(Eli5) If oil isn’t just from dinosaurs, but from algae and phytoplankton, can oil be renewable?

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I recently learned that oil is mostly composed of algae and phytoplankton capturing carbon out the atmosphere thousands of years ago. Later the organisms fall to the bottom of the ocean and through time turn into crude hydrocarbons. So why do we not attempt to create the same crude oil by using alge with waste water from water processing plants?

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Anonymous 0 Comments

“Renewable” is defined as “replenished on a timescale similar to that in which it is consumed”. Since oil has taken hundreds of millions of years to form and has been extracted and used in around a century, this is why it’s considered non-renewable.

If we waited long enough then potentially yes, some of today’s organisms would become fossil fuels but it will take a LONG time.

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