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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All energy sources are renewable or non-renewable, it’s more a matter of the timeframe you’re referencing
Oil was generated, and so we could theoretically wait for it to generate more. Renewable right? Yes, but we need to use vastly more energy than oil could provide if we just waited for it to regenerate. So not renewable.
Solar power is considered renewable despite the sun having a lifespan that will end. This is because the lifespan is of an enormous timeline and it won’t affect our ability to gather energy from it in the mean time.
Yes and no.
Fossil fuels come from various organic materials, not just dinosaurs – plants and vegetation, other animals and more have all formed the different fuel types found.
The problem is that to turn them into the fossil fuels we know takes millions of years. So replacing them naturally is not practical on a human timescale, and so far the alternative processes we have developed to form similar fuels have not been effective or efficient enough to create a true alternative.
Fossil fuels also come with considerable downsides in the form of the pollution created when burning them – so even if we could reliably recreate them in a renewable manner, we would still be aiming to reduce their use to limit the environmental impact.
Technically it could be counted as renewable, but not in the sense most people would think. Yes it comes back. But it tskes millions of years. Too long for us to have the endless supply we have with other renewable energy.
And even thst is a bit tricky, because it only generates under certain conditions. How efficient will it generate in todays clima and for the next million years? Unclear
Yes and no.
Fossil fuels come from various organic materials, not just dinosaurs – plants and vegetation, other animals and more have all formed the different fuel types found.
The problem is that to turn them into the fossil fuels we know takes millions of years. So replacing them naturally is not practical on a human timescale, and so far the alternative processes we have developed to form similar fuels have not been effective or efficient enough to create a true alternative.
Fossil fuels also come with considerable downsides in the form of the pollution created when burning them – so even if we could reliably recreate them in a renewable manner, we would still be aiming to reduce their use to limit the environmental impact.
Technically it could be counted as renewable, but not in the sense most people would think. Yes it comes back. But it tskes millions of years. Too long for us to have the endless supply we have with other renewable energy.
And even thst is a bit tricky, because it only generates under certain conditions. How efficient will it generate in todays clima and for the next million years? Unclear
Yes and no.
Fossil fuels come from various organic materials, not just dinosaurs – plants and vegetation, other animals and more have all formed the different fuel types found.
The problem is that to turn them into the fossil fuels we know takes millions of years. So replacing them naturally is not practical on a human timescale, and so far the alternative processes we have developed to form similar fuels have not been effective or efficient enough to create a true alternative.
Fossil fuels also come with considerable downsides in the form of the pollution created when burning them – so even if we could reliably recreate them in a renewable manner, we would still be aiming to reduce their use to limit the environmental impact.
Technically it could be counted as renewable, but not in the sense most people would think. Yes it comes back. But it tskes millions of years. Too long for us to have the endless supply we have with other renewable energy.
And even thst is a bit tricky, because it only generates under certain conditions. How efficient will it generate in todays clima and for the next million years? Unclear
>I recently learned that oil is mostly composed of algae and phytoplankton capturing carbon out the atmosphere thousands of years ago.
More like hundreds of millions of years. Which is basically the answer to your question. We don’t want it to take hundreds of millions of years. If something is technically renewable, but only on a time scale that is longer than most species exist for (the average lifespan of a species is only between 10 and 20 million years) it isn’t in any real sense renewable.
If we all went extinct right now and in five million years the rats took over, they *still* wouldn’t have any oil because not enough time would have passed yet.
>I recently learned that oil is mostly composed of algae and phytoplankton capturing carbon out the atmosphere thousands of years ago.
More like hundreds of millions of years. Which is basically the answer to your question. We don’t want it to take hundreds of millions of years. If something is technically renewable, but only on a time scale that is longer than most species exist for (the average lifespan of a species is only between 10 and 20 million years) it isn’t in any real sense renewable.
If we all went extinct right now and in five million years the rats took over, they *still* wouldn’t have any oil because not enough time would have passed yet.
>I recently learned that oil is mostly composed of algae and phytoplankton capturing carbon out the atmosphere thousands of years ago.
More like hundreds of millions of years. Which is basically the answer to your question. We don’t want it to take hundreds of millions of years. If something is technically renewable, but only on a time scale that is longer than most species exist for (the average lifespan of a species is only between 10 and 20 million years) it isn’t in any real sense renewable.
If we all went extinct right now and in five million years the rats took over, they *still* wouldn’t have any oil because not enough time would have passed yet.
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