the.com/fossil fuel
Ancient sunlight, bottled by death and pressure, burned in a century.
means Coal, oil, or natural gas formed from the buried remains of ancient organisms, burned today for energy.
from 'Fossil' traces to Latin fossilis, 'dug up' (from fodere, to dig) — originally used for anything unearthed, not just remains of ancient life. 'Fuel' comes via Old French fouaille back to Latin focus, 'hearth.' The compound term crystallized as geologists in the 18th and 19th centuries came to understand that coal and oil were literally dug-up relics of prehistoric swamps and seas, compressed over millions of years — so the name is less a metaphor than a plain description: dug-up things, burned for heat.
- timescale mismatch
- 300 million years to make, 300 to burn
- origin
- mostly dead plankton, not dinosaurs
- coal
- forms from swamps that never finished rotting
- irony
- solar energy stored, then called the opposite