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Both oil and coal are the products of plain and simple plant photosynthesis. That is the chlorophyll in green diatoms, microscopic algae and green plants on land, which thrived hundreds of millions of years ago as they trapped the sun’s radiant light energy.

These microscopic green algae in the world’s oceans took light energy from the sun along with essential nutrients such as nitrogen, phosphate, sulphur and potash, becoming the starting point of the vast oceans’ food chains. Of course, these microscopic, primarily one-celled plants on the oceans’ surface waters took in other minerals such as calcium and magnesium as well as the necessary micronutrients.

Basically, these tiny floating algae/diatoms used their green chlorophyll to trap light energy from the sun and combine it with water and the abundant carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to produce sugars. This process, in trapping energy into sugar (carbohydrate) molecules, released equivalent amounts of oxygen into the air.

Of course, these microscopic diatoms were the primary food of the seas’ microscopic animals, such as crustaceans and fish larvae. In today’s world, these diatoms generate 30 per cent of the world’s oxygen.

Over time, untold masses of uneaten diatoms sank to the oceans’ floors where they accumulated in massive layers. Over hundreds of millions of years these huge layers comprised of carbohydrates, plant oils and other nutrients were shifted and squeezed by continental drift, which created the continents of the present day from a single land mass.

This immense volcanic shifting under great pressures and heat gradually, over hundreds of millions of years, converted this sludge into our present-day oil. Every oil field in the world is simply a product of the diatoms in the world’s oceans.

Incredible amounts of carbon dioxide were extracted from the earth’s atmosphere and locked up in oil and other carbon products such as methane. At the same time, as the carbon was fixed by the diatoms from the carbon dioxide, the oxygen component was released to the water and eventually the air.

Crude oil is Mother Nature’s end point of composing; the bodies of the diatoms over time have been converted to a liquid compost with the energy from the sun trapped in the now complex oil molecules. Oil is a very natural biological organic product and the biggest “engine driver” of our world’s economy.

When oil is pumped to refineries, it is a complex mixture of molecules generally classed as hydrocarbons. At the refinery, this natural product is heated and cooled. From this process we get asphalt and tar. Under further processing, we get kerosine (paraffin), diesel oil and, ultimately, gasoline or petrol.

Normally a 42-gallon barrel of oil will produce 21 gallons of gasoline, and the leftover product is used to make asphalt (roads), fabrics for clothes, fertilizers and plastics. About three per cent of some oils is made up of sulphur and to a lesser extent nitrogen. Oil is a major source of sulphur. Oil also contains other minerals, nutrients and toxic chemicals such as mercury and cadmium, which are usually “scrubbed” out in the refining process.

Ideally, fuel (gas and oil) only produces harmless products such as carbon dioxide and water. You exhale these when you breath. Unfortunately, the massive amounts of carbon dioxide released from primarily oil and coal adds considerably to the greenhouse gases that trap heat in the earth’s atmosphere.

A peculiarity is that every gallon of gas weighs between six and seven pounds but produces 19 to 21 pounds of carbon dioxide. How? Well, 13 to 14 pounds is in the air as oxygen and the carbon of the fuel picks up two molecules of oxygen for each carbon molecule, so the end total is 19 to 21 pounds of carbon dioxide and the removal of oxygen from the air and its substitution with carbon dioxide. Oxygen does not trap heat in the atmosphere. Hence, the buildup of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere along with other gases, such as methane, now leads to our global warming problem.

Remember, our asphalt roadways are really giant oil spills and oil spills occur in nature, particularly in oceans. When a man-made oil spill occurs in oceans, rivers or on land, it can kill birds and animals due to its sticky smothering effect, but it does not mix with water and is not harmful to fish despite information to the contrary. Spills are sticky, sludgy masses of oil that must be manually removed or broken down by micro-organisms in the oceans.

At one time, coal was the world’s driving energy source — the power behind the industrialization of Britain. Coal, like oil, is a giant storehouse of carbon-based energy but not as “world-friendly” as oil or gas.

Coal formation began around 150 million to 200 million years ago, when green fern-like plants first grew on dry land. When these plants grew in great numbers, often in tropical climates, the mass of carbon-rich material they produced started to accumulate, frequently to depths of dozens of metres. Land-based plants, just like plankton in the sea, took in sunlight and chlorophyll and converted it to energy-rich sugars.

In green plants such as ferns, palms and pines, the sugars were converted into more complex carbohydrates, proteins and various enzymes and essential nutrients. Eventually, these carbohydrates were converted into lignins, wood and wood-like byproducts typical of mature trees, shrubs and ferns.

The massive accumulation of dead plant material, in time, captured massive amounts of carbon dioxide. This carbon-rich, dead plant material is known to us today as peat. These massive peat accumulations on land were eventually covered by soil from floods and earthquakes. The peat accumulations were subjected to immense pressures by continental drift and elevated temperatures and converted to coal. Canada today stores 25 per cent of the world’s soil carbon mostly as peat wetlands.

Peat accumulations finally formed what we know as coal. Depending on the Earth’s treatment of these massive peat accumulations, different kinds of coal were formed. Lignite, a brown earth-like coal with relatively low heating power, is used mostly by power stations. Bituminous, which is coal formed into a dense black rock, is also used by power stations. Anthracite, considered the best coal, is a very hard, glossy, black coal. Anthracite releases the highest energy for its weight and burns the cleanest of all the coals.

Coal has been used for thousands of years and was used to smelt copper 5,000 years ago. Unfortunately, the coal burning that now occurs worldwide also releases large amounts of carbon dioxide, our greenhouse gas and the prime culprit of global warming, into the atmosphere.

The best anthracite coal contains around 84 per cent carbon, five to six per cent hydrogen, six to seven per cent oxygen, one to two per cent nitrogen and one to two per cent sulphur. Burning coal releases lots of sulphur in some instances and recovery of that sulphur occurs in the coal furnace flue gasses, and some nitrogen compounds are also recovered in this way. In some developing countries, these gasses are not removed in the burning of coal and are a primary cause of toxic air pollution.

Coal ash, which is produced in the millions of tons, is normally disposed of in landfills. The trace elements in coal, such as chromium, nickel, selenium and zinc, are not usually harmful but toxic elements such as cadmium, mercury and lead are. Often the lead and mercury contents are unacceptably high, ranging from 10 to 30 parts per million in coal ash.

With the world attempting to close the book on coal combustion, it must be remembered that there are thousands of major coal fires burning underground in such countries as China, the United States and Australia. It would be very difficult, if not presently impossible, to extinguish all, adding to our greenhouse gas problems. I hope this information will help you understand the biology of coal and oil without engaging the world’s political perceptions.

Dr. Ieuan Evans is a forensic plant pathologist based in Edmonton, Alta. He can be reached at [email protected]

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