Oil's Big Dirty Secret as Producers Rake in Hundreds of Billions
According to news reports yesterday, members of OPEC alone glommed in $645 Billion (Euro 430 Billion) for the first six months of this year. Not only have oil consumers been gorged to the hilt, we have been reduced to being supplicants of the oil producers. Every day we are being fed the unceasing lesson from the same hymnal, that oil is running out "tomorrow," come and get it while you still can, not unlike 1855 when Samuel Kier's Rock Oil patent medicine made from Pennsylvania crude oil touted to cure everything from diarrhea, rheumatism, ringworm to deafness, solemnly cautioning buyers, "Hurry Before This Wonderful Product is Depleted from Nature's Laboratory." This while The Peak Oil Pranksters are ever ready to carry the message for the oil patch both here and everywhere working near overtime to heighten our anxieties about oil supply, programming us to pay ever more to the oil barons and sheiks.
But wait, suppose, just suppose they are wrong and willfully misleading us. That oil's origins are not, to repeat, not biological, according to the gospel we have been taught to believe. That in effect oil originates from deep carbon deposits dating to the very beginnings of the Earth's formation in quantities vastly greater than commonly thought. The very presence of methane in the solar system is cited as one of the key underpinnings of this theory's seriousness. Then by seepage through the earth's mantle, Abiotic oil becomes in essence a renewing resource migrating toward the Earth's crust until it escapes to the surface (i.e. Canada's tar sands as theorized by some) or trapped by impermeable strata forming petroleum reservoirs.
Much research has been done on Abiotic Theory by a bevy of Russian and Ukranian geologists starting during the Soviet era, most especially by Nikolai Alexandrovich Kurdryavtsev who proposed the modern Abiotic Theory of Petroleum in 1951.
Among Kurdryavtsev's colleagues was Professor V.A. Krayushkin, chair of the Dept. of Petroleum Exploration at the Ukranian Academy of Sciences and leader of the DneiperDonets Basin Exploration project in the Ukraine, an area that has yielded eleven giant oil fields holding at least 65 billion barrels of oil and some 100 billion cubic meters of recoverable gas, comparable to the North Slope of Alaska . The area had previously been designated as having no potential for petroleum production whatsoever. Exploration, according to a paper by Richard Heinberg, was conducted entirely according to the "perspective of the modern Russian Ukranian theory of abyssal, abiotic petroleum origins".
Question, how often have you heard of M. King Hubbert and his peak oil theories dating to 1949 and how often have you heard of Kurdryavtsev or Krayushkin? Certainly, for those having some interest in Peak Oil jargon, Hubbert's name comes up endlessly, while Kurdryavtsev and Krayushkin probably never, or rarely if at all. But then again Hubbert was Chief Consultant for Shell Oil's Production Research Division and his theories served their Marketing Department well. His predictions first made in 1949 that the fossil fuel era would be of very short duration made him, with help of the fine hand of oil industry flacks, probably the best known geophysicist of his time.
Is the theory of abiotic oil viable? I am not a geologist so I cannot begin to answer authoritatively. It is certainly worth exploring with far greater seriousness than has been the case to date. But I have come to learn the oil industry and its minions. One can rest assured that if abiotic oil is a true challenge to current theory and most especially in the dimension it is purported to be, the oil patch will do all in its power to divert our attention elsewhere. Were we to learn that the supply of oil is limitless, the emperor's clothes would evaporate and the price of oil would collapse.
These comments are not in any way meant to encourage the increased and continued use of oil and carbon-based energy. Issues of greenhouse warming and climate change are far too primordial for us in any way not to continue down the path of a fossil/carbon-free society. But that will take time and in the meanwhile we must wrest back our economic bearings from the rapaciousness of the oil producers and one way to begin doing that is to dismantle the received shibboleths being used to hold us in their grasp. It is time to begin dealing with them as consumers free to make our choices just as we would with any other product or supplier. If we don't like attitudes or pricing policies or loyalty, as in customer relations we should once again be able to turn to another provider of comparable goods and we, as the buying public, or for that matter the nation in its own strategic interests, take our trade elsewhere. Seems far-fetched today? Just wait.
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Abiotic oil as an answer to any useful question regarding our energy future is wishful thinking and Raymond Learsy's strong point is his constant outrage at energy companies, which distorts reality almost beyond recognition. I hope he has a bike and heats with wood.
As an engineer, my opinion of abiotic oil theory is that it's "hogwash". Yeah, the earth inherited methane (and other carbon compounds) but that's been integrated into the biosphere in the form of life. Oil formed from biological deposits left over from the Cambrian Explosion.
So for us realists, oil is running out and "The Party's Over". Funny you should mention Richard Heinberg. He wrote "The Party's Over": a book that ALL US citizens should read written from the petroleum geologist's perspective that shows we are in serious trouble. Our entire modern economy, civilization, and agriculture is based on the cheap and dense energy of oil.
Heinberg's best point in the book (IMHO) is the concept of Energy Return On Energy Invested (EROEI). When the energy required to produce an energy source increases to give a 1:1 ratio, the game is over -- it would, after that point, take more energy to develop the source than it produces. And oil is headed in that directions from a one time 100:1 ratio. So we'll never run out of oil! It will just cost more energy to harvest it than it produces!
BTW, the alternative source with the best EROEI right now is wind and geothermal (if I remember correctly). Nuclear is an economic and EROEI boondoggle (like corn ethanol) when you add up all the energy and dollar costs.
EROEI is the key for making a rational energy decision. It separates the BS from the real McCoy.
And as a Petroleum Geologist (retired) I must express my agreement with littlemike.
Even IF abiotic oil were a reality, for such to have more than the most insignificant positive effect on the supply side, the generation of petroleum would need to keep pace with its extraction (and that ain't happening; depletion is a hard, cold fact).
Conservation, solar, wind, geothermal, etc. are the only viable solutions (and I intentionally use the plural because today and for the foreseeable future there is no single replacement source for petroleum).
You're getting screwed by Oil, that much is reasonably certain. Also of reasonable certainty is that you're being lied to by Oil (and their politicos). But abiotic oil? Nah. No valid science behind it. Anyway, its simply smarter to stop using oil, regardless its availability. Conservation is wayyyy cleaner than oil, biotic or abiotic.
I believe Learsy is way off base and is simply in search of ANYthing to slag Oil. Mind you, I don't mind slagging Oil, just so long as its done with science on your side.
Save the conspiracy theories for the Kennedy assassination. Just use less of the stuff.
To littlemike:
As an engineer, you should appreciate the science and there is plenty to support Abiotic Oil. Actually, it's "fossil" theory that doesn't a lot of science to back it up.
"Diagenesis" and "catagenesis" are made-up words to describe a made-up process (the "process" fossil theory claims for the formation of oil from organic detritus). A process that never has been demonstrated in a laboratory experiment, or explained or described by a step-by-step chemical process reduced to mathematically expressed chemical equations constrained by physical and chemical laws. That failure should mean something to an engineer.
Richard Heinberg has stated he wished that oil had never been discovered. That reveals a heck of a bias against oil and for "peak" oil. Heinberg makes his money off of "peak" oil.
Abiotic Oil would put him out of business, so, of course, he argues against it.
Heinberg's statements have been analyzed and found to have many distortions and half-truths.
It makes sense that oil would lie about the supply. The future of energy is not however oil except for lubrication issues the usual bearings thing. We currently possess the technology to produce free energy. This is the best kept secret. One day soon perhaps within five to ten years or sooner you'll be able to dial it in just like a radio station as much as you want for as long as you want. Even this new invention will not be a panacea for civilization. The forces of greed rooted in our religions must first be exposed and people made conscious of them. That is a more difficult task than producing free energy.
Greed is the antithesis of 'love thy neighbor as thyself.' Greed has the philosophy of get as much as you can anyway you can and is the number blight on civilization going back as far as there have been greedy men. Greed collects wealth for its own purposes and not to become a positive force in the distribution of that wealth. Think about it like this. When you have everything you need what else is there? For Greedy people it is the control over others called POWER. The world in its complexity is very simple. All WAR is Corporate Takeover. The people are simply pawns to be moved around the board by Greedy WAR profiteers.
joekutz, what is this "free energy" you are talking about?
"free" energy...sounds like cold fusion or perpetua; motion...or changing base metals into gold..all wonderful ideas (with no basis in reality).
We've known for a while now that the oil industry goons are a bunch of greedy, power hungry monopolists who lie. This cult has conveniently (as have our politicians) built up a wall between them and us so that it is very difficult for us to change the status quo, and it is very easy for them to ignore us. This situation - not being able to change status quo with these criminals - is the first hurdle to get over concerning both the oil industry and our politicians. If oil is not scarce, it will be difficult for the powers that be to explain why we have been servants to the Rockefeller cabal, er, I mean oil industry for so long. Strategies during both World Wars were employed to gain a monopoly over Middle Eastern oil – at American GI’s expense and on our dime. Wars and death are perpetuated to this day to keep the area unstable to control the oil. The societal structure that dependency on scarce oil keeps in place is a bigger motivation for the monsters than the profit - how much money do you need for heavens sake. We need worker bees. If oil is cheap or energy free, we would jump class and the elite would not be so special anymore and would have a harder time of controlling us. Our allegiance to authority would diminish. Their sick world chess game would be over.
It is remarkable how little knowledge it takes to make ridiculous comments, even easier when one is simply ignorant of easily discovered facts. Most of the "gluttons" of the oil industry are in fact national states that own about 85% of the world's "drilled" oil. IIs it important to conclude that these folks are greedy, rather than interested in doing what nations do" follow self-interest? There really is no difference and it really is our own fault. It is our congressional "leadership" that refuses to allow the private "grredy gluttons" of our own country to develop our resources. In point of fact, the oil industry is comprised of tens of thousands of very professional technical people who work for a living. In point of fact, the industry's private side earns about half of what companies like Microsaoft, or telephone utilities, or drug companies, or the entertainment industry earns as a percentage of income. Serious issues require serious discussions.
Half? Exxon largest profit for any company in history. EVER.
Well put. Given all the energy innovation coming out, I would think they're trying to play their game for all they can get until renewables makes oil worthless. Here's a good example I found from MIT -
'Major discovery' from MIT primed to unleash solar revolution
Daniel Nocera describes new process for storing solar energy
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/oxygen-0731.html
View video post on MIT TechTV
Until now, solar power has been a daytime-only energy source, because storing extra solar energy for later use is prohibitively expensive and grossly inefficient. With today's announcement, MIT researchers have hit upon a simple, inexpensive, highly efficient process for storing solar energy.
Where were you in the 1990's? Oil was less than $20 a barrel. If oil were cheap, we would continue to bask in our ignorance, gleefully conforming to authority. The high price is the only thing that will give us motivation to change.
Wow, some real oil haters here. Fact is, oil and the energy it provides has been a tremendous boon for America. I don't buy that "oil addiction" lie. An addiction has no benifits other than to reenforce the addiction. Oil has provided a great economy and standard of living. Yeah, there is that polution thing but over the years America has become an amazingly polution free country as polution control technology has matured. I am all for solar, wind, bio-mass (not corn) energy. Lets do it now. Just be real and acknowledge the tremendous benifit oil energy has been for America.
It's so nice that you don't care about being robbed blind y monopolies and speculators.
Stupid, but nice.
The story of oil is the story of pulling up black, poisonous gunk from deep in the earth and shmearing it all across the face of the earth, dosing the oceans and pressing small animals into pavement like flowers betwext the pages of a book. Glad you had fun. I know i did. I am not imune to the roar of a super eight, but i am willing to give it up for the good of the future. I believe in the future as i believe in my present.
"America has become an amazingly polution [sic] free country..."
Have you been to L.A. or New York recently? That brown stuff that you see at the limits of your vision? That's pollution. It wouldn't be noticeable if there weren't A LOT of it. Considering the amount of lives that have been needlessly shortened on account of wars for oil, I would say the benefits are vastly outweighed by the negatives. There have been many mistakes made by man and some of them have been or are being overcome (don't know about the global warming thing yet) but this is one of the biggest. Governments were told, at the beginning of the petroleum age, that this would be a bad idea. But these people weren't listened to. For starters, read this:
http://www.globalwarmingarchive.com/History.aspx
Comment paid for by The People Who Bring You Oil and Gas.
Yeah that pollution thingy is a bummer. Facts are facts and my friend America is hardly an amazingly pollution free country. We have toxic rain issues from burning coal that have killed lakes and ponds all over this country, we have thousands of superfund sites probably some right in your own community, we have problems with discarding nuclear waste, we have arsenic and other toxic chemicals and heavy metals in our groundwater from strip mining, we have the gasoline additive mtbe in our drinking water, we have millions of plastic bags hanging in trees and floating in our seas. Wjat do you call coming out of the tailpipes of hundreds of millions of cars and trucks 24/7/
Oil energy has a been a benefit but do you suggest a national holiday celebrating the merging of Exxon and Mobil? It could be the only federal holiday that we get to pay instead of getting paid.
Consider the alternative of starting the US without any oil. Lets see.
We would still be using horse and buggies.
There would be no electronics, no power systems, no instant communication, no smog, and no future. Right now it is our lifeblood.
If oil is a temp thing it has to be the most benificial supply we have. Move beyond it by using it as the spring board. I won't dismiss it's drawbacks but I think we should also consider it's benefits.
Personally I think we should have a holiday celebrating the uselessness of our present politicains on both sides. If they were more concerned with our future rather than guarding the snail darters we could have cut this off long ago.
Extracting and processing oil, coal and uranium, then the transport costs of the carbon fuels and the disposal of spent nuclear fuel, are unavoidable costs. By the time offshore fields are producing and issues with the others are dealt with, we may have the storage problem of solar and wind energy solved and the cost of building collectors and generators down to the point that extracted fuels are just too expensive.
That poses a problem for the energy companies, as they rely on scarcity to keep prices up, and the sun shines and wind blows most everywhere. So they will try to torpedo developement of alternative energy technmology.
Abiotic petroleum has no advantage over fossil fuel in this respect.
Oil is not abiotic. The energy needs oif industrial nations are determined by baseload requirements: what it takes to operate a country 24/7. "Esoteric" technologies and even hydroelectric power are in the 20%-40% range for baseload. Nuclear is amazingly efficient. In point of fact, one pencil eraser sized fuel pellet has the useful energy of three barrels of oil or one ton of coal. There needs to be only 2% spent waste if recycling nuclear technology is used and the French are putting into practice. We can be 100% nuclear for electric power--France is 80%, Lithuania is 100% (1 reactor). We have 106 reators operating today and for the last 25 years without a single accident, but all are old. We have 110 seagoing reactors with zero accidents.
Science fiction! no breeder reactor are working,. The existing once through reactors need uranium every 2 years. If the world switches to nukes, that will be gone in 13 years.
Stop repeating the lies.
Even if crude oil is proven abiotic, hence renewable, that doesn't address the rate at which nature might renew this resource, where nature chooses to renew it in relation to the geopolitical maps humans have drawn to control and divvy up land and resources, or the fact that we're the frog who jumped into the pot of what used to be perfectly cool water after turning up the heat ourselves. If we don't hop out of the pot at least long enough to turn down the burner, we're going to boil ourselves.
It makes zero environmental AND economic sense to continue to rely on crude oil for energy indefinitely, fossil fuel or not. Same with coal.Solar and wind, by contrast, have a range of advantages. They're clean. They're readily available all year long for the vast majority of the planet's human inhabitants. And we know they'll be consistently available for literally thousands of centuries, or essentially the habitable lifespan of the planet.
You bring up an interesting point on rate of renewal. Oil is renewable even if it is not abiotic. The process which created oil and gas in the first place, compression and heating of organic single cell organisms over hundreds of millions of years, is continuously going on. The same goes for the creation of coal from forests.
I've never seen one shred of evidence for abiotic oil being the sole source that can't be explained away by modern geology.
The oil companies may like the DRILL, DRILL, DRILL mantra, its not hurting them. The oil companies have a business model, and they will work that model, until they receive instructions or marching orders to the contrary.
Oil makes the economy run, without oil, or an alternative energy souce, the economy and its wealth could dramatically shrink. So you see, its just not about profits for a single entity, and allowing that entity to do pretty much anything they want, under the guise of the so called "free market".
The bottom line - Drill the lease, Drill the lease, or lose the lease. Its an oil lease, and it was so named for a reason.
Here's a clue for you, the supply or demand of oil are irrelevant to the price. The price reflects the "financialization" of the Oil commodity. The secret lies in the monatarist policy of the petro dollar and the rigged currency exchange rates. It's not science, it's Banker's control.
It's not clear to me who is in control, perhaps it's a combination of powers exerting their influence in politics, the media, science and beyond. What is obvious to me is the price gouging that we are led to believe is simply the effect of supply and demand. In the late spring, every year before the summer driving season begins, the price of gas goes up. In the late summer it goes down. In the mid fall as the temperatures dip in the north, home heating oil prices go up. In the late late winter, they go down again. This runs counter to supply and demand theories because the prices go up before the demand does. The latest and most obvious proof of gouging has been the price of diesel fuel. Never before two years ago was the price of diesel more than the price of regular gas. It's a less refined product and costs less to produce. Now that oil companies have found they can get away with charging more for it, you can expect it will always be this way. Now that food producers have had to raise their prices to cover the costs of fuel, I expect they'll retain the profits as the fuel costs go down. There'll be few if any breaks for the consummer.
heck I was still in school in the early 70's I didn't drive then even though I was of age but I remember the same scare tactics then that oil was running out and I was so upset at the thought of not being able to drive a car because there will no longer be any gasoline to power them...
In and of itself, there is nothing wrong with drilling. But, an oil company is not going to set up drilling equipment, in the middle of restaurant, or in a wild life preserve, if they are convinced that oil will not be found.
So, singing the DRILL, DRILL, DRILL mantra is fine, if one has nothing else to do, or someone just likes singing it - And there's nothing wrong with that.
Its pretty obvious, that a future Republican controlled congress, would not mandate that oil companies must drill, anymore than a Republican controlled congress, would require air line companies to fuel the planes with enough fuel to make their pilots satisfied - It's the "corporate markets", no!!
It is purely speculation that a planet consisting of mostly carbon, situated in the midst of a universe consisting of mostly hydrogen, would precipitate hydrocarbons.
Yeah, wrong.... the dominant elements on the planet, in descending order:
Oxygen
Silicon
Hydrogen
Iron
Calcium
Magnesium
Sodium
Potassium
ok. for your peace of mind, ill restate it.
It is purely speculation that a planet containing vast amounts of carbon, situated in the midst of a universe consisting of mostly hydrogen, would precipitate hydrocarbons.
(And... there's a secret to make gold out of lead!!! - Master Wishful Think)
Seriously, we still have the climate change thing to deal with.
"The stone age didn't end because we ran out of rocks." -?
I cannot say if the finite supply of oil is true or if we have an infinite supply. But one thing for sure, the price of oil is not really based on supply and demand. It is based on perceived supply and demand. That has been a hard lesson we all have learned of late. I have heard it said, though not as widely said as it should be, that the war in Iraq is responsible for at least $2.00 increase in the price of oil. So if we had not invaded Iraq gas would cost around $1.85 a gallon about now. Which sounds more realistic to me. Though really I would like to see it under $1.50 a gallon.
If we embarked on a serious effort to replace fossil fuels in ten to fifteen years with wind, solar, nuclear, and other alternatives, the price of oil would plunge as the oil producers desperately compete to increase production and sell their soon-to-be-worthless oil.
Aren't nuclear power plants a no-no to the environmentalists?
A nuclear plant on or near an earthquake fault-line, will be a concern of everyone, not just environmentalists, when a magnitude 8.5 earthquake hits.
There are alternatives that have yet to be tried on a mass scale, partly or largely because a utility company will not be receiving a monthly check for useage. If solar power was the absolute top priority of every homeowner, business, and the US Government, all homes and businesses could be equipped with solar panels. Every occupied building in America could be equipped with solar panels. Similar to a modern day Manhattan Project. Massive tax credits, and direct subsidies to equip every building, and interest free. Huge companies could borrow money directly from the government, INTEREST FREE, to be paid back over the next 5, 10, 15 or 20 years. Why? Because interest is not inevitable, that's why!
Solar panels can be replaced in the event of an accident, however, if one nuclear plant has a major accident, would it be rebuilt or replaced? It would depend on the extent of the damages, and how many people were affected. It may cause the shutdown of all nuclear plants, if the accident were serious enough.
The bottom line - Drill the Lease, Drill the Lease, or Give back the lease........................
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