Does Oil have any way to regenerate?

Question

With everyone using up the Oil supplies under the earth, is their any way oil can replenish or regenerate. Isn't oil from decaded dinosaurs or something?

Answer 1

Petroleum is believed to be derived from vast deposits of plant material that decayed under pressure. Once it is burned, it becomes mostly CO2 and water. The CO2 can be recycled through living plants, but that is a far cry from recovering usable petroleum. Ethanol as fuel is closer, when derived from plants.

Answer 2

Petroleum (crude oil), natural gas, and coal are formed from plants that lived 350 million of years ago (Carboniferous period--means carbon bearing-- named after the fact that all our fossil fuel came from this period).
Natural gas and petroleum were made from microscopic algae (that lived in the shallow oceans and lakes) that accumulated and buried.
Coal were made from giant tree-like ferns that grew in prehistoric swamps.
They are not made from dinosaurs. Actually, these are plants that were growing on this planet even before the dinosaurs.

So the simple answer is NO, we can't regenerate them (at least in our life time). Hopefully some day we won't need to because we will be using alternative sources of energy. Burning fossil fuel is just too polluting!

We can, however, create other fuel from plants... like biodiesel fuel and ethanol.

Answer 3

Oil is a non-renewable resource. That basically means that while, yes it does 'regenerate' it takes thousand of years to produce any. That's what happens to petrolueum.

Answer 4

Agreed. Except that ethanol and bio diesel produce the same amt of CO2 per pound Or BTU's as kerosene or gasoline.