Phew! I feel better already.
The hypothesis of abiogenic petroleum origin holds that most petroleum was formed from deep carbon deposits, perhaps deposits dating to the accretion of the Earth. The ubiquity of hydrocarbons in the solar system is taken as evidence that there may be a great deal more petroleum on Earth than commonly thought, and that material may exist at depth in the Earth’s crust and mantle. Adherents to the abiogenic hypothesis often downplay or dismiss altogether the more widely held view that petroleum is a fossil fuel produced from the buried remains of ancient living organisms.
One reply on “abiogenic petroleum will save us!”
Abiogenic or abiotic oil is not a hypothesis but a theory.
Not most petroleum but all petroleum (oil and natural gas) are primordial materials and, of course, abiotic. Some biological molecules present in oil are just contaminants from microbes that eat oil and dead into oil.
About “fossil fuel”…see below.
“The suggestion that petroleum might have arisen from some transformation of squashed fish or biological detritus is surely the silliest notion to have been entertained by substantial numbers of persons over an extended period of time.”
Fred Hoyle 1982