An interesting article about "fossil" fuel

[jryan]

Not sure which topic to throw this under, but I thought this may turn out to be an interesting piece of the global warming puzzle...

 

 

Oil: A renewable resource?

 

It is an interesting theory... what I find most interesting in the theory is the three potentials for CH4 in the Earth's crust. I have to wonder whether draws on one carbon reservoir affects the availability (or production) of the other? It would seem that given the three potentials (CO2+steam, Natural Gas, Crude Oil) are produced under great pressure that a draw down of one would affect the production of the other two. This could be why we see huge influxes of oil in tapped reserves, but we never see a explosion of oil due to built up pressure.... once the reserve is full, and pressure stabilized, the oil is no longer produced in that region, but rather forced down one of the two other avenues.

 

I would think that a study of the CO2 concentration in volcanic eruptions would show whether a draw down of gas and oil reservoirs affects the CO2 concentration in magma. Although... I don't think that could be tested with any great accuracy. THough I suppose an ongoing study of CO2 concentrations could be done (probably already is)..

 

Actually, an interesting study.... the volcano in Antarctica is unique in that it is furthest from human contamination (and far from oil drilling), and has the highest CO2 emission level on record.

[swansont]

WorldNetDaily is not a valid scientific source. Got any peer-reviewed articles?

[jryan]

I'll keep looking. I have found numerous links to other news sources like:

 

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=990CE3D91530F935A1575AC0A963958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=3

 

Though the explantion of what is happening is different.

 

This is rather new, so I would guess that there are studies still in the works. Even though the primordial-vs-fossil fuel debate was hot back in the late 1800s and early 1900s. The fossil folks won out... of course they hadn't exhuasted any wells back then either, and were ill equiped in time and resources to observe wells refilling.

[Stan]

None of this is new, and some of it is well-known. It is, for example, well known that a non-productive oil well that is capped and left alone for a while sometimes springs back nearly to full capacity.

 

The idea that hydrocarbons are produced naturally from minerals is also fairly old.

 

It is my understanding that so many millions of barrels of oil are created in nature every day, but though the exact amount is unknown, it is believed to be below our consumption of it.

 

I could probably Google for results as well as anyone. I have it in some books, too, and I have a few friends in the petroleum business who I could ask.

[JohnB]

It seems the idea was well proven over the last 50 years in the old USSR but it's taken time for the idea to get out. After a quick look I found this PNAS article which is interesting.

 

Some selected quotes:

For experimental verification of the predictions of the theoretical analysis, a special high-pressure apparatus has been designed that permits investigations at pressures to 50 kbar and temperatures to 1,500°C and also allows rapid cooling while maintaining high pressures. The high-pressure genesis of petroleum hydrocarbons has been demonstrated using only the reagents solid iron oxide, FeO, and marble, CaCO3, 99.9% pure and wet with triple-distilled water.

Rust, Marble and water?

Hydrocarbon molecules began to evolve above 30 kbar. At 50 kbar and at the temperature of 1,500°C, the system spontaneously evolved methane, ethane, n-propane, 2-methylpropane, 2,2-dimethylpropane, n-butane, 2-methylbutane, n-pentane, 2-methylpentane, n-hexane, and n-alkanes through C10H22, ethene, n-propene, n-butene, and n-pentene in distributions characteristic of natural petroleum.

How strange, the world is a truly fascinating place.

[ecoli]

how much energy is expending maintaining that pressure, though?

[JohnB]

Quite a bit I would expect. However don't forget the purpose of the experiment was to show that hydrocarbons could form naturally under the conditions at the Crust/Mantle interface.

 

From other things I read while looking for a paper it would appear that this theory was debated in the old USSR for about 40 years and was subjected to rigorous testing and opposition.

 

It overturns everything I've ever been taught or believed about the generation of fossil fuels. (Maybe we need to find a new name for them?)

 

It also begs the question: Has anybody ever put any amount of biomass together and subjected it to processes similar to those found inside the Earth and got hydrocarbons as a result? Has the prevailing theory ever been experimentally tested?

 

If not, then the score has to be 1-Nil for the abiogenic theory.

[jryan]

Well, I would guess that bio mass could be converted to oil in that same method, and it has all the necessary components. It just appears possible that bio mass isn't the ONLY thing that can be converted to oil, and that bio mass would be by far the smallest source of available material.

 

Assuming that it's true, of course.