What's the future for fossil fuels? Explore Prof. Kovscek's perspective on coal's role and more.

Transcript: Fossil Fuels and the Environment

I suppose there are a number of environmental problems with fossil fuels. Probably the more immediate one -- most people think about global climate change these days -- but probably the more immediate problems really have to do with acid rain that's formed from sulfur that's in the fossil fuels that we use. And also some acid rain is formed by basically the combustion of nitrogen that's in the air. So those are probably more immediate problems. And then just with cars using gasoline, there's a fair amount of smog that's created. So those are probably the more immediate problems.