Fossil Fuel Trivia About Coal, Natural Gas, and Petroleum or Crude Oil

Trivia about fossil fuels including coal, natural gas, and Petroleum or Crude Oil

Fossil Fuel Trivia  -  Coal, Natural Gas, and Crude Oil (Petroleum)

Trivia quiz questions about Fossil fuels, a major source of greenhouse gasses.

 

What is fossil fuel?
A: A fossil fuel is a fuel formed by natural processes.

Fossil fuels contain high percentages of what?
A: Carbon.

Commonly used derivatives of fossil fuels include what other fuels?
A: Kerosene and propane.

Fossil fuels range from volatile materials with low carbon-to-hydrogen ratios (like methane), to liquids (like petroleum), to nonvolatile materials composed of almost pure carbon, like what?
A: Anthracite coal.

Methane can be found in hydrocarbon fields either alone, associated with oil, or in the form of what?
A: Methane clathrates.

Non-fossil sources of energy include what?
A: Nuclear, hydroelectric, geothermal, solar, tidal, wind, wood, and waste.

As of 2015 about 18% of worldwide consumption came from what?
A: Renewable sources.

Although natural processes continually form fossil fuels, why are such fuels generally classified as non-renewable resources?
A: Because they take millions of years to form and the known reserves are being depleted much faster than new ones are being made.

The burning of fossil fuels produces how much carbon dioxide (CO2) per year?
A: Around 21.3 billion tons.

It is estimated that natural processes can only absorb how much of that amount?
A: About half.

Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas that increases radiative forcing and contributes to what?
A: Global warming.

A global movement towards the generation of low-carbon renewable energy is underway to help reduce what?
A: Global greenhouse-gas emissions.

Many of the coal fields date to what period of Earth's history?
A: The Carboniferous period.

Fossil fuels are of great importance because they can be burned (oxidized to carbon dioxide and water), producing significant amounts of what?
A: Energy per unit mass.

Coal was used in ancient times to run furnaces for the melting of what?
A: Metal ore.

Commercial exploitation of petroleum began in the 19th century, largely to replace what?
A: Oils from animal sources (notably whale oil) for use in oil lamps.

Natural gas, once flared-off as a what?
A: An unneeded byproduct of petroleum production.

Natural gas deposits are the main source of what element?
A: The element helium.

Heavy crude oil, which is much more viscous than conventional crude oil, and oil sands, where bitumen is found mixed with sand and clay, began to become more important as sources of fossil fuel as of when?
A: The early 2000s.

Oil shale and similar materials are sedimentary rocks containing kerogen, a complex mixture of high-molecular weight organic compounds, which yield what?
A: Synthetic crude oil when heated (pyrolyzed).

Prior to the latter half of the 18th century, windmills and watermills provided the energy needed for industry such as what?
A: Milling flour, sawing wood or pumping water.

 What provided domestic heat?
A: Burning wood or peat.

The wide scale use of fossil fuels, coal at first and petroleum later, to fire steam engines enabled what?
A: The Industrial Revolution.

The invention of the internal combustion engine and its use in automobiles and trucks greatly increased the demand for what?
A: Gasoline and diesel oil, both made from fossil fuels.

Fossil fuels were used for what other forms of transportation?
A: Trains and aircraft.

A: The other major use for fossil fuels is in what?
A: Generating electricity and as feedstock for the petrochemical industry.

Tar, a leftover of petroleum extraction, is used in construction of what?
A: Roads.

The United States holds less than 5% of the world's population, but due to large houses and private cars, uses how much of the world's supply of fossil fuels?
A: More than 25%.

Combustion of fossil fuels produces air pollutants, such as what?
A: Nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide, volatile organic compounds and heavy metals.

Fossil fuel-fired electric power plants emit carbon dioxide, which may contribute to what?
A: Climate change.

Carbon dioxide variations over the last 400,000 years, show a rise since when?
A: The industrial revolution.

Combustion of fossil fuels generates sulfuric, carbonic, and nitric acids, which fall to Earth as what?
A: Acid rain, impacting both natural areas and the built environment.

Monuments and sculptures made from marble and limestone are particularly vulnerable, as the acids do what?
A: Dissolve calcium carbonate.

Fossil fuels also contain radioactive materials, mainly what?
A: Uranium and thorium, which are released into the atmosphere.

In 2000, about 12,000 tons of thorium and 5,000 tons of uranium were released worldwide from doing what?
A: Burning coal.

It is estimated that during 1982, US coal burning released 155 times as much radioactivity into the atmosphere as what?
A: The Three Mile Island accident.

Burning coal also generates large amounts of what?
A: Bottom ash and fly ash.

In 2012 wind energy in Europe avoided how much of the costs of fossil fuel?
A: €9.6 billion

The International Energy Agency estimated 2017 global government fossil fuel subsidies to have been how much?
A: $300 billion.

Fossil fuel prices generally are below their actual costs when what are taken into account?
A: The costs of air pollution and global climate destruction.