Plot twist: What we know as oil was buried by a former civilisation that fought climate change then went extinct. The trees we bury will be used as fossil fuels by the next civilisation.

I like to joke that oil is a renewable energy source, it's just that people tend to be too impatient.

If I understand right, most of our current fossil fuels are from an era when there weren't bacteria capable of breaking down lignin. So, plants would die and dry out, but wouldn't fully decompose. You'd have huge mounds of dead plants that would eventually get buried and turn into oil.

Those conditions don't exist anymore, so they're actually a non-renewable resource.

Huh, interesting.

Compelling, thanks for posting.

tldr: wetlands->peat->coal

Coal was formed from wood and land-based plant matter (such as bogs).

Oil is largely formed from algae.

Natural gas tends to be associated with oil deposits.

Anaerobic conditions are required for formation.

See Jeffrey S. Dukes, "Burning Buried Sunshine" (2003) <https://link.springer.com/article/10.1023/A:1026391317686> <https://dge.carnegiescience.edu/DGE/Dukes/Dukes_ClimChange1....> (PDF)

I feel like even if the conditions existed, humans would be preventing them from happening. Or is it what you were implying?

No, I mean that the conditions can't happen anymore the way they did then, because in the intervening time microbes have evolved that can eat lignin. The dead plants would be almost entirely decomposed before they have a chance to get buried.

Most cars run completely on solar energy. The sun grew the biomass that converted to oil.

...and the sun itself generates energy by nuclear fusion.

Yeah, when I was in the solar business more than a decade ago funding was tough and so I used to refer to it as "wireless fusion power" in the hope that those two buzzwords would make people more interested.

Instead solar did fine with a not-so-slow-but steady path.