fossil fuel

English

Noun

fossil fuel (plural fossil fuels)

  1. Any fuel derived from hydrocarbon deposits such as coal, petroleum, natural gas and, to some extent, peat; these fuels are non-renewable, and their burning generates the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide.
    Coordinate term: renewable
    • 2006 October 11, Robert B. Semple Jr., “Beyond Fossil Fuels”, in New York Times‎:
      Without renewables, we’ll still end up burning (albeit much more efficiently) the same coal and natural gas that we burn today in our power plants and the same fuel oil that we burn in our cars and trucks. And it is precisely these carbon-based fossil fuels that we must distance ourselves from if we really want to come to grips with our dependence on foreign oil and with global warming.

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