Fossil Fuels are predominately hydrocarbon material formed from plant material over geological time under heat and pressure. Examples include coal and oil and their derived products of petroleum or gasoline. A lot of coal comes from West Virginia, Wyoming and Pennsylvania. A lot of oil comes from the Middle East and Venezuela. The United States has many oil reserves that remain untapped due to interference from environmentalists.
- "We owe our industrial society and elevated standard of living to fossil fuels." [1]
Uses
Fossil fuels are used in the production of plastic, and burned as fuel or for heat.
Downsides
Fossil fuels have been criticized as producing a lot of pollution, including sulfur dioxide (from small amounts of organic sulfur compounds), which sometimes produces acid rain, and carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas.
Finite Resource?
Because of the long time period required for fossil fuels to be produced in nature, fossil fuels are a finite resource. (See Hubbert's peak.)