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Where do fossil fuels come from!
6.5.3: Fossil Fuels- Formation and Mining
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Fossil fuels are nonrenewable sources of energy formed from the organic matter of plants and microorganisms that lived millions of years ago.
The natural resources that typically fall under this category are coal, oil (petroleum), and natural gas.
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This energy (and CO2) was originally captured via photosynthesis by living organisms such as plants, algae, and photosynthetic bacteria. Sometimes this is known as fossil solar energy since the energy of the sun in the past has been converted into the chemical energy within a fossil fuel.
Of course, as the energy is used, just like respiration from photosynthesis that occurs today, carbon can enter the atmosphere, causing climate consequences. Fossil fuels are nonrenewable because their formation took millions of years.
Furthermore, higher productivity in the ancient environment allowed for more fossil fuel accumulation, meaning that the fossil fuel reserves available now could not necessarily be regenerated millions of years in the future.
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