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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But, the oil industry advocates says, blah, blah, blah......
Well, its good that the advocate can speak clearly about his position, but, American citizens can think some for themselves, no!
Oil industry advocates and lobbyists, seize on certain sound bites, and run those sound bites into the ground. Many people will say, read this article or that web-site, which contains those same advocate induced sound bites, ad nauseam.
The bottom line - Repetition will no longer seal the deal, for a growing number of voters. A few months out from a major election, and certain verbiage creeps into the political dialogue, as it does every four years. Words like, if we just had control of congress, we could.....
Legislation that was important during those four years, got rammed through, with little or no debate. Go back and read newspapers on-line or in a library, and when President Bush wanted something, the Legislative Branches rammed it through - period!
Drilling on the OCS (Outer Continentail Shelf) could have expanded during those four years, but then, oil company profits might have been effected had they began drilling. Why? Because it costs money to drill, huge oil rigs are not free - unless Congress would have bought the oil rigs for the oil companies - let's face
Read about this abiotic Russian petroleum theory probably 20 years ago, but never saw anything else about it anyplace until today. Can it really be that in all that time nobody has definitively proved or disproved the theory? University geology professors? Any of you outh there in the blogoshere who could answer?
Meanwhile, I recall that one of Saturn's moons was found recently to have a large body of liquid hydrocarbons on it....
Yes, you must be referring to Titan which is a moon of Saturn. It's hydrocarbon-rich environment is exciting but won't be an answer to our energy problems as the energy needed to transport all that carbon to Earth (assuming we'd actually want to do that) would far outweigh any energy we might get out of it. And the technical problems of trying to mine any other body in our solar system, including our moon, and currently insurmountable.
If we mine significant amounts of anything from other planets, don't we change the mass of both those planets and ours. What are the implications of that? Would it someday change our orbits, or the orbits of our satelites? It concerns me that so many people look at exploitation of other planets as a serious possibility.
This "theory" of virtually unlimited oil coming out of the core of the planet is nothing new. It's actually got a name; "Abiotic Oil", meaning that it does not arise from the remnants of ancient life. The only problem is that the theory is a myth. Oil is a finite resource and we'd better get busy re-working the activities of our daily lives, how we are going to live and get around, grow food and transport products around the nation and the world in a post-carbon world. The McMansion, SUV, strip shopping center world of the present U.S. experience isn't going to work on the energy diet of the future.
The late Thomas Gold was also a proponent of the abiotic theory of oil.
At last! We get down to the root of Learsy , the fantasy of infinite oil that lies beneath most anti peak oil types. After all given a non renewable resource peak is a mathematical enevitability.
But finally we get down to the last dodge. Abiotic oil, a concept without a bit of scientifc backing at all (really why do petroleum geologists look for fossils), but its a nice fantasy for those into oil conspiracy theories.
I would disagree with the assumption that 'organic oil' theories as expounded is an inarguable fact. Firstly because oil is not an organic being instead a chemical material compound, secondly the vast oil-deposits are of such quantity that belies sufficient organic-materials to have produced.
I would agree however, we do have a Petro-Dollar in America. Speaking of fantast and conspiracy theories, in this later there is reason and evidence backing. Next would be looking into the Oil-Cartel (today merged into the Four Sisters), and that international oil-prices have been evidenced having nothing to do with supply and demant, but quite evidently is directly connected to price-fixing.
Hoo boy where do I start.
First oil is both organic in the colloquial sense (derived from living materials) and in the scientific sense (made of carbon). By the way everything is a 'chemical material compound', oil, this computer, you, me everything.
Second the vast quantity of fossil fuel reserves (both solid and liquid) are the result of millions of years of accumulation. Which is why it isn't a renewable resource at the rate we are comsuming it.
Lastly the relationship between price and demand isn't all that simple. Try going here and crunching some numbers and you'll see:
http://en.
"Science" is a much abused term. Science is about observing, making theories, and testing the theories. it never comes to rest. What fails falls away, what works invites further examination. To present it as if it were absolute and established beyond doubt or further interest is to fail to have a "scientific" outlook.
Does ImmanuelGoldstein think he might find a fossil if he examined his oil as he added it, say, to his lawn mower? If oil were abiotic, the lay of the land might direct our attention to where it is breaking out of the earth. Fossils could be indications of geologic activity.
The real question is that after a couple billion years why is there still any oil below the surface. It is lighter than rock and a limited supply should have been pushed out in a geologic eyeblink.
The truth is that dirt cheap energy technologies have been uncovered over the last 10 or 15 years that would crush the carbon energy cartels around the world. So far, however, between the fear of hit men taking out those who would be so bold as to promote these new technologies that threaten the established order, and big oil interests pushing forward “experts” to belittle such technologies, so far these radical, cheap energy alternatives have been kept pretty much under the radar of the general public.
What are these technologies? How expensive are they? How much energy can they supply?
Aside from the Russians, Wikipedia has articles about similar theories of Thomas Gold.
My own theory of abiotic oils is more radical. Since 1934 when Eddington argued that the sun was powered by nuclear fusion, science has generally held that hydrogen was created in the Big Bang and transformed to heavier elements in the heart of the stars. The transformational formulas work both ways: That is, the reaction that transforms the lighter into heavier elements can be read in reverse to transform heavier elements into the lighter. Now, both fission in the uranic or trans uranic element and fusion of hydrogen release energy. Generally speaking, iron is the most stable element in this regard. Heavier and lighter elements release energy as they convert toward iron.
Solar energy can be explained by the incredible gravitic pressures within the sun. So, one theorist has argued, nuclear action cools the sun by opposing its gravitational collapse. (The sun is cooler than it should be according to the effect of gravity alone). This is absurd, nuclear energy produced this way should add to the sun's energy. I think, hydrogen and helium are transformed within the sun from iron-ward elements and forced out to the surface by the force of compaction.
A less powerful action within the planets should be working on their iron cores to produce gases and water and hydrocarbons, the atmosphere, the oceans, and the scattered pools of oil and coal.
Grafity collapses a gas cloud to make a star. As it collapses, it heats up - basic volume-pre
The nuclear fusion heats up the star and coutneracts the compression of gravity. When the star uses up its hydrogen fuel, it then moves to other cycles like the carbon cycle.
All these fusions reaction below iron release enrgy.
To make trans-iron elements energy has to be put into the syste,. this usaully happens when the star's fuels is used up and the star collapses. The gravitational energy and the huge pressures creat the trans-iron elements. They are blown into space where they can become parts of new stellar systems like the sun and the planets.
The sun is at the exact temperature required to balance the energy released by hydrogen fusion and gravitational collapse.
Radiation cools the sun, gravitation and niuclear fusion heat it up.
Excellent! JanP has stated conventional theory perfectly. My reservations are with fusion and compaction adding their influence to one side of the scale, they should not be said to be creating a balance. JanP introduces radiation and covers my little confusion.
The point remains that fission and fusion nuclear actions are reversable formulas. The heat of the sun is (I say) not entirely due to its shrinkage but would be more a manifestation of the kinetic energy in its weight, the pressure as we move from the edge to the center. In the sun, this would be a huge number, the kind of thing not possible to reproduce under earthly conditions except to a much lesser degree deep in the earth's interior. Given the transformations can go either way, why -- given the huge energy potential within the sun -- should it tend in the direction of creating more energy?
it shouldn't. Processes that absorb energy should happen. Processes that release energy should happen in deep space as temperatures fall toward zero kelvin where matter can not exist otherwise. This is why meteors are iron or characterized as having pellets of iron.
I see a circle: Iron falls into the sun. The sun converts it to ions (hydrogen), alpha particles (helium) and garbage energy and throws it back out into space. All this is crazy, but it's consistant and makes its own kind of sense.
De Beers rations out the diamonds always keeping the supply below the demand to keep price up. Diamonds are actually very commonplaces in some parts of the world.
Fear mongering has made Big Oil record profits without lifting a finger. The point is it is an archaic technology. The United States should be breaking ground on new technology which would benefit our economy and the enviroment
A former Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich, suggested that more drilling is needed. Fine. The question is, where shall drilling begin. Oil industry advocates claim, that seismic readings explain why oil companies do not drill on existing leases. Yet, oil industry advocates and lobbyists want to provide additional leases to oil companies, where seismic readings indicate there is little, or no oil to be found. Are oil companies merely inventorying oil leases, and if so, for what purpose?
Oil companies hold leases, and do not drill the leases, because they claim there is no oil, based on seimic readings. Fine. So what are they doing with that OIL LEASE, surely, the oil company does not retain that oil lease, once oil is known not to exist, correct?
The oil lease, is so named for a reason, not, just cause!!
Raymond,
The real concern is not that there may or may not be enough oil, but that there is TOO MUCH CARBON IN THE ATMOSPHERE!!! The fact of the matter is that oil, even if there was enough to last FOREVER, would be a bad deal, and we need to get off of oil!
You are absolutely correct, but--why should we be raped by the oil industry if their product isn't really as limited as they claim? Some here [oil shills, usually] feel that the oil companies get a bad rap--but if they KNOW that peak oil is a bogus theory, wouldn't that make enviromentalists unwitting accomplices to the unnecessary bilking of consumers worldwide?
Maybe all petroleum is biological in its origins, but from the brief research I've done today, it hardly seems a settled matter.
Good Article. Makes sense too. They keep a lid on estimates and discoveries worldwide. They tell us only what they want for the sake of manipulation.
They never told the public before that billions of barrels of oil were capped off and sealed because they werent cheap to get (like pennies per gallon) until now that they are reopening dormant wells and actively pulling oil out of difficult strata like tar sands and shale.
Or getting the billions of sour heavy crude that costs a bit more to refine but is in HIGH supply.
light sweet crude is what they have been using all these years and all they have mentioned before.
What a bunch of idiots we have all been these years
CONGRESS NO VACATION UNTIL YOU OPEN UP DRILLING! As we ALL know CONGRESS has gone and there was NO VOTE to DRILL FOR OIL in the USA. It is now time to TELL CONGRESS that in NOVEMBER WE WILL REMEMBER their quest for vacation and not the needs of the country. The document below has been sent to the LEADERS in Congress and NONE of them have answered. It appears that Congress has no interest in the true needs of this country, so in November BOOT THEM OUT! Congress especially Reed and Pelosi YOU really need to read this. All America has, but you just seam to be out of the loop and ARE NOT in the same zone as the REST OF AMERICA. Pelosi in her recent frivolous statement I want to save the planet has no conception of what is happening in the real world. She ONLY listens to her left winged environmentalist friends that want all of us to ride bikes and have outhouses. Pelosi needs to wake up and realize that America is very angry over her actions. This winter due to your INACTION will cause those on FIXED INCOME to chose between heating oil and food, some seniors may die because the can’t afford to heat their homes.
For MORE INFORMATION of the Truth About Big Oil visit http://www
GIVING THE BIG OIL COMPANYS "OPEN ENDED OIL LEASES " THAT WON'T BE DRILLED FOR MANY YEARS IS SILLY.
OPEN UP THE LEASES THEY ALREADY HOLD TO OTHER FOR DRILLING.
LEASES SHOULD HAVE A " NO DRILL / LOSE LEASE " LINE IN THEM.
The thing is, Legislators have thousands, tens of thousands of documents referencing the energy resources available to this country. The belief that Legislators do not understand the oil industry, is naive, at best. The current administration under President Bush, had Republican control of Congress, from 2003 through 2006, four years too ram through drilling legislation, IT NEVER HAPPENED. Approximately two months ago, the DRILL, DRILL, DRILL mantra began, less than six months before a major election. After Katrina hit in 2005, oil spiked, and their were several days of spot gas shortages, the Republicans could have rammed through drilling legislation, IT NEVER HAPPENED. Republicans want to win in November, its not rocket science. However, that does not mean, that if they were to prevail in November, drilling would happen. Why? Because Big Oil wants something from their campaign contributions, and Republicans are not going to force Big Oil, to drill, if the oil companies claim that seismic readings indicate there is little or no oil on existing leases, or leases they wish to obtain.
The bottom line - Singing the DRILL, DRILL, DRILL mantra, is a gimmick, a sound bite, just in time for HOWDY DOWDY TIME (fodder for the voters, just before an election).
True enough that from 2003-2006 a Republican Congress could have rammed through many oil-drilling leases, however DEM Congresses also turned a blind eye toward Oil-Corp's cutting major productions and shipping oil to other nations, creating a fake oil shortage in America. In 2004 Alaska's main oilfields saw a 25% reduction in production for a myraid of false stories.
The fact however is that both DEM/GOP Congresses have allowed the Oil-Cartel (Four SIsters) fixing Int'l-Oil Prices to the point that the economy is collapsing, requiring today fake drilling stories to cover up the Oil-Cartel dropping prices, needed before the world economies in fact do explode.
I'm personally not terribly upset that Congress adjourned without giving in to the extortionist rhetoric of the oil companies - "You can only save yourself if you let us drill!" Even if Congress had voted for unlimited drilling anywhere and everywhere Big Oil would like, it wouldn't make a penny's worth of difference to those folks on fixed incomes that you're worried about. Savings, if any, wouldn't be seen for a decade. If ever.
Blaming Congress for this situation is what some pols want.
Do the oil companies have lands available for drilling? Yes. So, why haven't they drilled on the acres already leased? If they get more leases, will that create more supply? Yes, only if they decide to drill and only in 5-10 yrs.
Maybe I'm missing something, but if oil is known to exist in those locations that are already leased, why aren't they being tapped? Could be that lack of available manpower and drilling rigs is as much to blame as the oil czars decision to drill or not to drill.
It seems that the oil companies don't want to drill more. They want to stockpile rights to America's lands and offshore coasts. They want to tie us up as we depend on them to provide this commodity which they can choose to provide or not.
We've been sold a bill of goods and the only way to get off the addiction is to create alternative options. We are overdue for a choice in how to power our vehicles, homes and businesses.
When Congress returns, they should be dealing with that. Not giving Big Oil more of America's land and money in the form of tax breaks. Big oil doesn't pay their share of income tax now. It's obvious, by recent gains, they don't need or deserve the tax breaks.
It's time to make some changes but giving away more of America isn't it.
The increase in Oil prices has nothing to do with supply..or demand..it
If America increases it's Oil production 5-7 to 10 years from now, by "drilling here now" which is a completely inaccurate statement it will only change the price of Oil by a few pennies and OPEC will reduce it's own production by the exact same level as they always do...!
Here's the best explanation of the criminal sleazy market manipulation of the Oil and Gas Prices I've read so far:
http://www
part II
http://www
As for Abiotic Oil, I think there's really something to it, and it's just a case that on the way up through the earth the oil passes through these deposits so people attributed it to decay of biological matter...b
America can increase its oil production without compensating for the drying up of contemporary wells. Whether abiotic and available forever at uneconomic depths or "fossil" fuels that linger as vestiges of what has been seeping from the earth for billions of years, oil will become more scarce.
The current price surge seems to be a commodity bubble complicated by a decline in the value of the dollar due to deficit budgeting but the long term trend (drawn out beyond the horizon of the commodities markets) should be price inflation.
Just out of curiosity. Given the power of the oil industry -- which goes back to Franklin Roosevelt's visit to Saudi Arabia on his way back from Yalta and before to Standard Oil -- do you really think there is any place they couldn't drill if they really cared to do so? Obviously, each site must take its turn and little temporary victories can be allowed to environmentalists, but would a rich source really have escaped exploitation?
You are all forgetting that it was ONLY Soviet scientists who ever proposed this - and that Soviet science was NOTORIOUSLY politically tinged. The Soviet State had a vested interest in believing that Soviet oil reserves would not run out, and that the Warsaw pact nations would never have to buy oil from the West or OPEC. Now, if one assumes that oil companies are equally duplicitous (and I don't) - then you have to go with independent geologists - who overwhelmingly say abiotics is bunk. Furthermore, you have to contend with the fact that PALEONTOLOGISTS are employed to (successfully) help oil companies find oil. As in, fossils lead to oil deposits.
The Oil-Cartel (Western Four Sisters) along with their governments have been covertly sending agents and troops into the former Russian Satellites especially concerning the Caspian Basin oil reserves.
It appears Russia has decided they do not want Western Capitalists (Corp-Mafia) taking over this oil, Georgia appears todays case in point. Do a websearch of US Special Forces in this area right today, hunting down 'Al Qaeda'. We all know what Al Qaeda are, dark complexion, beard, may wear turban. Today you can wipe out hundreds of civilians to kill a 'Top' Alqaeda leader (or driver).
"You are all forgetting that it was ONLY Soviet scientists who ever proposed this - and that Soviet science was NOTORIOUSLY politically tinged."
You better believe it. Politicization and ideology screwed up more than one branch Soviet science, for example:
http://en.
Hi Raymond,
Definitely food for thought . . . had to read it several times (slow comprehension!)
The oil industry has been marked by a boom-bust cycle. This has occurred since 1859, with the 1st boom generating the 1st "bust". The oilman's prayer is ". . . . please give me another boom and I won't mess this one up!" . . . The oil painting is in every oil company's executive office I ever visited.
To address this, one oilman proffered . . . "if we could just convince people that oil is rare, unique and limited, then we wouldn't be suseptible to the boom-bust cycle".
Today . . . peak oil theories do exactly what the oil industry has longed for . . . It has provided the impression oil is rare, unique and limited. Whether that is true . . . it is the oil companies (and oil kingdoms) that are benefitting.
Future . . . it is not oil companies which should change. We hold the key to our destiny. Our behavior defines us. Whether oil is finite or not . . . we need to balance dependence with conservation and alternatives.
Oil Boom/Bust, well consider that just maybe, Int'l-Oil Prices are used politically and economically to control entire strategic localities. (1979 oil@ $30.00bb/)
For instance around 1979 when the US-Gov was helping Saddam Hussein take power in Iraq, to fight (our) war against Iran, finally in mid-1980s Iraq and Iran signed a treaty ending (our) war. As a result the US Corp/Gov needed downsize the Iraq war-machine called WMD. (1991 oil@$12.00
From 2000-2008 the Fascist (PNAC org) is taking over the entire US-Gov for their "Constublary" military domination of the world. (2008 oil@$157.0
May I remind, that from 2004-2008 Halliburton (KBR) had the No-Bid contract of putting one of the worlds largest oil-reserves (Iraq) back into production (and KBR would not put production
Why certainly, this is undeniably a case of 'Supply & Demand', meaning they have the Supply, and so they make the (price-fixing) Demand.
1980 Oil Price @ $30.00/bbl
1991 Oil GLUT@ $12.00/bbl
1999 Oil GLUT@ $ 9.46/bbl
2000 Oil GLUT@ $30.00/bbl
So . . . you agree wih me?
True Energy Independence is at hand.
One of the most effective means of continued oppression of the multitude is the strengthening structure of centralized carbon based energy.
Centralized control of energy is a key element in control of populations and policy. It would not be in the best interests of the barons to allow the surf the freedom of movement in upward mobility true independent energy generation would bring.
The unrestrained greed of the Oil/weapons barons is finally their own undoing. Individual entrepreneurs, have been emboldened by the acts of financial oppression heaped upon their heads and have broken the chains of carbon based energy slavery.
A new age of Individual Energy independence is about to be born out of the ashes and spoils tyrants have left us.
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