life. The world would be a different if fossil fuels and their uses were not to of use.