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- Written By: Michael Anissimov
- Edited By: Bronwyn Harris
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2003-2012 Conjecture Corporation
Hydrocarbons are chemical compounds consisting entirely of carbon and hydrogen. They are a subset of organic compounds. Hydrocarbons range from methane, which is just one carbon atom bonded to four hydrogen atoms, to polymers such as polystyrene, which consists of thousands of carbon and hydrogen atoms. As carbon-carbon bonds are the strongest in all of chemistry, long chains with carbon backbones are extremely durable, and seem to have a practically unlimited extent.
Hydrocarbons come in a variety of forms. They may be gases (methane and propane), liquids (hexane and benzene), waxes (paraffin wax), or polymers (polyethylene and polystyrene). Hydrocarbons can be processed to create plastics.
There are four main types of hydrocarbons: saturated hydrocarbons, consisting of only single bonds between carbon atoms; unsaturated hydrocarbons, with double or triple bonds; cycloalkanes, with consist of hydrogen bonded to carbon rings; and aromatic hydrocarbons, which contain a chemical structure known as an aromatic ring, of which benzene is the simplest example.
The primary source of hydrocarbons here on Earth is through fossil fuels – coal, oil, and natural gas. These are extracted from the ground in quantities of millions of tons per day, and are the primary energy source for today’s civilization. 85% of all electricity worldwide is generated by the burning of hydrocarbons, and hydrocarbon fuel is used to propel practically every mobile machine: cars, trucks, trains, planes, and ships.
Hydrocarbons have been a very successful fuel source over the last two hundred or so years, but there are increasingly calls to scale back its use. The combustion of hydrocarbons produces smoke and soot, generating pollution which is responsible for smog and acid rain. Even worse, the burning of hydrocarbons releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, causing global warming. Hydrocarbons will not last forever. Burning fuel at the current rate, oil could run out in less than a century and coal in several centuries. All of this has led to calls to develop renewable energy sources such as solar and wind power, and the construction of more nuclear power plants, which produce zero emissions.
In 2007, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to former US Vice President Al Gore and the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for their work in confirming and spreading the message that the combustion of hydrocarbons is largely responsible for global warming.
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anon189391
Post 10 |
Thank you. It was so helpful. |
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anon165401
Post 8 |
85 percent of all electricity worldwide is generated by the burning of hydrocarbons, and hydrocarbon fuel is used to propel practically every mobile machine: cars, trucks, trains, planes and ships. |
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anon97725
Post 7 |
How do you know if global warming is even real? |
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Fiorite
Post 6 |
@ Glasshouse- The challenge of finding renewable sources of fuel is daunting, to say the least. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, global energy consumption amounts to about 500 quadrillion BTUs per year. The rate of consumption is growing at about 12 quadrillion BTUs per year. This may be a tough number to comprehend, but imagine 500 followed by 15 zeros.
If you translate this into gallons of gasoline, you would divide 500 quadrillion by 125,000 (the number of BTUs in a gallon of gas). That's the energy equivalent of 4 trillion gallons of gas. We have a long way to go.
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Glasshouse
Post 5 |
@ Parmnparsley- There is no silver bullet to solving the energy crisis. The fact is there has never been a discovery as versatile as hydrocarbon chains. The fact that we can use one mined substance to create everything from energy, to plastics, to asphalt, and more is what makes coal and petroleum unique.
The solution is multiple solutions. Most of the renewable technologies we have available will only work in certain locations. Not all fuel crops will grow in all places, and not all places are sunny or windy. The one thing we have going for us, is two centuries worth of technology based on fossil fuels. We already know how energy works; we just have to create renewable applications suitable for different regions, and then make them logistically compatible. The days of a universal fuel source are near over.
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parmnparsley
Post 4 |
It is amazing to think that nearly all of the hydrocarbons the earth has sequestered in the last 4.5 billion years may be consumed by one species in a matter of a half millennium. Looking at it from that perspective it almost seems obvious that releasing that much carbon into the atmosphere would have dire repercussions.
We have become so addicted to hydrocarbons it makes me wonder if we will be successful at finding a substitute. Civilization has made so much progress in the last few centuries, and most of it is due to what we once thought was limitless energy. What could replace coal and petroleum? Furthermore, how can we find a replacement for hydrocarbons when everyone is researching different technologies? |
