5 ms·
That’s how oil was made but with longer time frames.
by lalos 4y ago
That’s how oil was made but with longer time frames.
- WithinReason 4y agoPlot twist: What we know as oil was buried by a former civilisation that fought climate change then went extinct. The trees we bury will be used as fossil fuels by the next civilisation.
- gumby 4y agoI like to joke that oil is a renewable energy source, it's just that people tend to be too impatient.
- elihu 4y agoIf I understand right, most of our current fossil fuels are from an era when there weren't bacteria capable of breaking down lignin. So, plants would die and dry out, but wouldn't fully decompose. You'd have huge mounds of dead plants that would eventually get buried and turn into oil. Those conditions don't exist anymore, so they're actually a non-renewable resource.
- glandium 4y agoI feel like even if the conditions existed, humans would be preventing them from happening. Or is it what you were implying?
- elihu 4y agoNo, I mean that the conditions can't happen anymore the way they did then, because in the intervening time microbes have evolved that can eat lignin. The dead plants would be almost entirely decomposed before they have a chance to get buried.
- MathMonkeyMan 4y agohttps://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1517943113 https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1517943113
- dredmorbius 4y agoCoal was formed from wood and land-based plant matter (such as bogs). Oil is largely formed from algae. Natural gas tends to be associated with oil deposits. Anaerobic conditions are required for formation. See Jeffrey S. Dukes, "Burning Buried Sunshine" (2003) <https://link.springer.com/article/10.1023/A:1026391317686 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1023/A:1026391317686> <https://dge.carnegiescience.edu/DGE/Dukes/Dukes_ClimChange1.pdf https://dge.carnegiescience.edu/DGE/Dukes/Dukes_ClimChange1....> (PDF)
- kornhole 4y agoMost cars run completely on solar energy. The sun grew the biomass that converted to oil.
- userbinator 4y ago...and the sun itself generates energy by nuclear fusion.
- gumby 4y agoYeah, when I was in the solar business more than a decade ago funding was tough and so I used to refer to it as "wireless fusion power" in the hope that those two buzzwords would make people more interested. Instead solar did fine with a not-so-slow-but steady path.