Here’s a shocking fact: according to the United States Department of Energy (DOE), the average U.S. household uses several tons of coal each year without ever seeing it! As the most abundant fossil fuel available in the United States, there is more energy available in the coal in this country than in the world’s entire oil reserves.
The use of coal and other fossil fuels can be traced back to the era of the cave man; however, it was the Industrial Revolution that brought fossil fuels center stage as the country’s go-to energy source. With the advent of the steam engine, coal was the driving force behind powering the nation’s transportation sector, namely locomotives and ships. Using coal to produce electricity didn’t come into the picture until the 1880s, but it’s currently burned by power plants to produce more than half of the electricity used in the U.S.
Unfortunately, the burning of fossil fuels releases significant amounts of carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere. One of the major greenhouse gases contributing to the escalating global warming crisis, CO2 has long been the focus of scientists looking to develop more efficient and advanced technologies to reduce and hopefully eliminate the gas as a byproduct from the use of fossil fuels.