A High-Utility Renewable Energy Resource
I WONDER, DOES EVERYBODY REALIZE that oil is a renewable resource? Despite the childish association of oil with dinosaurs (dinosaur juice, right?), oil is a product of any and all organic material that has simply been processed by heat and pressure for a sufficient amount of time. Every day in the present another ancient day’s contribution of organic material crosses the threshold into oil, constantly renewing/increasing the supply.
Further, oil is a product of– indeed, a concentration of– solar power. It is by solar energy that the organics which become oil are generated and sustained in the first place. By the same token, when those products of past solar energy accumulation are consumed by the burning of the oil they have become, the carbon that is released (as carbon dioxide) contributes to the production of more organic material, by way of the plants it feeds and the animals that feed on those plants.
I claim no expertise in regard to these matters, and I’m sure that my little sketch above is very much overly simplistic in the eyes of anyone who can claim such expertise. Disputes or corrections from such experts are welcome.
But I think my summary is essentially correct, and that in this time of frothy and ruinous political assault on our long-standing, well-established and reliable existing energy infrastructure these facts need to be firmly in the minds of anyone involved in energy (and environmental) policy (which should be all of us)…