Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

I feel they’re more a miracle from the depths of hell. Sunlight is probably the miracle from heaven.




Petroleum is a stable sunlight storage medium.

The sun is but a poor, corrupted pun on starlight. The reflecting pool of crude shimmers with thin-film interference like nebulae on the celestial expanse.

You could argue that the sun was pretty useful, quite the “essential companion” in the Stone Age as well.

In fact, it is hard to imagine there would have been enough dead trees to make oil if it were not for the sun.

You could argue (pretty soundly) that oil is just a way of consuming the energy in trees which got that energy from the sun. So oil is just a way of extracting ancient solar energy.


If you go that far, all energy sources are [ancient] solar energy though. Geothermal? Yep. Wind? Yep. Fission? Yeppers.

Oil’s potential, left deep in the crust, remains latent. Every mote of sunlight, furiously brought to life by the maelstrom, seeks inexorably for immediate purpose.



Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: