The oil industry and its complicit profession of English speaking geologists, many on oil industry staff, have been working for several generations to make us believe unquestioningly that oil and gas are of biological origin. It is a cornerstone of the Peak Oil Dogma that has indoctrinated us into the belief that oil is consummately and imminently finite permitting the oil industry and its allies to drive all over us, setting prices beyond the wildest dreams of Croesus. You see if oil supply is running out quickly -- as we are taught (as it has according to oil industry and geological gospel ever since that first well in Pennsylvania in the 1850s) -- a lesson that the oil industry wants us to learn each and every day is that we will have to pay, pay, pay.
Well just suppose we have been purposely misled. That the Peak Oil Pranksters and their geologist sidekicks have been the purveyors of one of the great con jobs in history. That oil and gas is not the biological phenomenon that has been drummed into us. Rather that oil and gas are a geological phenomenon, inherent to the geological construct of the earth and all that means to its expanse and availability.
Just recently the Wall Street Journal published an eye opening article informing us that a large sector of the Arctic seabed, sitting on a methane reservoir, has become unstable and is releasing methane into the atmosphere ('Arctic Site is Oozing Methane", 03.03.10). The article goes on, "Of the roughly 500 million tons of methane emitted annually world-wide an estimated 40% has a natural origin, such as wetlands and the digestive processes of termites." I kid you not, "the digestive process of termites"..."while the rest results from human activities including cattle farming..." Then quoting a researcher at the University of Alaska, "This particular source has never been taken into account in tallying methane emissions."
Well bravo! That gives us an important clue toward solving another newly evolving mystery. You see last year a team of NASA and University scientists achieved the first definitive detection of methane in the atmosphere of Mars. This discovery indicates, according to NASA, that the planet is either biologically or geologically active. Giving credence that the existence of methane might indeed be of geological origin rekindles the question whether the theory attributing the origins of oil and gas to biological (fossil) origins on earth is in large measure a myth.
Our friends in the oil patch and their geologist allies would in all likelihood have a very focused explanation, aligning themselves with biological phenomenon. Perhaps it would flow along the following lines -- that we have gotten it wrong for generations, that;
Hey diddle diddle,
The Cat and the Fiddle,
The Cow jump'd over the Moon,
...
was in fact altogether incorrect. It was not "over the Moon" but rather "The Cow jump'd over Mars." That it was in fact many cows, all leaving a trail of methane-rich flatulence while jumping over Mars, ergo 'hocus pocus' methane's presence in Mars' atmosphere. Far fetched? Not if you try to envisage the huge size of the dinosaur farms in Saudi Arabia and Texas needed to turn up as the hundreds of billions of barrels of oil all these eons later.
The methane oozing in Alaska and its presence in the atmosphere of Mars seems a dead giveaway that the theory of biological origins of oil and gas is deeply flawed.
Please understand that methane with its four atoms of hydrogen bound to a carbon atom, is the main component of natural gas on Earth. Given methane's existence in such non biological environs as Mars and conceivably the Arctic seabed brings into question once again the facile dismissal of Abiotic Oil theory by our oil industry and its OPEC allies.
As cited in the post here, "Why Does Abiotic Oil Theory Ignite Peak Oil Theorist Fulminations??", 08.14.08," which questions why so little has been published on this issue in English language scientific/geological journals. This in spite of the rigorous work done by the Russian/Ukrainian geological community which is highly supportive of the theory of the geological origins of oil and gas.
It is time to revisit this issue, especially at this moment when we find an oil market awash with oil but with oil prices at levels leaving all semblance of market reality. Natural gas prices are touching six month lows while oil prices are now a whisker from six month highs. Given the traditional relationship between these two fuels, wherein one would closely track the other, there is something clearly and profoundly amiss. It is long past due that our media and our government agencies begin to deal with the plethora of misinformation emanating from the oil industry and its allies that have reduced the consuming public to being passive and paralyzed bystanders in one of history's great swindles (please see: "The Billion Dollar Day Extortion; A Somnolent Administration and Dysfunctional Congress' Gift to the American People," 02.22.10).
In other reading I find "A small number of geologists adhere to the abiogenic petroleum origin hypothesis and maintain that hydrocarbons of purely inorganic origin exist within Earth's interior."
Well - this will be interesting ..
However .. the article didn't really tell me that ..
The idea that petroleum is infinitely renewable (Don't need dinosaurs) does not ring true to me.
Yes, it's true that the accepted wisdom has been that oil is produced from the compressed remains of whole ecosystems. It's also true that there is controversy on that point. But at the rate at which we use that resource, and the evident rate of its (supposed) "replenishment" by geological processes, the difference between the two concepts comes down to pure symantics.
Oil wells go dry and are capped off. When/if they are reopened, any quantity of oil in them is readily explained by gravity-driven concentration of quantities that were too small to profitably recover the first time -- hot water is put down wells to drive up the last oil; and over time the oil rises to the top of that water. Not to mention that increasing scarcity leads previously unprofitable wells to briefly become profitable again for short periods; until once again they go dry, or again become unprofitable. Rinse and repeat.
There is no market difference between a truly limited resource, and one that's replenished at rates far below replacement. It has NO effect on pricing, which relates to market availability NOW. The author hangs his hat on a concept with no teeth in it. Even if the mineral-genesis folks were right, we would still have to "pay, pay, pay."
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fpcomment/archive/2009/09/12/lawrence-solomon-endless-oil.aspx
or;
Squeezing the last bit of oil from Mother Earth
http://www.thestar.com/business/article/698246
interesting reading that supports this article and its premise...
If the Huffington Post ever expects to be taken seriously as a media source, it has to start living up to SOME standard of journalistic integrity. You're an embarrassment to yourselves and the entire progressive community, and you deepen the association of the left with pseudoscience. You're as bad as Republican young earth creationists.
One way, one truth is all well and good if there is nothing more to know, but it denies all progress.
His ultimate source of oils, they're part of the original components, does seem unlikely. Any such should be squeezed out immediately. This is what my speculations are meant to replace. Exactly why nuclear processes within the sun must have cooling effects must be interesting but it does seem to be the case and the sun is more cool than calculations of the compression would require. Some say this is due to a cycling effect. I have read a theory that fission has a blast effect to slows compression and, therefore cools the sun: Now, that should be improbable!
<
/\
>
this is what it looks like when angles dance
My friends with a scientific education find this theory even personally offensive. I don't really care. It is ironic that this is the opposite of the consensus theory. Being ironic, it is more likely true.
You have heard of processes where hydrogen fuses. This process is theoretically two way. It is exactly my point that the processes that convert hydrogen to heavier elements is one that releases energy, but the temperature of the sun is less than predicted just from compression alone. So, one physicist argues that nuclear fusion blasts the components of the sun apart, slowing the compression and reducing the temperature absolutely. This, though more tolerable to consensus theory, is not all that reasonable.
My theory explains why the sun's atmosphere is hydrogen. The role of the Bose Einstein Condensate explains why the background temperature of the universe is at the point where the B/E Condensate breaks. Gamov's calculation of a background glow from the Big Bang was originally about 10x higher, and was quickly accepted as a "ballpark" number.
I have given this matter some thought. It is entirely likely that I am wrong, but if I am right to any degree, this is a transformational theory like Copernicus or continental drift. It undermines the theory of the Big Bang, implies the universe is older than said, rejects the theory of the first and second generation stars, and is radical in other ways.
Whatever, you think of me, you cannot burn me at the stake. Ha, ha, ha!
What I've been calling the consensus theory has some problems: One is the neutrino emission from the sun: There are too few and they're the wrong kind. This has led to a theory that something changes the neutrinos on their flight from the sun. Furthermore, a recommendation was made that I might check out elementary texts: This is a good idea because the texts do not agree with one another and the high science of 50 years ago is rejected in some details today. As one Nobel winner observed, we are living in an age of discovery. New things are being established, new lands being mapped, so to speak, so the grounds will be established from here on out. yet, some brings to mind Ptolemaic circles drawn within circles to make false notions work.
The irony is that nobody believes this, yet it may be the truth. Our friends -- who quite correctly condemn "junk" science -- may one day and probably fairly soon will just accept all this as obvious. Real truth does often seem simple while the junk wears a thousand colored ribbons.
New reserves can be discovered, and we now know there are enormous amounts of hydrated methane on the ocean floor, especially the Arctic. But we don't have the technology to capture this methane, and methane is a gas, not oil. It isn't quite as convenient as oil. What Peak Oil says is that we are on the downward slope of discovering new RECOVERABLE (conventional) oil reserves AND HAVE BEEN FOR 20-30 YEARS. We are therefore near the peak of production. Whether the lower production of conventional oil can be offset by higher production from tar sands, deep sea drilling or substitution of methane captured from the sea bed is a different question. But in any case, it appears that such substitutions will be expensive, or the market would have driven us to them long ago.
Rather, the problem(s) are geopolitical and environmental!
Billions of barrels of oil coming from Dinosaur farms? While I realize he was being (somwhat) facetious, it still shows that he thinks all this oil is coming from Dinosaurs.. not the vast numbers of trees that have dominated the planet for the past 400 million years.
And while I don't disagree that OPEC and friends are lying to the public in order to control prices, how can he possibly use the presence of methane on mars as proof that methane is of geological origin? Life is not nearly as impossible a notion as many seem to think it is. This writer should be a little more cautious with his accusations, or he is very liable to be put into the same category as the liars he is fighting against.
Yes, THAT methane is produced abiotically, having condensed with the moon itself (methane is found in space, along with other ingredients of life). Then, gravity makes it rise to the surface. THEN, being light, it eventually escapes back into space. THEN, it is replaced from underground sources over time, leading to Titan's ongoing situation. When Titan is finally old enough, it will no longer deliver its methane to its surface.
But on a WARM planet, the methane boils off MUCH faster (all gone in the first billiooo,ooo,ooon years); and what's left, is that produced by life. That's why the eggheads at NASA, who don't do their research for anyone's political agenda, use methane signatures as an all-but-sure sign of life on temperate planets.
And, if I might say so, to use your limited understanding of the science, to ridicule science itself, is not a valid intellectual stance to take. Before you ridicule someone, I think you owe it to them to understand what they are saying. Otherwise, you are also open to unwarranted criticisms.
That's why dinosaurs are blamed for the actions of whole ecosystems.
Did you know that on the moon of Saturn (Titan), that it rains oil because there are oceans of oil there according to our own Space agency NASA our maybe it had an over abundance of Dinosours?
Nasa has also discovered huge oceans of frozen methane on Europa a moon of Jupiter with possible water below the ice. Even our own moon has frozen water, how do you explain?
All I see Raymond saying is that you have been Duked because there may not be a shortage of oil and if you like giving the oil companies your money when there is no need for it then I have a few bills I need payed off! Could you Help me out since you have lots of extra cash?
And of course, I -heart- oil companies. (And no cash for you!)
But to take the very small portion of it that's produced by normal geology, and use that to say that it ALL is, is a huge misuse of the science -- and such a huge misuse of science must call into question one's motives, in spreading such misinformation.