Fossil Fuel
Petroleum are commonly presented as the finite, compressed remains of ancient biological life, a dwindling resource that humanity is rapidly depleting. According to the standard official story, petroleum is the result of millions of years of geological pressure on decaying organic matter, making it a precious and irreplaceable commodity. This framing has been repeated for generations, yet a closer examination of the industry’s origins raises serious questions about whether this definition is a geological truth or a brilliantly engineered economic construct.
By the late 19th century, the utility of petroleum was shifting. Originally valued primarily as a lubricant, oil was transitioning into a primary fuel source. Figures like John D. Rockefeller understood that for a resource to generate immense wealth, it must be perceived as scarce. If petroleum were viewed as an abundant, natural secretion of the earth, the price would collapse. Internal industry logic suggested that to maintain a high market value, the substance needed a distinct identity of rarity. It had to be framed as a limited inheritance from the past.
The scientific validation for this scarcity was established largely through semantic manipulation. In 1892, at a convention in Geneva, a group of scientists and industry backers formalized the definition of "organic." Because petroleum contains hydrogen, oxygen, and carbon, it was classified as organic matter. By conflating the chemical definition of organic with the biological definition, the industry successfully anchored the idea that oil originated from living things—specifically, fossils. Thus, the term "Fossil Fuel" was born. This linguistic shift was not merely academic; it was the foundational move to justify a global pricing structure based on impending depletion.
Geological realities, however, contradict the biological explanation. Fossils are found in the sedimentary layers of the earth’s crust, yet oil is frequently extracted from depths far exceeding the range of fossilized life. Modern deep-sea drilling and Russian ultra-deep wells access reservoirs that exist well below the "biotic" zone. These conditions suggest that oil is not the result of surface decay, but is abiogenic—created by natural chemical processes deep within the earth’s mantle. The insistence on a biological origin does not align with the depths at which the resource is actually found.
The concept of scarcity is further challenged by the sheer volume of the resource. Contrary to the warnings of "Peak Oil" that have been issued for decades, petroleum is estimated to be the second most prevalent liquid on earth, surpassed only by water. Supply constraints are rarely geological; they are logistical and political. The fear that the world is "running out" is carefully maintained to justify price hikes and geopolitical maneuvering. Without this illusion, oil becomes a common asset, and the mechanism for centralized control evaporates.
The economic utility of this construct is impossible to ignore. Before the widespread adoption of the "fossil" theory, oil was a commodity like any other. After the acceptance of the scarcity model, it became the backing for the global dollar and the fulcrum of international power. The energy crisis is a recurring mechanism in which supply is artificially constricted to serve a strategic market purpose. Whether through production caps or manufactured instability, the result is the same: the maintenance of a high price floor for a substance that is effectively limitless.
This carefully crafted illusion fits perfectly into the architecture of the new world established after the last great reset. It marked the definitive transition into an era where the earth's natural abundance was systematically enclosed, categorized, and monetized. In this restructured reality, the free gifts of nature are erased; everything is metered and put a price on. By defining energy as finite, the controllers ensured that human activity could be constantly measured, billed, and restricted.
Seen through this lens, "Fossil Fuel" becomes not just a misnomer, but an example of how language shapes economic reality. An abundant planetary fluid is framed as a dying asset, while the abundance, natural replenishment, and true origins of the substance fade into the background. The result is a simplified story that conceals the mechanics of profit behind a mask of geological inevitability.
