Abiotic oil! The death of the human race?

[kenneal - lagger]

I'm not sure why this piece on abiotic oil was regenerated from 2012 in the Powerswitch Peak Oil Daily but it is not good news for climate change or the human race. Encouraging the idea of unlimited amounts of cheap oil and gas and encouraging countries like China and India to look for it cannot be a good thing.

Does anyone know who publishes the Powerswitch Peak Oil Daily? It seems to have mainly US content.

[woodburner]

The death of the human race? Let’s have abiotic oil then.

[adam2]

I rather doubt that abiotic oil and gas even exist in significant volumes.

Whatever the Russians may claim. If a Russian scientist has a well paid job in researching this oil, or looking for it, they are hardly going to say "it does not exist" are they.
And if the abiotic oil theory is backed by senior Russian figures, any doubts might constitute treason which is punishable by execution.

Abiotic oil might even be a discovery of the late joseph stalin, who was of course the greatest scientist that the world has ever known.

[Little John]

Oh - Jesus Wept. Please tell me we are not engaging in the fashionable "Russia did it" bollocks on this forum. I read enough of that idiocy elsewhere in the media as it is.

[adam2]

I am not accusing Russia of doing anything much, I am however stating that if senior Russian figures believe in abiotic oil, then it would be a very foolish engineer or scientist who disagreed.

[Mr. Fox]

IIRC, It's not just a Russian thing. A fair few 'high ranking' US politicians believe in it, too... they tent to be the same ones that believe that the World is 6000 years old and that dinosaur fossils were mockingly put there to test our faith, etc.

Ugo Bardi summed it up fairly well many years ago:

There are, really, two versions of the abiotic oil theory, the "weak" and the "strong":

The "weak" abiotic oil theory: oil is abiotically formed, but at rates not higher than those that petroleum geologists assume for oil formation according to the conventional theory. (This version has little or no political consequences).

The "strong" abiotic theory: oil is formed at a speed sufficient to replace the oil reservoirs as we deplete them, that is, at a rate something like 10,000 times faster than known in petroleum geology. (This one has strong political implications).

In other words, unless oil formation can keep up with extraction rates (which it demonstrably can't), with regard to 'peak oil', it matters not whether it is formed biologically, abiotically or by *magic pixies*.

[kenneal - lagger]

It does matter, Mr Fox, because if abiotic theory is correct there is an awful lot of oil waiting to be pumped out from areas where we have, as yet, not explored. Oil exploration has been confined largely to areas where there were sediment basins with impervious rock domes over them to trap the oil from the sediments. In abiotic theory all that is required is an impervious dome to trap the slowly or quickly produced oil or gas.

[Mr. Fox]

I see you point... it's over a decade since I last looked at this, but:

Are there now any actual instances of meaningful quantities of oil being produced from such deposits?

OK, so absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence and all that, but until I see something to convince me otherwise, my money's still on the pixies.

-

Back to the article you linked to (from 2012)... That one seems to be regenerated from the original written by one 'Vinod Dar' over 2 years before - more like 'The Article that Refuses to Vanish'. Curious.

[adam2]

I see you point... it's over a decade since I last looked at this, but:
Are there now any actual instances of meaningful quantities of oil being produced from such deposits?
OK, so absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence and all that, but until I see something to convince me otherwise, my money's still on the pixies.

-

Back to the article you linked to (from 2012)... That one seems to be regenerated from the original written by one 'Vinod Dar' over 2 years before - more like 'The Article that Refuses to Vanish'. Curious.

No meaningful quantities of oil have been produced from abiotic deposits. Most people do not believe that ANY such oil will EVER be produced.

A vocal minority however believe otherwise
"If we spend enough on research"
"just needs a bit more investment"
And probably even "if we all pray hard"
And possibly even "if we all hope and pull together"

[RenewableCandy]

I agree with the thing about Russia (that you wouldn't exactly want to contradict folk in High Places)... BUT, it's almost as bad here! You wouldn't want to contradict your boss - nobody would. OK so you won't get sent to the Gulag but replacement grant funding, or job, are hard to come by these days.

So there'll be loads of workplaces full, for whatever reason, of folk quietly lying and hoping not to get found out.

And don't get me started on what happens in workplaces in China...

[emordnilap]

So there'll be loads of workplaces full, for whatever reason, of folk quietly lying and hoping not to get found out.

Please change "there'll" to "there are".

[kenneal - lagger]

... BUT, it's almost as bad here! You wouldn't want to contradict your boss - nobody would.

I only contradict my wife on really important matters. At any other time she is "always right"!

[vtsnowedin]

... BUT, it's almost as bad here! You wouldn't want to contradict your boss - nobody would.

I only contradict my wife on really important matters. At any other time she is "always right"!

I only contradict my wife on trivial matters. At all other times she is always right.
I like sleeping indoors.

[woodburner]

I'm not sure why this piece on abiotic oil was regenerated from 2012 in the Powerswitch Peak Oil Daily but it is not good news for climate change or the human race. Encouraging the idea of unlimited amounts of cheap oil and gas and encouraging countries like China and India to look for it cannot be a good thing.

I’m surprised this topic (then again maybe I’m not) has so little about the background, or discussion about abiotic oil. I was fortunate enough to be listening to a video by Freeman Dyson relating what the establishment consensus sayers refer to as heresies. One heresy mentioned Thomas Gold, an astronomer who was a bit of a clever cookie. He reasoned the way sound was fed into the brain by tuned resonators and a negative feedback system. The specialists of the day would not listen as he did not have an audiology degree. It was more than 40 years later they admitted he was right and the sounds, as we now know, are generated by tuned hairs.

Back to the oil, Thomas Gold also postulated methane could be made from calcium carbonate iron oxide and water. This could happen at pressures of around 1.5Mpsi and temperatures of 500ºC. In 2004 Henry Scott et al tried an experiment. Which showed it was indeed possible. Sadly the experimenters wrote to Thomas Gold to confirm their findings, but he had died three days earlier.

With this in mind, there is a question as to whether oil is a fossil fuel, or is a naturally synthesis from the action of subduction at the tectonic plate boundaries. We have had predictions about the end of oil for decades now, and there is still a fair bit about it seems. Taking one step further, this could mean that the global warming claims are poorly supported by facts, as we have had much warmer periods in the past than today, CO2 levels higher, plants grew more, animals existed in greater numbers which could have increased the amount of calcium carbonate available, which was subsequently converted to methane.

[kenneal - lagger]

I agree that methane, CH4, could be produced from calcium carbonate, iron oxide and water, indeed it could in theory be produced from calcium carbonate and water only as the CaCO3 and H2O would provide the necessary elements. Whether or not methane is produced in nature and in substantial quantities from those three chemicals is an entirely different and unproven matter .

With this in mind, there is a question as to whether oil is a fossil fuel, or is a naturally synthesis from the action of subduction at the tectonic plate boundaries. We have had predictions about the end of oil for decades now, and there is still a fair bit about it seems.

We have had predictions of oil running out for decades now because the major oil fields upon which we have relied for our oil supply for those decades have been running out and not being resupplied from any source, conventional or abiotic. The recent upsurge in oil supply has come from tight oil, oil trapped in shale beds rich in plant and animal remains which are known to be the precursors of oil fields elsewhere.

Taking one step further, this could mean that the global warming claims are poorly supported by facts, as we have had much warmer periods in the past than today, CO2 levels higher, plants grew more, animals existed in greater numbers which could have increased the amount of calcium carbonate available, which was subsequently converted to methane.

The reason that we have had warm periods in the past with CO2 levels higher than today has been because of differences in the Milankovic cycle. This cycle takes into account the differences in the earth's orbit around the sun, differences in the dimensions of the ellipse, precession and differences in the axial tilt of the earth. These differences are all cyclical and have been calculated to great accuracy and the differences in the effect on solar radiation impinging on the earth calculated also.

The increased numbers of animals and plants available during these warm phases have produced the carbon rich shale beds which are producing today's tight oil and gas as well as the conventional oil and gas. Coal was also produced during those times. The vast chalk and limestone beds were produced in an earlier era when there were large numbers of hard shelled creatures living in warm oceans. The sequestration of massive amounts of carbon in this way was one of the factors which reduced temperatures enough to make land based life possible in later eras.

Today's tight oil is being produced in areas a long way away from subduction zones such as central USA and the UK and not necessarily in relation to chalk or limestone strata.

Taking one step further your assertions are once again seen to be badly researched suppositions based on no known facts or facts that are irrelevant, woodburner.