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Guide to Reading
Rocks are the natural energy resources for the essentials of modern life: electricity and fuel. The types of resources vary; this chapter presents an overview of several. Since you’ve had thirteen chapters’ worth of geology background, it’s assumed you already know the basic rock types, geologic structures, geologic time, and Earth history. Therefore this chapter needs to introduce few new concepts, but there are many new vocabulary words and a resulting long list of terms to be familiar with.
Your author begins with the energy resource modern society relies on most, fossil fuels (petroleum, natural gas, and coal). Foremost of these is petroleum (oil). To understand its diverse makeup, you learn some basic organic chemistry and the significance of the molecular size of hydrocarbons.
How does petroleum form and accumulate? You read about plankton; source rock and reservoir rock; the oil window; oil reserves, traps, and seals; and the relationship between natural gas and oil.
How do you find petroleum, get it out of the ground, and process it? Topics include seismic search methods, drilling wells on land and offshore, simple pumping methods (drill bits and drilling mud), secondary recovery techniques, and what happens to crude oil in the distillation column of a refinery.
A little history of the petroleum industry is included in this section. It’s colorful stuff, ranging from the days of Egyptian mummies to pioneer days in the United States. You are reminded that oil and money seem to go together. Rockefeller got and stayed rich because of oil, while many wildcatters have gotten rich but not always stayed rich because of the same stuff. Edwin Drake earned his place in history by drilling the first oil well ever, and Spindletop Hill in Texas is a legendary name in the oil industry.
When (not if) the world runs out of commercial quantities of oil, what are some possible hydrocarbonn alternatives? Your author discusses tar sands (oil sands), oil shale, natural gas,and gas hydrate.
Coal is another fossil fuel and the next-most-used energy resource. You read of its formation from swamp plant material and its sequence of development (peat, lignite, bituminous coal, and anthracite coal). How much does the world depend on coal for energy, can this situation change, and how wise is it to become more dependent on yet another fossil fuel? Topics included are economic coal seams, coal reserves, strip mining versus underground mining, the hazards of coal mining, and the potential environmental impact.
A few decades ago, when the world started to become concerned about the future availability of fossil fuels, nuclear power seemed to many people to be the answer. Why hasn’t it become the world’s chief energy source? You start with learning the difference between fission and fusion and which one is used in nuclear power plants. What are pitchblende, nuclear reactors, fuel rods, control rods, and chain reactions? Just how dangerous is nuclear energy? You read about critical mass and meltdown, and two well-known nuclear accidents that were totally different from each other, Chernobyl, in Russia, and Three Mile Island in the United States. Whether to continue using nuclear power has become a touchy societal issue. One of the chief concerns is, “What do we do with the nuclear wastes?”
The last part of the chapter is based on an opinion held by most experts in both science and industry: We have been living in a unique and very limited time in human history, the Oil Age. We are quickly running out of commercial quantities of oil and the end is in sight. Despite the fact oil (and coal, too) are forming in today’s world, this happens so slowly that from the human viewpoint they are nonrenewable resources. Your author gives you figures of current oil consumption, oil reserves, scientific estimates of when we’ll run out, and what our options are as that time approaches. There are basically two options: give up and accept a lower standard of living, or switch to alternative energy resources. Several of these alternative energy Earth resources are already being used, but not extensively. You read about geothermal energy, hydroelectric power, solar power, wind power, energy from biomass, and fuel cells.
There seems to be no perfect answer; each energy option has advantages and disadvantages in terms of efficiency, cost, political consequences, and environmental impact. But it does seem as though some choices must be made and some steps taken soon so that the Arabian saying doesn’t become reality: “My father rode a camel. I drive a car. My son rides in a jet airplane. His son will ride a camel.” |
