What is the equation for burning fossil fuels for energy requirements

Fossil fuels are made from decomposing plants and animals. These fuels are found in the Earth’s crust and contain carbon and hydrogen, which can be burned for energy. Coal, oil, and natural gas are examples of fossil fuels. Coal is a material usually found in sedimentary rock deposits where rock and dead plant and animal matter are piled up in layers. More than 50 percent of a piece of coal’s weight must be from fossilized plants. Oil is originally found as a solid material between layers of sedimentary rock, like shale. This material is heated in order to produce the thick oil that can be used to make gasoline. Natural gas is usually found in pockets above oil deposits. It can also be found in sedimentary rock layers that don’t contain oil. Natural gas is primarily made up of methane. According to the National Academies of Sciences, 81 percent of the total energy used in the United States comes from coal, oil, and natural gas. This is the energy that is used to heat and provide electricity to homes and businesses and to run cars and factories. Unfortunately, fossil fuels are a nonrenewable resource and waiting millions of years for new coal, oil, and natural gas deposits to form is not a realistic solution. Fossil fuels are also responsible for almost three-fourths of the emissions from human activities in the last 20 years. Now, scientists and engineers have been looking for ways to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels and to make burning these fuels cleaner and healthi...

Energy of Combustion Energy of Combustion The combustion of all fossil fuels follows a very similar reaction: Fossil Fuel (any hydrocarbon source) plus oxygen yields carbon dioxide and water and ENERGY. The world and modern society are driven by the need to produce energy to make products (manufacturing), to move around (transportation), to heat homes and buildings, and to create light (electricity). At least 75% of these needs are met by the combustion of fossil fuels. Energy is stored in chemical compounds in the bonds that bind atoms to each other. CH 4[g] + 2 O 2[g] -> CO 2[g] + 2 H 2O[g] + ENERGY A chemical reaction occurs by the rearrangement of atoms and molecules in the reactant (starting) molecules and the end product molecules. Some bonds are broken while others are reformed. The process of breaking and forming bonds results in a net energy needed or given off for a reaction. In the example above and to the left, the combustion reaction of methane and oxygen to form carbon dioxide and water is shown broken into steps to show the entire energy "using" and "forming" process. First it takes energy to break bonds, all four of the C-H bonds in methane must be broken. The energy units are kilojoules, a positive sign means that the process is endothermic or energy is required to break the bonds. In a similar fashion, two diatomic oxygen molecules are broken apart which requires more energy. Now all of the individual atoms in the reactant molecules have been broken apart...

Energy production – mainly the burning of fossil fuels – accounts for around three-quarters of global The world therefore needs to shift away from fossil fuels to an energy mix dominated by low-carbon sources of energy – renewable technologies and nuclear power. What does our energy mix look like today? What countries have the ‘cleanest’ energy mix? And are we making progress in shifting towards a low-carbon energy system? This article focuses on the breakdown of energy sources: how they vary across the world and how this is changing over time. In the energy domain, there are many different units thrown around – joules, exajoules, million tonnes of oil equivalents, barrel equivalents, British thermal units, terawatt-hours, to name a few. This can be confusing, and make comparisons difficult. So at Our World in Data we try to maintain consistency by converting all energy data to watt-hours. We do this to compare energy data across different metrics and sources. Today when we think about energy mixes we think about a diverse range of sources – coal, oil, gas, nuclear, hydropower, solar, wind, biofuels. But If we look back a couple of centuries ago, our energy mixes where relatively homogeneous. And the transition from one source to another was incredibly slow. In the chart shown we see global primary energy consumption dating back to the year 1800. This earlier data is sourced from Vaclav Smil’s work Energy Transitions: Global and National Perspectives. 1 Data from 1965 onwa...