The Art Center College of Design in Pasadena should get bonus points for including an Energy 101 presenation at its recent 2009 Summit: Expanding the Vision of Sustainable Mobility. Most conferences about energy and the environment skip science altogether leaving their audiences without a firm grounding in energy science. Case in point? Oil does not come from dinosaurs. The 'fossil' in 'fossil fuels' refers to a geological period, not the ancient remains of mammals.
UC Davis Geology Professor Kenneth Verosub reminds us that oil (a 'hydrocarbon') is the result of bioenergy. Ancient diatoms (shelled algae) that used light to bind carbon and hydrogen that died and then with help of geological processes became a viable 'fuel' for humanity. [Video]
Category: Energy
Year: General
Tags: energy, oil, hydrocarbon, coal, carbon, hydrogen, bioenergy