Fossil Fuels

Imagine a world without streetlights, cars, or airplanes. A world lit only by fire and powered by the strength of muscles. For most of history, that was the reality. But all that time, I was sleeping deep within the Earth, a time capsule of pure energy, waiting. I am ancient sunshine, captured and stored for millions of years. My story begins long before the first humans, during a time scientists call the Carboniferous Period, which lasted from about 359 to 299 million years ago. The world was a giant, steamy swamp, covered in forests of colossal ferns and strange, towering trees. In the warm oceans, countless tiny organisms drifted through the water. All of this life soaked up energy from the sun. When these plants and creatures died, they sank to the bottom of swamps and seas. Over eons, they were buried under immense layers of mud, sand, and rock. The crushing weight and the Earth's inner heat worked a slow magic, transforming them. The great forests became a hard, black rock. The tiny sea creatures became a thick, dark liquid and an invisible gas. I am all three. For millennia, I lay hidden, a buried treasure of sunlight that humanity knew nothing about.

My first real introduction to people was subtle. Here and there, they would find pieces of my solid form, a black rock they called coal. They discovered that when it burned, it gave off a powerful, steady heat that lasted much longer than a simple wood fire. But my true potential remained a secret. One of the first cultures to truly harness my power lived in ancient China. Around 500 BCE, they figured out that my invisible, gassy form, which seeped from the ground, could be captured. Using clever pipes made from bamboo, they channeled this natural gas to huge vats of saltwater, boiling the water away to harvest the salt. It was an amazing feat of engineering, but the world would not see my full power unleashed for more than two thousand years. The great change began in Great Britain during the 18th century. The world was on the brink of a revolution, one that needed more power than wind, water, or animals could provide. People began digging deep into the earth for me, pulling up my solid coal form in enormous quantities. This fuel kicked off the Industrial Revolution. I became the fiery heart of this new age, powering the incredible steam engine that a brilliant man named James Watt perfected around 1776. My energy, released as steam, drove pistons that ran textile factories, powered locomotives that thundered across the land, and turned the propellers of ships that crossed the globe.

While my solid form was changing the world, my liquid form was mostly seen as a sticky nuisance. This dark, smelly oil would bubble up in ponds and contaminate streams. It was used in small amounts for medicine or waterproofing, but it was difficult to collect. That all changed on a historic day, August 27th, 1859. In a small town called Titusville, Pennsylvania, a determined man named Edwin Drake drilled a well and did something no one had done before: he pumped me, as liquid petroleum, straight from the ground. Suddenly, the world had easy access to my liquid form. People quickly learned to refine me, separating me into different parts. One of these parts, kerosene, became the fuel for lamps that lit up homes across the world, replacing the smoky, expensive whale oil that had been used for centuries. An even bigger transformation was just around the corner. In the late 19th century, inventors created the internal combustion engine. This new machine needed a liquid fuel that could ignite with a spark to create a small, controlled explosion. Another part of me, gasoline, was the perfect fuel. I became the power behind the first automobiles, giving people a freedom to travel that was once unimaginable. My gassy form, natural gas, was also put to work, piped directly into homes to provide a clean and convenient source of heat for cooking and staying warm.

For over two centuries, I have been the engine of human progress. I am Fossil Fuels. I am the coal, oil, and natural gas that built the modern world. My energy helped erect glittering cities that scrape the sky. I am the force that lifts airplanes into the clouds and powers the ships that connect continents. I am even in the plastics you use every day and in the creation of life-saving medicines. I have helped humanity achieve incredible things. But using so much of my ancient energy has come with a great cost, creating serious challenges for the planet, such as climate change. My story is now entering a new chapter. The same human ingenuity that drilled through rock to find me and built engines to use my power is now turning its gaze back to the sun, the wind, and the water. Humans are developing amazing new ways to power their world cleanly and sustainably. I am a bridge that has carried humanity from an age of muscle and fire to this new era of incredible possibility. I am proud of the world I helped build, and I am excited to watch as you use your brilliance to create an even brighter, cleaner future.