Fossil Fuel is actually renewable energy

January 19, 2026

Fossil fuel is actually renewable energy because the production is pipelined.

If it takes 1 million years from the time an animal dies at time N, then the fuel will “mature” at N+1e9

Animals have been continuously dying since the beginning of time, so we actually “produce” a stable amount of fossil fuel every day.

An explanation of the concept of pipelining from digital hardware design.

Q: How are fossil fuels formed?

• They begin as animal remains.
• Bacteria eat the stuff that’s simple to digest like sugar, protein, fat.
• What’s left is kerogen.
• The kerogen is buried into the earth over millions of years by the rock cycle moving sediment around.
• As they get deeper into the earth, the geothermal heat converts the molecules from a low-energy state to a high-energy state.

TODO kerogen formula and fossil fuel formula.

There are 3 types of fossil fuels

• Coal
• Oil
• Gas

Coal is formed from plants that decompose on land. It takes TODO years Oil and gas are formed from animals that decompose in water. The difference between them is the temperature they process at.

• from ~60–120°C → oil forms
• from ~120–200°C → gas forms
• at > 200°C → it just becomes carbon products and not usable fuel

Q: why does more energy (higher temp) make the substance into a less energetic form?

• Idk yet

Q: How much fossil fuel is produced each year?

• It depends on:
  1. How much was buried 1 million years ago
  2. How much of it is converted to fossil fuel
  3. How much of it is conserved
  • fossil fuels can be destroyed by rising to the surface from tectonic activity. this is called “faulting”
  • when gas faults, it disperses into the atmosphere.
  • when oil faults, it oxidizes and turns into tar.

Carbon burial mostly happens in bodies of water because it prevents oxidization.

• carbon burial in oceans: ~0.2-0.4 Gt C/year (Carbon Processing at the Seafloor)
• carbon burial in lakes and resevoirs ~0.15 Gt C/year (Organic carbon burial in global lakes and reservoirs)

So ~0.45 Gt C/year is deposited.

How much is converted to fossil fuel?

TODO

Sources

Carbon Processing at the Seafloor

Organic carbon burial in global lakes and reservoirs