![]() Coke made from coal was already replacing charcoal as the main fuel for steel-making furnaces by the late 19th century.Ĭoal was first used for electricity generation in the United States in the 1880s. Coal consumption was steadily growing and outpacing the use of wood for energy.ĭuring the Civil War, factories making weapons began to use coal, which is abundant in the United States. Coal began to replace wood as a source for heating, because it gave off much more energy than wood and because it was easier to transport. ![]() Several coal mines began operating in the U.S. In the first half of the 19th century, the Industrial Revolution reached the United States. Those became the main means of transportation. People traveled on steamships and steam-powered trains, which burned coal to power their boilers. The Industrial Revolution changed the way people worked and traveled. Native Americans would use soft asphalt, or hard asphalt melted in the sun, to glue arrows to shafts and knives to handles.Įarly civilizations were puzzled by natural gas, and before the understanding of what natural gas actually was, people attributed supernatural and religious origins to fires spontaneously occurring on the earth’s surface when, for example, lightning stuck and ignited natural gas that had seeped through the earth’s crust to the surface. Some cultures also used petroleum as skin medicinal treatment as civilizations such as the ancient Persians, pre-Columbian Indians, and Sumatrans in the 10th century believed that crude oil had medicinal benefits. A few hundred years later, the Chinese also built bamboo pipes to carry natural gas to homes for heating and lighting. The Chinese found oil reservoirs in salt wells and drilled wells deep 100 feet to reach natural gas and oil in underground reservoirs at some point around 500 B.C. The Romans used oil found in the Dacia province, which is now Romania, to burn as weapon to use in warfare. Oil was lit in a firepan, which was later replaced by the wick oil lamp. In ancient Egypt, some of the mummies of humans and animals were mummified with the use of bitumen, but this wasn’t the typical substance to use for embalming mummies, according to the Spurlock Museum of World Cultures at Illinois. Related: Barclays Slashes Oil Price Forecast On Demand Shock Mosaics and brick columns were one of the achievements in art and architecture of Sumerians. and 2,000 B.C.-used asphalt to glue their mosaic works on floors and walls. The Sumerian civilization-which dominated the Mesopotamia region between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in what we now refer to as the Middle East between 4,000 B.C. Mesopotamians also used bitumen for road construction and sealing and waterproofing their boats. This complete history of fossil fuels will dwell on:Īncient civilizations did not have the technology to either drill or refine oil, but they used the petroleum that they found seeping on the surface for construction and waterproofing.Īccording to ancient Greek historian Herodotus, bitumen from a small tributary of the River Euphrates (in modern-day Iraq), was used for the construction of the wall of Babylon, the most famous city of ancient Mesopotamia. In ancient times, the use of fossil fuels may have been limited due to lack of knowledge and technology, but civilizations tried and, to some extent, managed to make the most of the fossil fuel resources they could extract and use in their everyday lives. Those three fuels combined account for the majority of the global energy use now. Of course, early uses of fossil fuels cannot compare in volume to today’s exploration, extraction, processing, and trading industries in the three main fossil fuels - crude oil, natural gas, and coal. The history of the use of fossil fuels is as old as is the history of human civilization. Some forms of petroleum, coal, and natural gas were used thousands of years ago by various civilizations on various continents, according to historical records and archaeological finds. ![]() But people started using fossil fuels long before the first steam engine running on coal or the first commercially drilled oil well. Fossil fuels are the primary source of energy in the world today.
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