how did fossil fuels get there and why are they so important?
360993
when plants and animals died millions of years ago, they decayed into a variety of substances. they got buried in the earth, and over time, heat and pressure reaaranged the molecules. both plants and fossil fuels are made primarily of carbon and hydrogen.
510420
The primary fossil fuel is coal-Including the oil sands, crude oil is next, then natural gas.\nEstimate coal is about 1 trillion tons, which is about 30 X 10^21 joules 30,000 exajoules of power.  This is estimated to be enough for at least a century, and perhaps more.\nEstimated oil is about 1 trillion barrels, which is about  or 6500 exajoules of power-this will start getting pretty tight in the next 20-50 years\nEstimated natural gas is 150 trillion cubic meters, or about 6000 exajoules-this is the hardest to estimate, since not as much work has gone into finding natural gas fields-this will be increasingly more important as a replacement for oil, but is more expensive to transport and store.  If the low estimate given is correct, it should last sometime beyond 50 years.\n\nSo, those of us sitting here are probably ok- It's our kids and grandkids that are set for some serious problems, unless we figure out some new sources for them.  Humans generally have a decent record in planning ahead-with some dramatic exceptions, but nothing on the scale of dealing with the two big problems- Global weather changes and depletion of energy sources.
421054
Its not known for sure-The most widely accepted theory for oil is that it formed primarily from plant life trapped in low oxygen conditions for millions of years- Its not entirely clear if this is true, since we cant seem to find intermediate forms of this transformaion process.  Another theory is that oil is waste product from the deep-crust bacteria that have recently been discovered.  As far as coal goes, there is much better evidence that this was a form of chemically transformed plantlife, probably peat or swamp areas of low oxygen.
1085223
It is in our national interest (because of the geographical size of our country) to either increase the available supply of petroleum or develop alternative fuel sources. The former may only be a temporary solution, but the latter will take time and resources and may invite retaliation in the form of extremely high petroleum prices while we attempt to retool our energy using and producing systems.
556473
Because it would take a lot of time and fuel?  And because they are also in the Earth's gravitational pull, and thus, are also moving along with the Earth (its not like if you jump up in the air, that the Earth moves under you, right?)
113098
Fossil Fuels are all (in chemical terminology) hydrocarbons.  One example is of a hydrocarbon is propane, C3H8.  When a hydrocarbon reacts (combusts) with the air it ALWAYS produces Water and Carbon Dioxide.  C3H8 + O2 ---> 3*CO2 + 4*H2O
1157312
Oil is one of the end results of a long, long process of decomposition, heat, pressure, and transformation of molecular structures.  Many people are unaware that there are multiple types of oil resulting form differences in all of the components of the process.\n\nAs a "renewable resource," you are barking up the wrong geologic age.  Once the oil available on Earth is gone - that is, the "petroleum" created through metamorphic processes in deep layers of the planet - human beings may berely live long enough for them to see more.  it takes many millions of years to create oil through purely natural processes.  And the many physical changes in the planet that cause it to begin with, including vast earthquakes, total transformation of the layers of the Earth's crust, extinction of life forms, and other events, suggest that when is more oil made in the distant future, humans might themselves be part of the matter eventually converted into petroleum.\n\nWell, no, that's hardly likely.  Decomposition would prevent that.\n\nBut, anyhow - no, oil is not a practical form of a renweable resource.  It is possible to make synthetic versions of petroleum, or to make alternative fuels that have some of the key features of petroleum, however.\n\nUltimately, humanity may discover that petroleum is much too valuable to just burn.  It is a fundamental ingredient of many kinds of medicines.  It plays a role in various types of chemistry and other applications that may not ever be replaced or reproduced artificially.\n\nAnd humans will never live long enough to get more once it is gone.
778742
Click below for much more.\n\n\n\n\n\nhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petroleum
73099
conventional means mainstream or those that most people use\nSo in general, fossil fuel - oil, gas, coal is what most of the world uses today.\nNonconventional could include solar, wind and even more exotic sources like ocean waves.  Another example is thermal energy such as what Iceland has done - also check out their new plans to totally avoid fossil fuel by going to fuel cell.  Check out this link:\nhttp://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/1727312.stm
885374
Coal, oil and gas are called "fossil fuels" because they have been formed from the organic remains of prehistoric plants and animals. \n\nCoal provides around 28% of our energy, and oil provides 40%. \n\nBurning coal produces sulphur dioxide, an acidic gas that contributes to the formation of acid rain. This can be largely avoided using "flue gas desulphurisation" to clean up the gases before they are released into the atmosphere. This method uses limestone, and produces gypsum for the building industry as a by-product. However, it uses a lot of limestone. \n\nCrude oil (called "petroleum") is easier to get out of the ground than coal, as it can flow along pipes. This also makes it cheaper to transport. \n   \nNatural gas provides around 20% of the world's consumption of energy, and as well as being burnt in power stations, is used by many people to heat their homes. \nIt is easy to transport along pipes, and gas power stations produce comparatively little pollution.\n\nOther fossil fuels are being investigated, such as bituminous sands and oil shale. The difficulty is that they need expensive processing before we can use them; however Canada has large reserves of 'tar sands' , which makes it economic for them to produce a great deal of energy this way. \nFind out more at www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/canada.html \n\nThe steam that has passed through the power station's turbines has to be cooled, to condense it back into water before it can be pumped round again. This is what happens in the huge "cooling towers" seen at power stations. \n\nSome power stations are built on the coast, so they can use sea water to cool the steam instead. However, this warms the sea and can affect the environment, although the fish seem to like it. \n \nAdvantages\nVery large amounts of electricity can be generated in one place using coal, fairly cheaply. \n\n\nTransporting oil and gas to the power stations is easy. \n\n\nGas-fired power stations are very efficient. \n\nA fossil-fuelled power station can be built almost anywhere, so long as you can get large quantities of fuel to it. Didcot power station, in Oxfordshire, has a dedicated rail link to supply the coal. \n\nDisadvantages\nBasically, the main drawback of fossil fuels is pollution. \nBurning any fossil fuel produces carbon dioxide, which contributes to the "greenhouse effect", warming the Earth. \n\nBurning coal produces more carbon dioxide than burning oil or gas. It also produces sulphur dioxide, a gas that contributes to acid rain. We can reduce this before releasing the waste gases into the atmosphere.\n\nMining coal can be difficult and dangerous. Strip mining destroys large areas of the landscape.\n\nCoal-fired power stations need huge amounts of fuel, which means train-loads of coal almost constantly. In order to cope with changing demands for power, the station needs reserves. \nThis means covering a large area of countryside next to the power station with piles of coal.
129303
carbon is found in the ground in the form of fossil fuels like coal, natural gas and oil. when we dig those fuels up and use them the carbon in the fuels reacts with oxygen(it burns!) to produce carbon dioxide, which then enters the atmosphere. Since carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas the more of it in the atmosphere the hotter the planet gets.\nAll this is caused by a very important idea in chemistry called the law of conservation of matter.  matter is never created nor destroyed.  in the case of carbon it is moved from underground where it doesn't do any harm to the planet to the atmosphere where it does.
1014207
I would say Paul's answer is very good and level-headed (best answer).\n\nTo add to his answer:\n\nTruth is that petroleum and its products have a very high energy density.  The trick is to find alternate fuels that can compete with that high energy density and use technologies that preserve our fossil fuels (hybrid cars is a good example).  We have these technologies now, it is just going to take a little while before they can be easily and efficiently implemented world-wide.\n\nAlso, we can use more electricity from the power grid to power transportation vehicles and other petroleum-using devices.  It is more economical for a large power plant to use massive amounts of an alternative fuel than a single individual car.  Also, power plants can regulate their gas emissions easier than individual cars.  Plug-in hybrids and other technologies are poised to do great things (see PopSci article linked below).
631862
Anytime we as humans use either light or heat for survival we generate heat.  Though many like to believe that the biggest threat of fossil fuels is from Greenhouse Gas generation the truth is the left over heat we generate is the biggest threat.\n\nIt really does not matter if the heat is from burning wood, alcohol or fossil fuels it all generates heat which we dump into our environment.  The biggest issue is that the Greenhouse Gasses restricts the release of this heat into space.  And when combined with the natural process also adding heat to the atmosphere the earths atmosphere gains too much energy and this results in increased atmospheric temperature.\n\nDave Cooke
551211
They are undeveloped resources. One of them may cure cancer or find a replacement for oil. You never know what the future holds for them.
743355
I am a geologist and have never heard the tem Petroferous before.  Are you sure this is the item you are to research.  \nHere is a bit of info concerning a heavy oil deposit in India.\nSaturday, February 04, 2006\nWORLD DEPOSITS \nOrigin\n\nThere is no single explanation for the origin of all heavy and extra-heavy crude oils or bitumens. There is evidence that light ends have been lost through differential migration or microbiological attack on some medium and light oils while in their reservoirs. It has also been suggested that some heavy and extra-heavy crude oils and bitumens are formed as a result of oxidative processes that occur when oxygen-bearing ground water invades a petroleum-bearing reservoir. Neither of these processes, however, can account for the particularly high content of vanadium or combination of vanadium and sulfur, in some of these crude oils and bitumens.\n\nOccurrences\n\nHeavy and extra-heavy crude oil and bitumen occurrences are widespread, being known on all continents, at depths as great as 4,000 metres, in rocks of various lithologies and ages, and under all climatic regimes both on and offshore. Reliability of information on these occurrences has been improving with time in the last few years. In the past, such information was scarcely available even with respect to heavy and extra-heavy crude oil deposits discovered and left “behind the pipe” to produce higher quality reservoirs, plugged and abandoned, or else never tested. The amount of heavy and extra-heavy crude oil and bitumen resources estimated in the world today and recoverable by existing or presently visualized technology exceeds 160 billion metric tons (1,000 billion barrels). Estimates of the total amount of resources in-place range between 600 and 1,000 billion metric tons (3,800 and 6,100 billion barrels). Current annual world heavy and extra-heavy crude oil and bitumen production is believed to be in excess of 190 million metric tons (1.2 billion barrels) and cumulative production in excess of 7 billion metric tons (45 billion barrels); these estimated are incomplete with respect to the Russia and China. The countries with the largest reserves of heavy oil and bitumen are Kuwait, Former Soviet Union, Venezuela and Canada. In Canada, Alberta and Saskatchewan have the majority of the deposits; there is a small deposit at Hay River in northeastern British Columbia.\n\nHeavy Oil in India\n\nThere is only one major heavy oil deposit here at Mehsana in Gujerat state containing about 150 million m3 of 12-17º API oil of viscosity 60-550 cp. The Kalol sand, 10-20 m thick, is located at a depth of 1000 m, has a strong bottom water drive. Two in-situ combustion pilots were performed here. After primary production 8-21% recovery was obtained.
1057125
Crude oil is composed of a mix of molecules composed of hydrogen, carbon, and oxygen atoms in many different forms. These can range from simple compounds like methane (CH4) or ethane (C2H6) to long complicated molecules such as paraffins like C8H18, also known as octane that is used to rate motor fuels. \n\nThe initial source of the crude oil is the accumulation of the dead bodies of phytoplankton and zooplankton which are microscopic plants and animals that live in the sea and fresh water lakes. Adding to this organic matter that accumulates on the sea floor is the material that is carried into the ocean by rivers, such as pollen, spores, and plant material. To be preserved, all of this organic matter must fall into a zone of the water that is low in oxygen, otherwise it will decay rather than be preserved. Mud and silt coming from rivers will often bury this material before it can be consumed by living organisms. Near the mouths of rivers there are often rapid rates of deposition of mud and silt that will bury organic material, and over time it may be buried by several miles of sediment. For example, the Mississippi River Delta, which is a prolific oil producing area, has deposited sediments several miles thick over the last 66 million years. \n\nAs these deposits of organic matter are buried deeper and deeper they begin to warm from the heat of the earth's interior. When they reach a temperature of about 140 degrees F, they begin to undergo "catagenesis" which is a molecular change that makes oil. If they reach a temperature of about 250 degree F, they will begin to form more natural gas than oil. If they get too hot it is possible to change them to graphite, and no oil or gas will be produced. \n\nIn other types of depositional environments the plants and animals that become oil also form the rock. Carbonate mudstone (which is simply a type of limestone) of the Hanifa Formation in the Middle East formed much of the oil in Saudi Arabia. These carbonate mudstones  are composed of huge accumulations of lime muds made from the breakdown of marine algaes and other organisms. These deposits of the remains of marine organisms also must undergo burial and and heating by the deep earth to generate oil and gas. \n\nSo when you burn oil, you are really burning solar energy that was stored by plants and animals thousands or millions of years ago and buried in the earth. \n\nEvery time I answer this question someone comes along and points out that there may be oil that is not from living organisms. Thomas Gold, a respected physicist at Cornell proposed that oil may be abiotic; that is just another type of deposit of the earth. This may in fact be possible, but if it is, it is likely to be a very minor source of the oil on Earth. The reasons are complicated, but the fact that the rocks where Gold predicted this abiotic oil should be found do not contain oil is pretty conclusive proof that this type of oil is not significant, if it exists at all. \n\nHere is my previous answer to this question:\nhttp://answers.yahoo.com/question/;_ylt=AqkzP9amgCudYabOz20w2YIjzKIX?qid=1006022109950
592086
Oil is the world's most important commodity. Without oil, today's industrial society would simply be impossible. Oil and natural gas are the fuel for the engine of modern capitalism, with Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) nations accounting for two-thirds of all oil consumed in the world.\n\nOil and gas are not only the source of 62 percent of the energy used in the world, they are integrated into the production of many goods and products that we take for granted. But just as important, every tank, every airplane-from the B-52 to the stealth bomber-every cruise missile, and most war ships in the U.S. or any other nation's military arsenal, rely on oil to wage their terror. In fact, the U.S. Department of Defense is the consumer of over 80 percent of all the energy used by the U.S. government.\n\nTake a look at this site...I think it does a GREAT job of spelling out the politics of oil...