Jeffrey

Olson
English 2010
February 18, 2015

Air Pollution and Fossil Fuels in Utah

I have grown up in Utah my whole life and have always been curious about our air quality. Do

we really cause a lot of pollution? If that is really the case, what are we doing to prevent more pollution?
Being someone who has been diagnosed with Asthma, the quality of the air surrounding me is
important. I have difficulty breathing when the air quality is poor, and it affects me in many other ways.
Utah has a high inversion rate each winter a high number of people that get sick in Utah each year.
There are some things that contribute to air quality and the amount of pollution us as humans put into
the air. In this article I want to address things on the different kinds of fossil fuels that we as a state
burn. I would also like to show you statistics of the different harmful fuels that we burn and also
solutions, if any, on how we can get the amount of pollution down from where it is today.

My first thought when researching this topic of burning fossil fuels was that it is a major

contributing factor of air pollution today. Some companies still burn fossil fuels to provide energy for the
company. So I thought about actually seeing what kinds of fossil fuels we actually still use and see how
much of them we are using. After going on the Utah Geological Survey website (Actual source listed
below) I found some information about fossil fuels used in the state of Utah. The major ones that we are
still using today: Coal, Crude Oil and Petroleum, and Natural Gas.
Firstly, we will talk about coal. According to the Utah Geological Survey it says this about Coal,
The Prospecting and mining of Utah coal began in the 1850s through the 1870s. Since the 1890s
the coal industry has been a key
sector of Utahs economy. By the
1950s, oil and natural gas largely
replaced coal as the chief home-
heating fuel and for industrial purposes. Then, between 1970 and 1983, Utahs coal production

(Picture of a building burning coal)

Jeffrey Olson
English 2010
February 18, 2015
doubled as a result of the rising price of oil. Many of Utahs electrical power plants were
converted from oil to coal at this time.
It was staggering to find out how much coal was actually being used between 1970 and 1983. I was
aware of coal mining but didnt know that we were using the amounts that we did. Coal by itself is low
in sulfur and ash content. Coal is still one of the biggest causes of air pollution, and even though we have
found other fuels to burn it still contributes. As we go on and talk about statistics on these fossil fuels we
can see how much we are actually using and if we could convert to a different less polluting element.
Now lets take a look at oil and petroleum. Now that we have found more places in Utah and
around the World where we can extract oil and other substances from the earth; is it a better
step than coal? I think it is just as harmful to
dig up and burn these oils and petroleum
substances as it is to burn coal. On the Utah
Sierra Club website they said this; The
Abundant supplies of these dirty fuels and
new largely unproven extraction
(Picture of a plant burning oil)

technologies have fossil fuel developers

chomping at the bit for an opportunity to wreak havoc on Utahs pristine desert landscapes and
habitats. The extraction of tar sands oil produces three times the number of heat-trapping
carbon dioxide pollution as conventional oil while using huge amounts of our remaining water
supplies in the process. Working under the false mantra of energy dependence, these
industries are concerned only with the bottom line and unfortunately, Utahs political leaders are
only too happy to join in. Their plans are made even more egregious when considering the
proximity to five national parks, an abundance of pristine wilderness and archeological sites and
recreation areas that brings in billions of tourism dollars annually.

Jeffrey Olson
English 2010
February 18, 2015
When reading this and seeing that the way we extract the oils gives us three times the number of
carbon dioxide gases and traps them in our atmosphere and causes pollution in our air. I hope we have a
better solution to this.

Lastly we have natural gas as a source of burning to create energy. There are many businesses in

Utah that use natural gas. I approached an employee who works for ATK (Alliant Tech Systems) who
stated that the company uses natural gas to burn
for energy. natural gas at his work. I believe that
natural gas is the most common in households to
generate heat and energy. From a website that
talks about the formation of Fossil fuels it talks a
little about natural gas and says,

That another type of fossil fuel is natural

(Picture of a plant burning natural gas)

gas. It is found sometimes with petroleum, with coal, or by itself. Since it is less dense, it is most often
found on top of oil pools. Natural gas is valuable because it burns cleanly, releases energy, and can be
easily transported in underground pipelines. We use natural gas in many ways including heating our
homes and cooking our food. From this little bit of information we can see that If we can get everyone
to burn natural gas, since it burns clean, it will be a lot better for the air quality and make less pollution
in our atmosphere.

Even though we are trying to move to more natural gases and other resources for heating and

energy we are using a lot of coal. From the Utah Geological Survey website we see that we are still using
about 78% of coal to generate electricity in our state. Over three quarters of our fossil fuels we use is
coal. That should be the leading factor as to why our air quality is bad. From the oils we can produce
gasoline and on the same website we see that Utah is about nineteenth in the nation on highest
gasoline costs due to high taxes on the gasoline. I wouldnt say that Oils and gasoline are major factors

Jeffrey Olson
English 2010
February 18, 2015
to our air pollution, but since we do have so many vehicles and the release of carbon monoxide into the
air we should be able to come up with a new was to fuel our vehicles. I mean they have found
something such as ethanol that can go into some cars, but we need to convert all the cars over to it.
Because natural gas is a leader in heating homes and giving them energy to heat the homes. About 80%
of homes in Utah use natural gas. The newer houses all have natural gas used to heat them and it is
helping out a lot. We could still do more though. If we could use more solar panels or wind turbines
though we would have cleaner air.

From all of the major fossil fuels we use I feel like natural gas is the least polluting. What I got

from reading about fossil fuels in our state and how much of each fossil fuel we burn and use. We need
to cut back on the use of the most harmful fossil fuels for our environment. If that doesnt work come
up with a more ecofriendly way to heat our homes and to create energy. Looking at the statistics and
from what the article about Natural gas said if we burn more of this we would have a cleaner
atmosphere and less air pollution. The National Wildlife Federation talks about how harmful these
natural fuels are not only for the environment but for the people and animals as well. There was
something that someone wrote and was published in the Salt Lake Tribune that said, We must advance
towards abandoning fouling fossils, turning our ingenuity and financial means towards harvesting
free/clean/everlasting "renewable" energy from sun/wind. The only thing that I could get along the
lines of finding a solution was to create something that would take the place of these fossil fuels. So it
sounds like it is easier said than done and we see that it will probably take a few years before we start
seeing changes with how we contribute to the air pollution.

Jeffrey Olson
English 2010
February 18, 2015
MLA Citations
Franklin, Naomi. "Letter: Move from Fossil Fuels to Avoid Crashing." The Salt Lake Tribune. The Salt Lake
Tribune, 5 Nov. 2014. Web. 19 Feb. 2015. <http://www.sltrib.com/opinion/1779804-155/utah-
coalition-counties-county-energy-fossil>.
"Reducing Dirty Fuels - National Wildlife Federation." Reducing Dirty Fuels - National Wildlife Federation.
Wildlife Federation, 1 Jan. 1996. Web. 19 Feb. 2015. <http://www.nwf.org/What-We-
Do/Energy-and-Climate/Drilling-and-Mining.aspx>.
"Utahs Fossil Fuels." Utah Geological Survey. 19 Feb. 2014. Web. 19 Feb. 2015.
<http://geology.utah.gov/geologic-resources/energy/utahs-fossil-fuels/>.
"Utah Oil Shale and Tar Sands Development." Utah Oil Shale and Tar Sands Development. 1 Jan. 2013.
Web. 19 Feb. 2015. <https://utah.sierraclub.org/content/utah-oil-shale-and-tar-sands-
development>.
Westbroek, Glen. "Fossil Fuels." Fossil Fuels. Utah Office of Education, 6 Oct. 1998. Web. 19 Feb. 2015.
<http://utahscience.oremjr.alpine.k12.ut.us/sciber99/8th/energy/sciber/fuel.htm>.