I will post it here, for the record, and I will post it to ask science here at Voat!
I was wondering if petroleum is like some kind of blood for the earth, does it has any real purpose in nature?
In the past people has burned mummies as a form of fuel. Today we burn petroleum which I was taught is dead animals and plants from the past. Is it? or is it a form of blood that fuels life on earth, like soil fuels plants to grow, or like air fuels in our lungs? I understand we consider it to be toxic because we can't drink it. But if it harvest some kinds of bacteria, that means it's edible for some life forms. Aren't we burning one "element" needed to harvest life on earth without knowing?
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xwwarriorx ago
By my logic, if we left all that oil deep underground where it is, in geologic time it will eventually be recycled into the Earth's mantle through plate tectonics. So I don't see how it makes any difference on a planetary scale whether or not we leave it in the ground or extract it all to the surface. What we do with it once we get it up? That's a different question entirely. My opinion.
TuMamaEnTanga ago
makes sense. I hope it's the actual truth and we don't end up finding petroleum in other planets or something... It would be funny to discover it was responsible for some key role on life on earth... like helping maintain earth's magnetic field or something not obvious like that.