GEOL 115: The Earth’s Energy Resources

Uranium deposits can be viewed as products of the rock cycle. Uranium occurs in small amounts in the Earth’s crust.  This uranium typically occurs as the mineral uraninite (UO2) or is present in other minerals as a trace component.  The mineral zircon (ZrSiO4), for example, may contain uranium in concentrations in excess of 1,000 […]

We can’t get into the details of nuclear physics in this class but we can discuss some important points and view some interesting videos!
All matter consists of atoms.  A nuclide is a species of atom.  The chart of the nuclides is an graphical presentation of all the different species of atoms with neutron number plotted […]

The point of this lecture was to discuss a way to convert solid fuels (or stranded gas) into fuels that society values more highly. The fuel that society values most is gasoline. We can convert reduced carbon compounds into gasoline by using several sets of reactions
For our purposes we will consider the partial oxidation process […]

Because coal is a solid we can’t extract it from the ground through a pipe, we have to go get it. Coal mines are like very large construction projects; large amounts of material must be moved, massive equipment is used, and the “footprint” of the operation is considerable. More so than conventional petroleum operations, […]

When we were dealing with oil, heavy oil, or oil shale we were discussing fossil fuels that are derived largely from lipid-rich organisms that lived in water. Coal on the other hand is derived almost exclusively from ancient land plants. Thus oil(and much gas), heavy oil, and oil shale, form when carbon dioxide […]

Oil shale is a petroleum source rock that has not yet generated oil.
So far we’ve considered several non-conventional hydrocarbon resources that contain enormous amounts of energy.  Methane hydrates are distributed over much of the cold regions of the Earth and may contain more energy than all the combined conventional fossil fuel resources known.  The Athabasca […]

We have considered the problems inherent in preserving petroleum at great depth; the stable forms of carbon at shallow levels in the crust are methane, carbon dioxide, or graphite.  The hydrocarbons in oil are trying to become one of those species depending on the chemistry of the system.  The speed with which hydrocarbons in oil […]

The truly large unconventional gas accumulations are methane hydrates. Methane hydrates were laboratory curiosities until they were found to clog pipelines in cold climates and in deep water.
This phase diagram has been scaled in depth rather than pressure by assuming a hydrostatic pressure gradient (roughly 0.5 psi/ft). You can see by inspecting the […]