Energy Resources
Wood accounted for nearly 90 percent of the energy used in the United States when independence from England was declared in 1776. In countries with forest resources, wood continued to be the primary
source of energy up until the mid-1800s when it was largely replaced by coal. Other energy resources with a long history of use by humans include fecal materials and petroleum.
Fecal Materials
When pioneers from the forested eastern part of the United States joined wagon trains to move west in the 1800s, they were faced with fuel shortages because there were few trees on the Great Plains.
But the immense herds of bison provided something just as important as meat and hides for these settlers: dried fecal material to burn for fuel. Although few people in industrialized countries now use
dried feces for fuel, many farmers use manure on their field as a fertilizer because it adds nutrients and organic matter to topsoil. Dried forms of manure are used commercially in the maintenance of
both residential and commercial landscapes.
Early Uses of Fossil Fuels
Early humans probably first noticed petroleum at natural seeps, which are areas on Earth’s surface where shallow deposits of crude oil ooze upward into pits or creeks, or along beaches. Natural gas
often burned on its own in seeps, probably after it was ignited by lightning. Petroleum was used by many ancient civilizations, particularly in the Middle East and the Mediterranean, to waterproof cloth,
caulk seams on boats, and as fuel for lamps, but natural gas was often considered to be a nuisance that had to be burned off. Spanish explorers in the New World found oil seeps and asphalt pools in Venezuela
and California. Hundreds of years before these explorers landed, Native Americans were using petroleum in medicine and paints.
LINK UP: Find out more information about fossil fuels.
Drilling for Oil
As pioneers traveled west in the United States, they moved farther and farther away from the ocean and from the salt it contained. In need of salt to preserve and flavor food, these pioneers sank
wells into the ground to locate subsurface brine deposits. Wells in Ohio and the Allegheny Mountains often brought up petroleum as well as salt water. At that time, petroleum was considered to be a useless
byproduct of brine deposits, and it was either drained off or bottled and sold as "medicine." Although some people discovered that petroleum could be burned, it gave off black smoke and noxious fumes.
Most people continued to use candles or sperm-whale oil in lamps because both burned cleanly without smoke.
By the 1850s, an inventor in Canada named Abraham Gesner had learned how to distill, or refine, petroleum into kerosene, a usable lamp oil. Gesner used petroleum from seeps, but the widespread use of
kerosene that followed his discovery created a demand for more petroleum than could be found on the ground surface. In 1859, the first well intended for oil production was dug in Pennsylvania. The Oil
Creek field was one of the shallowest and most productive oil fields ever found, and its oil was sulfur-free and easily refined into kerosene. The use of kerosene led to the use of petroleum products
in many industrial applications. In addition to gasoline and kerosene, petroleum products include glycerin, nitroglycerin, detergents, polyethylene plastics, nylon, neoprene and other synthetic rubbers,
fertilizers, and even aspirin.
Activity
Scientists in the United States and Japan have studied the possible use of temperature differences between the ocean’s cold, deep waters and the sun-warmed waters of the shallow photic zone to produce
electricity. Known as ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC), this source of energy is unlimited at suitable sites. Research OTEC and write a brief report about its feasibility as an alternative energy
resource.
