Fossil Fuels

Prior to the latter half of the eighteenth century windmills or watermills provided the energy needed for industry such as milling flour, sawing wood or pumping water, and burning wood or peat provided domestic heat. The wide scale use on fossil fuels, coal at first and petroleum later, to fire steam engines enabled the Industrial Revolution. At the same time gas lights using natural gas or coal gas were coming into wide use. The invention of the internal combustion engine and its use in automobiles and trucks greatly increased the demand for gasoline and diesel oil, both made from fossil fuels. Other forms of transportation, railways and aircraft also required fossil fuels. The other major use for fossil fuels is in generating electricity.

Fossil fuels are also the main source of raw materials for the petrochemical industry.

As we all know, the petrochemical industry is huge and is still the primary source of energy on this planet today.

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