A Redditor shared a common conspiracy theory about the origins of fossil fuels and found themselves swiftly corrected by the internet.
The Redditor shared an old idea that oil is not a "fossil fuel" and that it is actually the second-most-abundant liquid on the planet.
The idea is that oil is actually a renewable resource, more prevalent on Earth than any liquid save water, and regenerates more quickly than it can be depleted. It claims that the term fossil fuel was created to give a false idea of scarcity, allowing companies to drive up oil prices.
However, none of that is true. As Live Science reported last year, oil has been taken from the earth at an astonishing rate in the last 15 years to generate energy, manufacture plastics, and create asphalt. It's been removed at a rate far faster than it could ever be replenished.
In fact, at the rate oil is being removed, it is projected that reserves will only last another 50 years.
On top of that, even the base claim of the post is inaccurate; according to the Energy Information Administration, oil is the product of animals and plants that lived in prehistoric oceans, swamps, and seabeds. Over millions of years, they were covered by soil, rock, and sediment and compressed into the complex hydrocarbons we use as fuel. On top of that, replenishing oil reserves would take tens of millions of years, and we would deplete our stores long before we were able to make a drop in the bucket of our current rates of usage.
Harmful theories such as this hinder the implementation of clean energy sources, including solar, wind, and geothermal energy, by downplaying true science in favor of misinformation that maintains the status quo.
Commenters were quick to call out the factual inaccuracies.
"Mate I'm sorry to let you know this but you're a big Oil shill," one said. "He states it is not 'fossil' because there are no fossils at that depth. Just because the word is a bit confusing does not mean you can disregard everything else, and support the big oil companies that destroys eco-zones, destroys water sources, all for company profit. It takes millions of years for oil to be created, it will not just reappear."
"No way," another said. "You can't actually be trying to convince us that oil is a good source of energy."
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