Fossil Fuels What is a Fossil Fuel?

Fossil Fuels Energy sources formed from the remains of once living organisms. Oil, coal, natural gas, oil shale, tar sands. Also known as hydrocarbons.

Recipe for Oil/Natural Gas Formation 1. Ingredients Large accumulation of organic matter, marine microorganisms (dinoflagellates) Where will we get these conditions today?-Continental shelves-Texas, Louisiana, offshore California, Gulf of Mexico, Alaska??

Continental Shelf

2. Mixing Instructions Buried rapidly in anaerobic conditions. What does anaerobic mean? without oxygen Why is this important? reduces decomposition by bacteria

3. Baking Instructions Heat and pressure to cook the mixture. How much? As depth increases we get more natural gas and less oil in the oil trap. Time- How long? Youngest rocks that oil has been extracted from is 1-2 million years old. Oldest 1.5 billion until now, may find older deposits, but not in great quantities.

Oil Traps Oil traps: Must be porous and permeable to become a reservoir rock. Structural traps- Rock layers have been changed or deformed in such a way as to provide a collection site for the crude oil (domes folds and faults) Stratigraphic traps-Layers of rock that contain oil due to their shape. (Lenses, unconformities)

Structural Traps

Oil Recovery Primary recovery- minimal pumping, sometimes a gusher. Gushers are rare occurrences. Today Rotary drills 10,000m or 10 Km(30,000 ft-->6 miles)

Secondary Recovery Water injected into one well forces oil towards another and then is pumped out. Primary and Secondary methods remove about 33% of the oil from a deposit.

Tertiary Recovery Steam or Carbon dioxide, or chemical injection into the well instead of water allows another 10% of the oil to be removed. Rarely done because it is costly.

Pumpjacks

Oil removal through fracking

Proved reserves (billion barrels) Greatest Oil Reserves by Country, 2006 Rank Country Proved reserves (billion barrels) 1. Saudi Arabia 264.3 2. Canada 178.8 3. Iran 132.5 4. Iraq 115.0 5. Kuwait 101.5 6. United Arab Emirates 97.8 7. Venezuela 79.7 8. Russia 60.0 9. Libya 39.1 10. Nigeria 35.9 11. United States 21.4 12. China 18.3 13. Qatar 15.2 14. Mexico 12.9 15. Algeria 11.4 16. Brazil 11.2 17. Kazakhstan 9.0 18. Norway 7.7 19. Azerbaijan 7.0 20. India 5.8   Top 20 countries 90.2 Rest of world 68.1 World total 1,292.5 NOTES: Proved reserves are estimated with reasonable certainty to be recoverable with present technology and prices. Source: Oil & Gas Journal, Vol. 103, No. 47 (Dec. 19, 2005). From: U.S. Energy Information Administration. http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/international/petroleu.html .

Oil Consumption Resource measured in barrels (bls) = 42 gallons 400 billion barrels of oil consumed since beginning to use oil 1/2 of this was used just in the decade of the 70’s. Reserves of approximately 700 billion barrels of oil (1985) Resources unevenly distributed U.S. consumes about 5.5 billion barrels a year.

Global Oil Consumption Global Oil Demand: 75 million barrels/day U.S.: (2005) 20.6 million barrels/day 18.6(2012) U.S. Imports: 12.2 million barrels/day U. S. Household 4.0 gallons/day Strategic Reserves 570 million barrels stored (60 day supply) China: 7 million barrels/day 10.3 (in 2012) We have approximately 5% of global population but use approximately 25% of world oil