Unit 4
Energy from Fossil Fuels

Overview

Unit 4 concentrates on the single most important, controversial, and politically volatile type of resource: fossil fuels. Because modern technological advancement has relied heavily on energy, the extraction of fossils fuels for generating energy has been an integral part of the world economy over the last century. Petroleum has become one of the most valuable mineral resources.

Unit 4 describes the history of energy use and the formation and extraction of various fossil fuels. It also discusses some of the environmental impacts caused by extracting and using fossil fuels.

Objectives

After completing this unit, you should be able to

1. outline the history of energy use.
2. describe the mode of formation, the various categories, and the location of major resources and reserves of coal.
3. describe the mode of formation and the location of major petroleum and natural gas resources and reserves and the recovery and refining techniques used to extract and process them.
4. give a brief history of the Alberta oil sands.
5. describe and differentiate between the formation and composition of oil sands and oil shales, and describe the recovery techniques that apply to each.
6. describe the geological history of the Alberta oil sands.
7. outline the processes used to recover bitumen from oil sands by mining methods.
8. outline the processes used to recover bitumen from oil sands by in-situ methods including cyclic steam circulation and steam-assisted gravity drainage (SAGD).
9. briefly summarize the potential of the Alberta oil sands.