Fossil Fuel Resources

The non-renewable energy resources necessarily involve the fossil fuels, oil, coal, and gas. These were made over a period of millions of years, and even however they are being made even nowadays in special geological atmospheres, their rate of formation is too slow as to be worthless in terms of the human lifetime.  

The coal is made from remaining of vegetable matter. Most of the world’s coal resources symbolize accretions of plant material in swamps. There is a progressive metamorphism of the organic material from peat via lignite and bituminous coal to anthracite; the carbohydrates are first transformed into hydrocarbons and then to elemental carbon. The coal is fundamentally mined by three techniques; underground mining, strip or surface mining, and auger mining.

Coal is the most rich commercial energy source in India. Coals are mainly of bituminous grade, and a probable 99.5% of indigenous coal resources are in the Gondwana Basins. Indian coals generally have high ash content (i.e., upto 50%); ash includes residual non-combustible matter which comes from clay, silt, silica, and so on, that might have contaminated coal at the time of deposition and creation. The sulphur content of Indian coals is generally low. Owing to the usually poor and deteriorating quality of Indian coals, beneficiation procedures, like coal washing, suppose significance.

Petroleum and natural gas are frequently found altogether, and are almost completely limited to sedimentary rocks and to particular geological conditions. Crude oil consists nearly totally of liquid hydrocarbons with few gaseous hydrocarbons dissolved in them; it is lighter though more viscous than water. Tar and asphalt are semi-solid to solid forms of crude oil. Natural gas contains hydrocarbons simpler and lighter than those of the crude oil, with the richest hydrocarbon being methane. The sulphur is an unwanted impurity in both crude oil and natural gas. High-sulphur crude oil and natural gas are termed as “sour” crude and “sour” gas, and have more than 0.5 percent sulphur by weight.