For coal, gas, and oil, and the ease of identification, I, like most everyone else, use the term “fossil fuels”, but there are two other non-biological explanations that would void the fuel’s adjective, namely “fossil”. Many in varying religious faiths believe that coal, gas, and oil were all a gift of God and created along with everything else as proclaimed in the Biblical book of Genesis.
Then there is the term abiotic oil. Biology Online defines abiotic as “a nonliving physical and chemical attribute of a system, for example, light, temperature, wind patterns, rocks, soil, pH, pressure, etc. in an environment”, but some also believe that oils are abiotic, or not from biological sources but rather “synthesized deep within the earth’s mantle by heat, pressure, and other purely chemical means, before gradually rising to the surface.”
Scientists who have developed this theory refer to it as the reason for the replenishment of oil in a depleted or exhausted oil field. In other words, after all the oil has been drained or mined from a specific deposit suddenly there is oil in that same pocket again. Belief in the creation of more oil and gas certainly eliminates the term ‘peak oil’ which is defined in Wikipedia as, “the hypothetical point in time when the maximum rate of global oil production is reached, after which it is argued that production will begin an irreversible decline.
The theory of never-ending oil has climate alarmists perturbed since ‘peak oil is considered another necessity for renewable energies while the religious faithful would simply regard it as an eternal or extended blessing.
Abiotic oil gets very little press these days, but it is undoubtedly worth exploring.
