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5.6.1.1 Fossil fuel

Fossil fuel as energy supply can be separated in three compounds: oil, gas and coal. Oil is used for transport applications, as a fuel for thermal engines. From a strategic and economical point of view, this is the main application of this sector. Indeed, petrol is particularly adapted for transport applications, well established and still cheap, compared to alternative solutions. Centralised electricity production or urban heating from oil are not negligible but do not hold such a dominant and strategic position. In any cases, the stages related to the preparation of crude oil to usable petrol are similar: extraction from underground, transformation of crude oil in usable products (refining) and transport/storage of refined products to distribution or usage points.

These three stages constitute radically different activities. Due to highly strategic character of this sector, a low amount of large companies hold the final control of these activities, and develop technological knowledge, themselves and in collaboration with small companies and research institutes.

In spite of the high profitability and huge economic and societal power of this sector, two factors doom it to a predicable production maximum and then decline, probably during the current century. The fight against the greenhouse effect will tend to favour the use of alternative cleaner power sources, because the use of petrol in transport constitutes one of the highest sources of carbon dioxide (even if strategies to trap emitted CO₂ also are under development). Even if not widely known, the available oil reserves on the earth will reach a critical level in a few decades.

Coal and gas are also widely used, mainly for urban heating and centralised electricity production. Processes to synthesise fuel from coal are under development. Concerning gas sector, new technologies are expected in order to increase the extraction rate, and to be able to exploit less accessible gas fields. Gas transport from production to consumption place is more problematic than for oil. In particular, efficiency of gas liquefaction processes has to be improved, and then also requires technological inputs. Since technological challenges concerning coal and gas are of nature similar to the ones that oil must face (mainly chemistry, catalysis and geology), only oil sector will be describe below.