What are the advantages and disadvantages of fossil fuels?

Fossil fuels include coal, oil and gas, they are formed out of organic matter (carbon) deposited and decomposed under the earth's surface millions of years ago.

Some of the advantages of fossil fuels are -

    Easily combustible, and produces high energy upon combustion helping in locomotion and in the generation of electricity and various other forms of energy;
    Coal burning alone accounts for more than 50% of the electricity in the USA electric grid
    Widely and easily distributed all over the world;
    Comparatively inexpensive due to large reserves and easy accessibility
    Good availability
    Inexpensive
    Very large amounts of electricity can be generated in one place using coal, fairly cheaply.
    Gas-fired power stations are very efficient.
    A fossil-fueled power station can be built almost anywhere, so long as you can get large quantities of fuel to it. Didcot power station, in Oxfordshire, UK, has a dedicated rail link to supply the coal.
    Fossil Fuels are long lasting and we still have many deposits of fuel that will last at least another 300 years


Fossil fuels like coal, oil and natural gas are good fuels because they can be burned. These substances contain chemical energy that can be easily released to create thermal energy by burning them. Good for industry.
Coal, compared to other petrochemicals, is readily available in the United states and in many other parts of the world. Being a solid, it transports easily and spills rarely if ever cause notable environmental events. Coal mining was the central economic core for the Appalachian and Ozark states and others, and thus provided most of the core jobs in these regions. Since sharp declines in coal usage and therefore mining, these areas have fallen into economic depressions and unemployment has skyrocketed, while population is in decline in many regions throughout the state.

I think the advantage is that it's easier to convert into energy and some of the other sources of energy like wind or hydroelectric or nuclear are harder to convert, and nuclear can be dangerous, and wind and hydroelectric can take up a lot of space. We also already have it, like people can get coal out of the ground and burn it, or put the oil into cars, but with wind you need to get the windmill things that generate the energy, and for nuclear you need to pretty much blow stuff up, and hydroelectric needs a lot of flowing water.

Fossil fuels are beneficial because they can release large amounts of stored energy for heat, electricity, and transportation. However, they are nonrenewable (meaning once they are burned, they take many millions of years to replenish) and they release harmful toxins and greenhouse gasses into the air.

However, the important issue as of now is whether there are more advantages than disadvantages of fossil fuels!

Some disadvantages of fossil fuel are that -

    they are Nonrenewable (in the sense that once used it is no longer available)
    burning fossil fuels releases carbon dioxide: the gas that causes global warming.
    mining of such fuels leads to irreversible damage to the adjoining environment; (narrow shafts for oil, caverns for coal)
    Some speculate that it might run out this century
    Prices for fossil fuels are rising.


From an ecological standpoint - very bad. Fossil fuels like oil and coal produce lots of greenhouse gases. Coal is one of the most polluting fuels used today. For countries that have much of it it may be considered good because it is a source of fuel, but in general it's a very dirty and polluting fuel. Bad for the environment as the burning of it releases carbon dioxide from it (as it contains a lot of carbon), which is a major greenhouse gas and leads to more global warming.

The disadvantage is that you would be causing global warming also they will eventually run out and it would force us to use other resources such as solar hydro water and electricity.

Coal is a fossil fuel, so eventually the human race will use up this resource. Therefore, we will have to start using a different source of energy. Because it is a fossil fuel, it contributes to the greenhouse effect and gives off co2 emissions.

Fossil Fuels are a cause of acid rain from the emissions they produce, which contains sulfur dioxide. We do not yet have the will to remove these harmful emissions.

The basic problem with coal and other carbon based fuels is not really that they release carbon - it is that the carbon they release is not then quickly and efficiently absorbed by some other process, eliminating it from the atmosphere. We are taking unimaginably huge quantities of carbon, stored away for eons, and pouring it into the air. It will remain there for eons more, until the earth goes through more of its own balancing cycles.

In contrast, take as an example the possible use of bacteria for the production of carbon-based fuel resulting from their consumption of grasses and other forms of biomass. If this process can be developed in such a way that carbon-based fuels are not a significant part of the input, then we know that the next generation of grasses or other plants will take from the atmosphere the carbon that the fuels are putting in. This is radically different from what is happening with current consumption of fossil-based fuels. This kind of technology is being seriously studied.

The focus of the present and the future generation is invariably going to be the exploration of more and more renewable and environmental-friendly sources of energy. Although the United States has constructed more than a third of all new nuclear energy plants on the planet none have been built in the US since the 1970s.

Nuclear can be dangerous. This is true, but nuclear power is the most closely regulated and licensed power producing technology, at least in the western world. We all know what happened at Chernobyl, but that was in a state run on communist command principles where management rode roughshod over technical matters, and hopefully won't be repeated. However just think how many thousands of men have been killed in coal mining accidents over centuries, in many different countries, and more recently in off-shore oil drilling. Only a few weeks ago we had 16 dead in a helicopter crash ferrying men from an oil rig in the North Sea, and it's by no means the first such crash. Oil rigs have been known to blow up with many casualties. Obtaining fossil fuels, apart from actually using them, is still a dangerous industry, far more dangerous than nuclear power, which in fact has an excellent safety record.
Advantage - cheap and abundance in the past
Disadvantage - lagest output of Carbon in our atmosphere