Chapter 1 History Fossil Fuels Environmentalism is a big word But its meaning is simple Practicing environmentalism means being a friend of Earth and all its creatures Environmentalists want to keep our air healthy our land clean and our water fresh They want to take care of our plants and animals by making sure our planet remains a safe place to live Some environmentalists focus on encouraging people to stop polluting Others encourage people to recycle One of the most important environmental jobs is to teach people the dangerous costs of drilling and fracking for oil and natural gas The Story of Fossil Fuels Earth has been around for 4 5 billion years About 350 million years ago tiny organisms died and sank to the bottom of
Fossil fuels were formed during the Paleozoic Era swamps around the world Over the next millions of years these organisms decomposed and transformed into petroleum The petroleum’s location determined its form gas natural gas or liquid oil The natural gas formed in deeper and hotter locations than the oil The gas and oil underneath Earth are called fossil fuels Today we use fossil fuels to run almost all our energy sources We use them to run our cars trains airplanes and even ships We also use them to cook and to heat and light our houses and buildings People have been drilling for oil as far back as the year 347
The average commercial plane needs at least 1 gallon 4 liters of fuel every second
In China they used tools made from bamboo to dig down as deep as 800 feet 244 meters They dug where oil was discovered seeping up to the surface Back then oil was used to make tools and weapons and to light torches In 1859 American businessman George Bissell drilled for oil in Titusville Pennsylvania He discovered oil after drilling down only 70 feet 21 meters This was the first oil well in the United States Bissell’s discovery started the oil boom across the entire world Twenty-six years later the first automobile was invented and ran on gasoline Then in 1903 Henry Ford began producing cars on a large scale selling millions to the American public The more people bought cars the more they needed gasoline The demand for gasoline made from oil skyrocketed Drillers began calling it black gold Fracking or hydraulic fracturing has only been around since the 1940s Fracking is when a tube filled with chemicals is injected at a high pressure into a rock formation 8,000 feet 2 4 kilometers below Earth’s surface This pressure opens up fissures or cracks in the rocks that allow natural gas to seep out through a pipe The pipe brings the gas to the surface
