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9.6 Option — Organic geology: 1. Earth materials formed from organic material
| Syllabus
reference (October 2002 version) |
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1. The properties of economically
important Earth materials formed from organic material |
Students learn to:
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Students: |
Extract from Earth and Environmental Science Stage 6 Syllabus (Amended October 2002). © Board of Studies, NSW.
[Edit 21 July 09]
Prior learning: Science Stages 4–5 syllabus: Outcomes 4.11 (content 4.11.1 a, b, and c), Outcome 5.11 (content 5. 11.1 a and b).
distinguish between the nature of renewable and non-renewable resources
- A renewable resource is one that is replaced, or can be replaced, at a rate greater
than or equal to the rate at which it is comsumed.
- Some common renewable resources are -
- water - it is recycled by nature.
- wood - produced through photosynthesis in a relatively “short” time.
- wind power - can sometimes be harnessed depending on local conditions
- solar energy - available in most locations during
daytime hours.
- A non-renewable resource is a resource that is used
by humans at a rate faster than its rate of formation.
- Some common non-renewable resources are:
- coal, oil and natural gas - developed by geological processes over millions of years
- most minerals - developed by geological processes over thousands and millions of years.
process information from secondary sources to classify renewable and non-renewable resources commonly in use
- In this syllabus point, collect a list of resources and use the definitions
in the syllabus point above to classify them as renewable and non-renewable.
The following sites provide structured activities to dicsuss and classify
renewable and non-renewable resources.
Renewable and Non-Renewable Resources
Eco-Pros Environmental Education on the Web
Sunset.Net, 2006, Rocklin, California, USA Paper or Plastic? Exploring renewable resources
Produced by Oklahoma Ag in
the Classroom, a program of the Oklahoma Cooperative Extension Service,
the Oklahoma Department of Agriculture, Food and Forestry and the Oklahoma
State Department of Education, 2008. - Process your gathered list into two lists or a two column table to classify the resources as renewable or non-renewable.
define fossil fuels as ‘useful organic-matter-derived Earth materials’
Fossil fuels are useful organic-matter-derived Earth materials.
assess estimates of known reserves of non-renewable resources in the light of technological innovation
Estimates of the longevity of fossil fuel reserves vary greatly.
The Peak
Oil Primer web site has some information on world oil production, including many countries that have declining oil supplies left.
The Peak
Oil Crisis shows the cost of oil over forty years in the US.
Another web site The
Oil Reserve Fallacy is much more optimistic about oil reserves.Radford University,
Radford, Virginia, USA. However some of this oil is heavy oil, more expensive
to recover and more damaging to the environment.
Co-operative gives £53,000 to Canadian Cree for tar sands lawsuit guardian.co.uk,
July, 2009
How Much Natural Gas is there? Natural Gas.org
Assess these and other estimates to come up with what you think is a reasonable estimate.
identify data sources, gather information and perform a first-hand investigation to identify and classify a variety of fossil fuels commonly used and compare their properties and uses
- You could look in science text books such as Perspectives
of the Earth by Clark and Cook, and Earth and Environmental Science,
The HSC Course by Hubble, Huxley and Imlay-Gillespie or encyclopedias
or do a brainstorm in the class room to identify
a variety of fossil fuels commonly used. Some information is available on
the Internet.
- When you have compiled a list of possible fossil fuels,
choose several to give you a variety so you will be able to compare their
properties and uses.
- Classify them into chosen categories.
Some categories could be:
- Type of fossil fuel eg, solid, liquid or gas. Other classifications could be low polluting and high polluting or high energy yielding and lower energy yielding.
- Properties
- Uses
- Use a table like the one below to compare the different types and their properties and uses.
Fossil fuel Properties Uses Solid, eg Coal liquid eg Oil
Can be refined to produce many fuels and plastics. Fuels are burnt as an energy source.
Fuels such as petrol and diesel are used for transport, avgas for planes. Plastics are used very widely from prosthetics to chairs to containers.
describe the changes in coal with increasing rank in terms of:
- physical properties
- composition
- grade
- energy yield
- As coals increase in rank, their relative density
increases, the fixed carbon content increases, whereas the abundance of moisture
(water on and within the coal particles) and volatile components (components
forming organic and inorganic gases) decrease.
- This process of chemical and physical change during
rank advance transforms the low rank coals (peat and brown coal) into soft
brown coals (bituminous coal) and with increasing rank into harder black coal
(anthracite).
- Grade does not directly relate to rank, however it
quantifies the coal in terms of the percentage of mineral matter and salt
content. High grade coals are more pure, with less minerals.
- Coking grade coals are usually higher rank coals.
- The specific energy (calorific) is a measure of the
amount of heat energy available per unit mass (energy yield).
- The higher the rank or grade of coal, the greater the energy yield per unit mass of coal.
describe properties of liquid petroleum in terms of composition and energy yield
Liquid petroleum such as petrol, kerosene and oil contain a complex mixture of hydrocarbons ranging from pentane to nonadecane. Find out what happens to the properties as the number of carbon atoms in the compounds present increases.
Some compounds present in fuels
- Petrol
Hexane C6H14 ; Boiling point = +69oC
Nonane C9H20 ; Melting point = -51oC
Hendecane C11H24 ; Melting point = -26oC - Oils
Octadecane C18H38 ; Melting point = +28oC
Nonadecane C19H40 ; Melting point = +32oC
Now find out what effect the changing melting point has on energy yield.
describe properties of gaseous fossil fuels in terms of composition and compare the energy yields of coal-derived gas and petroleum-derived gas
- Natural gas is a mixture of methane (75-90 %), ethane
(5-10 %), propane and butane (3-6 %) and smaller amounts of higher alkanes
with some nitrogen or carbon dioxide gases (refer to the above figure).
- Natural gas produces about 37 kilojoules of energy per cubic metre of natural gas burnt but LPG (liquified petroleum gas) produces about 105 kilojoules per cubic metre burnt. Syngas is produced from coal and is a mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen but it has a very low energy value at about 9 kJ of energy per cubic metre of gas burnt. Synthetic natural gas is also produced from coal. It is mostly methane and produces about 30 kJ of energy per cubic metre burnt.
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