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A fossil fuel [a] is a carbon compound- or hydrocarbon-containing material such as coal, oil, and natural gas, [2] formed naturally in the Earth's crust from the remains of prehistoric organisms (animals, plants and planktons), a process that occurs within geological formations.
Fossil fuels are the primary source of energy in the world today. But people started using fossil fuels long before the first steam engine running on coal or the first commercially drilled...
Fossil fuels are made from decomposing plants and animals. These fuels are found in Earth’s crust and contain carbon and hydrogen, which can be burned for energy. Coal, oil, and natural gas are examples of fossil fuels.
Fossil fuel energy began millions of years ago with the creation of coal, oil, and natural gas. Inventions during the Industrial Revolution during the mid-18th and early 19th century created a great demand for fossil fuels, which have since grown to account for over 80% of our primary energy today.
Fossil fuel is a hydrocarbon-containing material of biological origin that can be burned for energy. Fossil fuels, which include coal, petroleum, and natural gas, supply the majority of all energy consumed in industrially developed countries.
For most of human history, our ancestors relied on very basic forms of energy: human muscle, animal muscle, and the burning of biomass such as wood or crops. But the Industrial Revolution unlocked a whole new energy resource: fossil fuels.
Most of the fossil fuel material we use today comes from algae, bacteria, and plants—some of which date back even before the Devonian Period, 419.2 million to 358.9 million years ago. Consequently, at least most of the time, you are not pouring refined dinosaur parts into the gas tank of your vehicle.
Coal is the most plentiful fuel in the fossil family and it has the longest and, perhaps, the most varied history. Coal has been used for heating since the cave man. Archeologists have also found evidence that the Romans in England used it in the second and third centuries (100-200 AD).
Decomposing plants and other organisms, buried beneath layers of sediment and rock, have taken millennia to become the carbon-rich deposits we now call fossil fuels.
Fossil fuels include coal, petroleum, and natural gas. They all contain carbon and were formed as a result of geologic processes acting on the remains of (mostly) plants and animals that lived and died hundreds of millions of years ago.