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firebot 17 hours ago

Fossil fuels hopefully aren't going anywhere.

We should absolutely stop burning them, though.

For instance, modern medicine requires petroleum and there's no real alternatives at this time.

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dgellow 15 hours ago | parent [-]

Doesn’t the term “fuel” imply they are burnt? Genuine question, I’m not native speaker

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chii 15 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Fuel is simply a noun for a source of energy, it doesn't need burning for something to be fuel. Look at nuclear fuel - it doesn't burn.

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firebot 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Yea. That last part is a bit incongruent. My bad.

Modern medicine relies heavily on petrochemical feedstocks (derived from fossil fuels.) These are used to make plastics, solvents, reagents, packaging, and some pharmaceuticals Many of these materials currently have no scalable, cost-effective substitutes.