fossil fuel not what they thought it was?

[aussiemuscle]

So you've been taught that oil is created by thousand year old plants and animals crushed under tons of rock and extreme pressure for eons created all that oil?

A new theory suggests oil comes from a chemical reaction deep in the Earth's mantle.  This could put to bed the theory of 'Peak Oil' (that it'll someday run out) because the earth constantly generates it. Weird huh?
http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=59991

[Ponch ®]

So you've been taught that oil is created by thousand year old plants and animals crushed under tons of rock and extreme pressure for eons created all that oil?

A new theory suggests oil comes from a chemical reaction deep in the Earth's mantle.  This could put to bed the theory of 'Peak Oil' (that it'll someday run out) because the earth constantly generates it. Weird huh?
http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=59991

so we can't call it dino juice anymore? 

[bordin34]

abiotic theory of the origin of oil directly challenges the conventional scientific theory

[bull]

It wouldn't surprise me. How else would some drained and abandoned oil wells refill themselves in the absence of added biodegradation, and in some cases very rapidly?

[Magnumcharger]

Therefore, we're all being scammed about oil reserves dwindling.
I wouldn't be surprised.

[RD]

Therefore, we're all being scammed about oil reserves dwindling.
I wouldn't be surprised.

another lie to milk the populace of funds (i.e. to feed the rich from the poor)  WOOHOO!!! didnt even get a reach around this time 

[tricky lugnuts]

 

Sorry, not buying it as very realistic at this point. Try posting up a link to the actual scholarly article cited as being published in "Science Magazine,"  and not just the article on World Net Daily which is dated Feb. 1, 2008. Far as I'm concerned, that article may as well have been posted on April 1, 2008. And if it's anything that really has traction, post up some other link on the subject that backs it up. Or is there some "global warming conspiracy" suppressing the revolutionary abiotic hypothesis?  

Not saying there aren't various types of oil, perhaps abiotic, too, in places, and I'm not claiming to be any sort of petroleum engineer or serious geologist who even knows what the hell they're talking about. But if this issue was going to have any sort of commercial ramifications, it probably would have been developed by now.

Wikipedia cites the abiotic hypothesis - an "alternative hypothesis" - as dating back to the 1950s Soviet Union. And if abiotic oil would replenish faster than biotic oil or in greater quanitity - a fairly major assumption, from what I can tell - why aren't we finding more oil yet? We certainly have been looking long enough. Just saying... I mean I'd love free oil to refine for my Charger as much as the next person.

As to the previous post questioning why oil fields would replenish otherwise, maybe there is some sort of seep - a crack in a 10-inch glass immersed in five inches of water. You suck the water out of the glass quick with a straw, but the oil can only get into the glass through the small crack. As far as fields replenishing rapidly... That would obviously be a bigger crack or some other phenomena - maybe abiotic oil for all I know. Just sounds like one of the "government created AIDS" kind of things. Did they also fake the moon landing? There's a great YouTube video of some guy getting punched the hell out by Buzz Aldrin for some guy saying they did to his face.

[RD]

OR maybe, we dont know everything and this is a possibility and we dont know how anything works, but those who are in the "know" who make the "dough" will do what they can to make more "dough ya know"?

who cares, in the long run, those that make huge amounts of money will find a way to make any theory a means to screw over the little guy.  so, in my opinion, its worthless to try and debate a topic that none of us know about and are only familiar with due to one article.

but hey, i am not in the know and i dont make the dough... so who really gives a shiznit what i say, Joe?  (parts of this post have been inspired by Dr. Seuss, any familiarities are totally coincidence and do not express the opinon of Dr. Seuss, his rhymes/books, or his instability). 

[Mike DC]

               
If you're using water so fast that you're steadily draining a swimming pool in a short amount of time, then you've got a water supply problem when that pool runs dry. 

Maybe you notice that there is rainwater seeping back into it from cracks in the pool's concrete bottom.  But is this the answer to your water supply problems?  Not likely.  Once you've pumped out the original standing water with a firehose, you ain't gettin much more water from that pool again for a LONG TIME, whether there is natural "replenishment" happening or not.   

[elacruze]

http://www.energybulletin.net/node/2423

[ipstrategies]

I for one would not doubt this for a minute. You only need to look at the big picture and who controls the oil industry is the same who control a lot of our science. There are plenty of stories of discoveries being swept under rug and the person/s discredited in the interest of .. (national security, corporate security fill in the blank.

I have researched a guy named Lindsey Williams, he was the staff pastor in Alaska oil company in 70's and claims that he was in Alaska when they discovered the largest oil fields in the world, his story describes his excitement during the oil crunch of the 70's and how news was going to be everywhere. The next day when he waited for the newspapers to be flown in (not a word anywhere). He was called into the bosses office and told that everything he heard and saw the day before never happened in the name of National Security. END OF STORY.

He was threatened and waited for years to write a book. I heard him 2 years ago on a radio show (this was when oil was pushing 150.00 barrel) that he was told by on of his contacts that they were going to drop it to under 50.00 a barrel in order to bankrupt the oil producing countries. It was about 2 month later the price of oil dropped.

[dodgecharger-fan]

Here's the supporting online information for the science Magazine article. http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/sci;319/5863/604/DC1

The article itself requires registration - free registration  but rather than post it here, go there and sign up.

[Todd Wilson]

All I know is I am glad the cavemen created a serious global warming with their camp fires to take care of the ice age.



Todd

[tricky lugnuts]

Thanks for posting the link to Science Magazine. Here's another story on the subject :  http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fpcomment/archive/2009/09/11/lawrence-solomon-endless-oil.aspx

I'm not trying to be a jerk about the whole thing. I'm just immediately suspicious whenever anything starts with a promise of "endless this," or "endless that" in terms of natural resources or wealth.

Assuming for a moment that ALL oil is abiotic, why would it necessarily be any more plentiful than we've already found it to be? Even though it would not be dependent on decaying organic material, I'm sure its formation (and the rate thereof) would still depend on the availability of something else, say a rock, mineral, element, dead deep-sea Snork, whatever, and the proper conditions...

As I said before, I am not a professional geologist or petroleum engineer.

But even if abiotic oil exists, as I openly concede it may, especially in pockets conducive to its formation, it looks to me as if it's likely to be much farther below the Earth's surface than anyone has ever drilled before, posing massive issues with commercial extraction, if it ever even gets to that point. Not saying that's the end-all, be-all, but they're talking about the upper level of the Earth's mantle, an area comprised of near-molten rock. That should be a fun well to case, as the energy bulletin link said. Or maybe we can replicate those conditions and cause abiotic oil to form in the lab, as soon as we're done genetically engineering everlasting youth and ridding the world of erectile dysfunction.

For Russian and Ukranian scientists being convinced since the 1950s that their country has access to an endless supply of abiotic oil and replenishing oil fields, they're sure sucking as a country economically.

Of course, as others said, they export a lot of oil and stand to benefit from the higher prices associated with the widespread belief that oil is a commodity available only in limited supply. Of course, maybe they told their hungry and poor people in the 1980s that bread was a scarce natural resource, even rarer than oil.

Just to be clear, the scientific method stipulates that hypotheses, such as the abiotic oil hypothesis, and even commonly accepted theories aren't ever fully proven. Over time they are just never disproved. If they stand long enough through scientific tests in enough different contexts they can become scientific law. This one is nowhere near there.

But even becoming a scientific law does nothing to end uncertainty.

Hell, some of the greatest minds in the world are still wrestling with the definition and ramifications of gravity (a law) and why it exists - something postulated hundreds of years ago by a scientist who had an apple fall on his head!

It's interesting stuff, I concede that. Peak oil or endless oil - take your pick.

Seems like two very opposite ends of a spectrum. Giving abiotic oil hypothesis the extreme benefit of the doubt, I'd suggest that the truth will lie somewhere in the hazy, muddled middle, making it even harder for us as humans to understand, let alone exploit. That being said in regard to the previous Dr. Seuss-like suggestion that maybe we as a species just don't know. I'll be the first to admit I don't know. I just don't think it's going to make driving my Charger cheaper anytime soon, and not just because there's some great conspiracy to keep all that oil in the ground. 

[Daytona R/T SE]

All I know is I am glad the cavemen created a serious global warming with their camp fires to take care of the ice age.



Todd

[Ponch ®]

[bull]

To me it's comical when so many people spout scientific facts like they know everything and then a few years pass and it's all debunked and the opinions swap sides until some other "fact" pops up and the theories change again and then everyone laughs about the first opinion that was considered stone-cold fact at the time. The only fact I'm 100% sure of is that humans know next to nothing about how this place really works, myself included.

[RD]

BUY THAT MAN A BEER!!!

To me it's comical when so many people spout scientific facts like they know everything and then a few years pass and it's all debunked and the opinions swap sides until some other "fact" pops up and the theories change again and then everyone laughs about the first opinion that was considered stone-cold fact at the time. The only fact I'm 100% sure of is that humans know next to nothing about how this place really works, myself included.

[Ghoste]

Not so comical when you think about how much influence all of those experts have on DC (no matter who is in power).

[Mike DC]

Agreed. 


We have to choose something to make policy on sooner or later. 

But the problem is still there.  It's scary how the scientific community's default position is to insist that they know exactly what they're talking about all the time.  I could go for a helluva lot more "we don't know" in the textbooks. 

[Khyron]

To me it's comical when so many people spout scientific facts like they know everything and then a few years pass and it's all debunked and the opinions swap sides until some other "fact" pops up and the theories change again and then everyone laughs about the first opinion that was considered stone-cold fact at the time. The only fact I'm 100% sure of is that humans know next to nothing about how this place really works, myself included.

WTF are u talking about... the world is flat and in the center of the universe

[Charger440RDN]

Peak oil is a crock of S**T