Fact or Fiction Friday - coal vs trees
The Fact or Fiction statement for this week -
There is a direct correlation between coal and trees.
The answer is true
There was a time when there was no bacteria that would decompose a tree.
The trees that existed 300 million years ago do not resemble the trees we have on Earth now. These trees could grow extremely tall, but they had very shallow root systems, so fell over very easily. At the time, no microbes existed that could decompose these trees, so as they fell, they stacked up upon each other, eventually creating what one could consider a blessing or a curse….coal.
Coal is very old. The formation of coal spans the geologic ages and is still being formed today, just very slowly. Below, a coal slab shows the footprints of a dinosaur (the footprints where made during the peat stage but were preserved during the coalification process).
It is predicted that we will run out of fossil fuels in this century. Oil can last up to 50 years, natural gas up to 53 years, and coal up to 114 years. Yet, renewable energy is not popular enough, so emptying our reserves will speed up.
A new report from global wealth management company Morgan Stanley projects coal-fired power generation is likely to disappear from the U.S. power grid by 2033 and will largely be replaced by renewable energy resources.
#naturalhomebrands #coal #trees #ecofriendly #FactOrFictionFriday
- Carole Zellers
