Fossil fuel

• 1. Introduction

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  In 2023, fossil fuels supplied 77% of the world's primary energy consumption and more than 60% of its electricity. Coal, petroleum and natural gas are not manufactured. They are dug up. Each one is the buried remains of prehistoric animals, plants and microplanktons, pressed and heated inside the Earth's crust until they became flammable carbon. The strange part is the timescale. The conversion from dead organism to high-carbon fuel typically takes millions of years. We are burning, in a few generations, what the planet spent geological ages assembling. How do dead plankton become petroleum? Why does the same flame that powered the Industrial Revolution now sit at the center of a climate crisis? And what happens to an economy that is heavily integrated with, and heavily subsidized toward, a resource it has decided to phase out?

• 2. From Plankton To Petroleum

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  Aquatic phytoplankton and zooplankton, dying and settling in large quantities under anoxic conditions, began the process millions of years ago. Their anaerobic decomposition is the origin of petroleum and natural gas. Buried under heavy layers of inorganic sediment and mixed with mud, this organic matter met rising temperature and pressure.

  The organic material first becomes a waxy substance called kerogen, the same material found in oil shales. With more heat, kerogen converts into liquid and gaseous hydrocarbons through a process known as catagenesis. Despite all these heat-driven transformations, the energy released when the fuel finally burns is still photosynthetic in origin.

  Terrestrial plants follow a different path, tending to form coal and methane, and producing type III kerogen as a source of natural gas. Many of the world's coal fields date to the Carboniferous period of Earth's history. Because known viable reserves are being depleted far faster than new ones are generated, fossil fuels are classified as non-renewable resources, even though natural processes still form them.

• 3. Naming The Buried Fuel

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  The idea that fossil fuels formed from the fossilized remains of dead plants, cooked by heat and pressure over millions of years, was first introduced by Andreas Libavius in his 1597 Alchemia. Mikhail Lomonosov advanced the same theory as early as 1757, and certainly by 1763.

  The term "fossil fuel" itself first appears in the work of the German chemist Caspar Neumann, in an English translation dated 1759. The word "fossil" carried an older meaning than the one we use today. The Oxford English Dictionary records that in this phrase, "fossil" means obtained by digging, found buried in the earth, a sense dating to at least 1652. Only in the early 18th century did the English noun "fossil" come to refer primarily to long-dead organisms.

• 4. The Engine Of Industry

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  The use of peat as a domestic fuel predates recorded history. Coal was burned in some early furnaces to smelt metal ore, while semi-solid hydrocarbons from oil seeps were burned in ancient times, mostly for waterproofing and embalming. Commercial exploitation of petroleum did not begin until the 19th century.

  Before the latter half of the 18th century, windmills and watermills milled flour, sawed wood and pumped water, while burning wood or peat heated homes. The wide-scale use of fossil fuels, coal first and petroleum later, in steam engines enabled the Industrial Revolution. Gas lights running on natural gas or coal gas came into wide use at the same time.

  The internal combustion engine, placed inside automobiles and trucks, sharply increased demand for gasoline and diesel oil. Railways and aircraft require fossil fuels too. Tar, a leftover of petroleum extraction, goes into the construction of roads. Natural gas, once flared off as an unneeded byproduct of petroleum production, is now a very valuable resource and the main source of helium.

  The Green Revolution ran on fossil fuels as well, in the form of natural gas fertilizers, oil-based pesticides and hydrocarbon-fueled irrigation. Synthetic nitrogen fertilizer has significantly supported global population growth. It has been estimated that almost half of the Earth's population is currently fed as a result of its use. As the head of a fertilizers commodity price agency put it, "50% of the world's food relies on fertilisers."

• 5. The Hidden Costs

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  Over 70% of human-caused greenhouse gas emissions in 2022 was carbon dioxide released from burning fossil fuels. Natural carbon cycle processes, mostly absorption by the ocean, can remove only a small part of this. Deforestation, land degradation and desertification reduce terrestrial vegetation and compound the deficiency, leaving a net increase of many billion tonnes in the atmosphere each year.

  Combustion of fossil fuels generates sulfuric and nitric acids, which fall as acid rain on both natural areas and the built environment. Monuments and sculptures made from marble and limestone are especially vulnerable, because the acids dissolve calcium carbonate. Burning coal, and to a lesser extent oil, also feeds atmospheric particulate matter and smog.

  Fossil fuels carry radioactive materials, mainly uranium and thorium, which are released into the air. In the year 2000, burning coal released about 12,000 tonnes of thorium and 5,000 tonnes of uranium worldwide. During 1982, US coal burning is estimated to have released 155 times as much radioactivity as the Three Mile Island accident.

  Beyond combustion, harvesting and distribution take their own toll. Mountaintop removal and strip mining damage the land, offshore oil drilling threatens aquatic organisms, and wells can leak methane through fugitive gas emissions. Air pollution from fossil fuels in 2018 has been estimated to cost US$2.9 trillion, or 3.3% of global GDP.

• 6. Counting The Dead

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  Particulates and other air pollution from fossil fuel combustion cause illness and death when inhaled. The health effects include premature death, acute respiratory illness, aggravated asthma, chronic bronchitis and decreased lung function. The poor, the undernourished, the very young, the very old and those with preexisting respiratory disease face the highest risk.

  Estimates of global air pollution deaths from fossil fuels have climbed across studies: over 8 million people in 2018, nearly 1 in 5 deaths worldwide, then 10.2 million in 2019, and 5.13 million excess deaths from ambient air pollution from fossil fuel use in 2023.

  Death rates per terawatt-hour in the EU expose the gap between sources. Coal causes 24.6 deaths per TWh, oil 18.4, and natural gas 2.8, while biomass causes 4.6. Hydropower, by contrast, causes 0.02, nuclear energy 0.07, wind 0.04 and solar 0.02. Coal's greenhouse gas emissions reach 820 thousand tonnes per TWh, against just 3 for nuclear and 4 for wind. Scientists propose that 1.8 million lives have been saved by replacing fossil fuel sources with nuclear power.

• 7. When Fuel Drives Prices

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  Fossilflation is the term for the impact of fossil fuels on inflation. Mark Zandi of Moody's says that fossil fuel prices have driven every big episode of inflation since World War II. According to Vox in August 2022, economists have pointed to energy prices as the main reason for high inflation, noting that they indirectly affect virtually every part of the economy.

  The economic impact of the Russian Invasion of Ukraine in 2022 was a major recent example of fossil fuels causing inflation. Some economists, including Isabel Schnabel, believe that dependence on fossil fuels is the main driver of the 2021 to 2022 inflation spike. Transportation, food and shipping are among the sectors that raise prices sharply when fossil fuel prices rise.

  Gernot Wagner argues that commodities make undesirable energy sources because they are prone to volatile price swings that technologies like renewable energy avoid, and that technologies grow relatively cheaper over time. The Inflation Reduction Act aims to make the United States less dependent on fossil fuels and their ability to cause inflation. Moody's estimates that by 2030 the bill could cut a typical American household's energy spending by more than $300 each year, measured in 2022 dollars.

• 8. The Long Goodbye

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  In 2021, the International Energy Agency concluded that no new fossil fuel extraction projects could be opened if the world wants to avoid the worst effects of climate change and meet international goals for mitigation. Because the industry is heavily integrated into the global economy and heavily subsidized, ending its use is expected to carry significant economic consequences.

  Many stakeholders argue the change must be a just transition, with policy that addresses the societal burdens created by the stranded assets of the fossil fuel industry. International frameworks aim to guide it: the United Nations' sustainable development goals for affordable and clean energy and for climate action, alongside the Paris Climate Agreement.

  The momentum is not uniform. In December 2020, a United Nations report said various governments were doubling down on fossil fuels, in some cases diverting over 50% of their COVID-19 recovery stimulus toward fossil fuel production rather than alternative energy. UN secretary general António Guterres declared, "Humanity is waging war on nature. This is suicidal. Nature always strikes back, and it is already doing so with growing force and fury." He still saw cause for hope, pointing to the US plan to join large emitters like China and the EU in targeting net zero emissions by 2050.

  The market, meanwhile, has not turned away all at once. In 2019, Saudi Aramco was listed and reached a US$2 trillion valuation on its second day of trading, after the world's largest initial public offering.