What is "oil"?

What is "oil"?

Terry Tamminen (Author & Environmental Policy Advisor) gives expert video advice on: What is a "fossil fuel"?; How does our use of fossil fuels cause global warming?; What are "carbon emissions"? and more...

Oil, or petroleum, is one of these fossil fuels that has been laid in the earth over centuries, from centuries of organic material decomposing and being compressed under pressure in the earth from layer after layer of sediment and rock. Of course, if you keep pressing oil or coal, it turns into things like diamonds, that we like. But if we take it out of the ground in this intermediate stage, as oil or as coal, it has properties that allow us to burn it for energy production.