ENERGY IN CONTEXT: A FOSSIL FUEL PRIMER - Hydrofracking: What Everyone Needs to Know - page 5

city—about the same amount as natural gas. 11 This dramatic shift was due in part
to high costs and stricter emissions standards. Modern coal-fired plants take twice
as long to build and are more expensive to run than gas-fired plants. And gas-fired
plants meet environmental regulations far better than coal-fired plants.
Perhaps more important, the White House has been taking concrete steps to
limit climate change at just the time that fracking has made shale gas affordable.
The Obama administration touts itself as “pro energy,” 12 and has put rules in place
to govern emissions of mercury and other airborne toxins by 2015. The Environ-
mental Protection Agency (EPA) has proposed new limits on carbon emissions that
would effectively ban new coal-fired plants after 2013 unless they are equipped
with carbon capture and storage (or CCS) technology. 13 According to Navigant, a
consulting group, expensive regulations and cheap gas could result in one-sixth of
all coal-fired power plants in the United States—representing 50 gigawatts worth
of power—being shuttered by 2017. 14 (A watt is a unit of power, equivalent to one
joule per second, or 3.412 BTU/h. A gigawatt is equivalent to one billion watts.)
What Are Oil and Gasoline?
Oil is a fossil fuel that was created more than 300 million years ago, when diatoms
died and decomposed on the sea floor. Diatoms are tiny sea creatures that convert
sunlight directly into stored energy. After falling to the bottom of the ocean, they
were buried under sediment and rock; the rock compressed the diatoms, trapping
the energy in their pinhead-sized bodies. Subjected to great heat and pressure, the
carbon eventually turned into liquid hydrocarbons (an organic chemical compound
of hydrogen and carbon) that is called “crude oil.”
The word “petroleum” means “oil from the earth,” or “rock oil.” As the earth's
geology shifted over millennia, oil and natural gas were trapped in underground
pockets. In regions where the rock is porous, oil can be trapped in the rock itself.
Man has used oil for approximately 5,500 years to produce heat and power and for
many other purposes. 15 The ancient Sumerians, Assyrians, and Babylonians used
crude oil and “pitch” (what we call asphalt) from a natural seep at what is now Hit,
an Iraqi city on the Euphrates River; oil was also used to build ancient Babylon.
In North America, Native Americans used oil to treat illness, to waterproof canoes,
and to protect themselves from frostbite. As America grew, petroleum was used
to fuel lamps for light. When whale oil became expensive, petroleum oil began to
supplant it as a fuel. At the time, most oil was made by distilling coal into a liquid,