Abiotic oil wishful thinking, denial and other "snooze
buttons" to avoid the alarms about Peak Oil and other resource limits
Sinclair is the world's most honest gasoline
company
(note their dinosaur mascot - oil wasn't really made
from dinosaurs
it was made from fossilized plants, but it is an amusing image anyway)
The easiest to get petroleum has been gotten. Now comes the more difficult to extract oil which is harder to process.
Those who think Peak Oil is not real rarely address the reason why the oil industry ended in northwest Pennsylvania. Hint: It's the same reason why 200 foot tall trees aren't being cut down in New England any more and why gold mining is essentially ended in California.
Claims that oil is infinite are either a psychological blockage that makes it difficult to accept a round (ie. finite) planet or disinformation to distract people from demanding that the rest of the oil should be used in a humane and sane manner (solar panels, not battleships).
The real Peak Oil conspiracy is that the public is not allowed to be part of the decisions about how to cope with the environmental crisis.
Are there any disbelievers in Peak Oil who talk about the need for energy efficiency, to stop petroleum pollution that causes cancer and fouls the atmosphere, to reduce consumption, improve Amtrak, relocalize food production or other steps to reduce dependence on oil. Selfishness is not a great approach for figuring out how to have a sustainable civilization.
There's also peak natural gas, peak mineral resources (they can only be mined once!), peak fish, peak forests, peak soil, peak food, peak water and many other limits to endless growth. We have only one Earth, but most Americans (and others who aspire to live like Americans) act as if we'll just grab some more planets when we strip the resources from this one. That's the real issue and it's not solved by name calling, appeals for false unity, or various distractions that avoid the core problem of a round planet.
Oil companies deny Peak Oil (in public, anyway)
www.energybulletin.net/18111.html
Published on 13 Jul 2006 by Energy Bulletin. Archived on 13 Jul 2006.
Daniel Yergin Day, July 13, 2006
by Jeffrey J. Brown
CERA:
Rather than a 'peak,' we should expect an 'undulating plateau' perhaps three or four decades from now.
Mr. Robert Esser
Senior Consultant and Director, Global Oil and Gas Resources
Cambridge Energy Research Associates
Huntington, NY,
Understanding the Peak Oil Theory
Subcommittee on Energy and Air Quality
December 7, 2005
energycommerce.house.gov
EXXONMOBIL:
Contrary to the theory, oil production shows no signs of a peak... Oil is a finite resource, but because it is so incredibly large, a peak will not occur this year, next year, or for decades to come
ExxonMobil Advertisement in New York Times, June 2, 2006
www.exxonmobil.com
OPEC:
We in Opec do not subscribe to the peak-oil theory.
Acting Secretary General of Opec, Mohammed Barkindo
July 11, 2006
www.mg.co.za
Greg
Palast vs. Peak Oil
Journalist Greg Palast has become perhaps the most prominent advocate
of the view that Peak Oil is just an oil company conspiracy to hike the
price of petroleum. While there are some kernels of truth in his analysis,
Palast badly misunderstands the issues.
Peak Oil doesn't fit into a rigid ideology. Yes, the oil companies are
profiteering, but oil is also finite and production is maxxed out. It's
revealing that few of those complaining about Exxon profits or $3 per
gallon gas mention conservation, Amtrak, and the insanity of the illusion
of the goddess given right of every 'merican to use as much energy as
they want. How many people upset at rising oil prices recommend nationalization
of the oil companies as part of a policy to mitigate the impact of expensive
oil on the most economically vulnerable part of the population?
The confluence of Peak Oil and climate change is very interesting - Peak
Oil may mitigate the impact of climate change, since most climate scenarios
assume constant increase in combustion, which is unlikely to be possible
(even with coal and tar sands).
Palast is also on record claiming there was not any foreknowledge of
9/11 (he even said this in 2003, after numerous revelations that there
was in fact foreknowledge). See the Complete 9/11 Timeline at www.cooperativeresearch.org
for a good rebuttal to Palast's self-imposed blindness. (Palast's assistant
admitted at a September 2005 conference in Portland, Oregon on vote fraud
that he had a copy of Paul Thompson's "The Terror Timeline,"
a book version of the 9/11 Timeline.)
Palast did great work on the voter lists in Florida, but that doesn't
make him an expert on everything. No one is that.
Hopefully, Palast is sincere in his ignorance, but there are many voices
who are trying to get people to avoid looking at the reality of Peak.
The real scam of Peak Oil is that the public is excluded from decisions
about how to cope with it (and with climate change).
An excellent rebuttal of Greg Palast's blindness about ecological
limits was written by Richard Heinberg, author of "The Party's Over"
and "Powerdown."
It is interesting to see how disinformation about
9/11 and Peak Oil increased as "Crossing
the Rubicon" neared publication, the 2004 election got closer,
and consciousness about 9/11 and Peak Oil spreads into the mass media
all over the world.
Many of the sites pushing 9/11 hoaxes
such as "no planes on 9/11" are also pushing the "abiotic
oil" claims that distract and disrupt understanding of the Bush regime's
Peak Oil motivation for allowing - and facilitating - 9/11.
The "peak oil is a distraction from 9/11" meme has
become especially loud now that Michael Ruppert's book "Crossing
the Rubicon" has been published -- perhaps this meme is the response
from the government to the charges in "Rubicon" but run through
a variety of fringe websites instead of a direct response from administration
officials to the allegations. Some of the "no planers" (promoting
various disinfo claims on 9/11 complicity) also push abiotism, which is
probably a coordinated strategy to discredit the 911/Peak connection made
most famously by Crossing the Rubicon.
Abiotic oil is a theory that predates the discovery
of plate tectonics. It was given a new round of promotion in the months
before the 2004 "election" to distract from understanding the
motivations of the Bush/Cheney regime in seizing Middle East oil fields.
that has been revived to discredit conclusions that 9/11 was permitted
partly to prepare the US for Peak Oil (to get the pretext to seize the
Middle East oil fields and to impose a domestic "Homeland Security"
police state to muzzle dissent). Some of the people promoting abiotic
oil are among those pushing some of the other fake issues of 9/11 complicity.
Abiotic oil disinformation distracts from the connections
between 9/11 and Peak Oil. The "debate" is used to keep the
public from insisting the remaining oil be used to benefit as many people
as possible through global relocalization of production and manufacture
of renewable energy equipment. The debate about how to use the remaining
oil for the transition toward a sustainable civilization.
Even if abiotic oil were true and the core of the Earth was a creamy
nuggat of petroleum, mineral deposits are finite (the best iron ores are
gone, for example), fisheries are overfished, forests overcut, soils,
etc etc etc. Walter Youngquist's book Geodestinies makes the "peak
minerals" argument very well, one not given enough discussion in
Peak Oil circles. Many of the ore deposits mined today require very high
tech to process - not charcoal from forests around the Mediterranean.
The Bronze Age would not have been Bronze if they had to do mountain top
removal or similar techniques to get at the ores.
www.urbansurvival.com/week.htm
George Ure's Urban Survival Newsletter
Friday August 27, 2004
The Peak Oil Concept Attacked
With a major Peak Oil conference underway in Europe this week, we
have been receiving a number of emails expressing the notion that Peak
Oil is nothing but a speculators pipedream, designed to drive up prices.
We find it an interesting coincidence that articles like this
one at the "Center for an Informed America" http://davesweb.cnchost.com/nwsltr64.html
questions the reality of Peak Oil. Other sites go further with
one claiming, in part, that Peak Oil is a "Zionist Scam" http://www.joevialls.co.uk
What's at the heart of many such attempts to "debunk"
Peak Oil is the fact that once an oil well is pumped dry. it tends to
recover some capacity over a period of time. Whether the "recovery"
is caused by residual oil slowly percolating into the recoverable area
of a well, or whether there's some yet-to-be-understood way that the
earth perpetually makes oil is open to debate.
Unfortunately, a simple thought exercise demonstrates the problem
clearly enough. Suppose you have a water well that can at maximum,
produce enough water for 10 people. Everything is fine and the
well provides for the whole community. But then two children are
born. Suddenly, the well is no longer sufficient and depending
on the well's capacity, it will decline over time until two users are
eliminated through natural means or death from dehydration.
That's the reality of Peak Oil. It isn't that there isn't
oil in the ground. It's that we are, as in the example above,
far beyond the carrying capacity of wells to recover. It takes some
precision of thought, but when you read about "peak oil" and
ask "Why are we still pumping", remember the example of the
village and the water well. They reached "peak water"
when the new users were born and started making systemic demands.
That "peak water" would not become visible to them until the
well was pumping mud is a problem of limited perception.
That's the reality of Peak Oil as far as we can judge it, regardless
of whether the earth might be making more petroleum every day. What we note, most importantly,
is the timing of these attacks: They coming during a major
peak oil conference and in close proximity to
American elections which feature an incumbent president from
the oil patch.
[note: the "Dave's Web" site was an accurate site for 9/11
complicity information within days of the attacks, but more recently has
been pushing the "no plane hit Pentagon"
hoax and is relentlessly attacking the concept of natural limits to industrial
overdevelopment. Perhaps it is an example of a site that established its
"bona fides" and then spouted nonsense to discredit serious
work. Dave's Web issue 38 - June 4, 2003 - Of Myths and Monsters is an
effort seemingly aimed at making Stalin seem less odious, and cites notorious
neo-Nazi David Irving as merely a
writer trying to present a balanced view of Hitler. Is this a subtle effort
to smear 9/11 skeptics by association with this stuff seeking to downplay
some of the worst crimes against humanity in history -- since "Dave's
Web" has been a consistent voice saying "inside job" since
the week of the attack?]
paranoia
manipulated to confuse anti-war efforts
THE ASSOCIATION
FOR THE STUDY OF PEAK OIL AND GAS
“ASPO”
NEWSLETTER No. 60 – DECEMBER 2005
647. Vituperation The following website alleges dishonesty and incompetence by
the Editor of this Newsletter along with schizophrenic and Fascist tendencies.
http://peakoildebunked.blogspot.com/2005/10/122-colin-campbell-wrong-again.html
This avalanche of abuse was apparently triggered by reporting a reassessment
that moved the peak date from 2007 to 2010. The word Peak possibly confuses
those ignorant of the subject. It is not a Mount Everest but merely
the maximum value on a gentle curve. Additional confusion is introduced
by the several categories of oil, each depleting at different rates.
The present assessment indicates that Regular Conventional Oil was at
peak in 2004, whereas the profile for “all liquids”, as
compiled from individual country evaluations (excluding refinery gains),
is as follows:
2000 74.2 Mb/d 2006 81.7 Mb/d 2012 82.3 Mb/d 2018 71.9 Mb/d
2002 73.4 2008 83.6 2014 79.4 2020 68.6
2004 79.6 2010 84.5 2016 75.9 2022 65.0
It is obvious that a fairly minor change in the input, or the modelling
assumptions, can shift the maximum value (Peak) by a year or two, one
way or the other, while the general position remains clear. We know
that the estimates are wrong, given the appallingly unreliable public
data. The questions are By How Much? and On What Evidence? If we have
missed the impact of the Cretaceous in the Sudan or the delta fronts
of Sumatra, please let us know. It is worth noting in passing that were
Middle East production to rise higher than presently forecast, it would
simply give a higher and possibly earlier peak followed by a steeper
subsequent decline. In a separate incident, Jack Zagar, giving a talk on Peak Oil
to the Society of Petroleum Engineers in Geneva, found himself facing
a member of the audience who accused ASPO of being a political conspiracy
to justify the invasion of Iraq.
The Swift-Boating of Peak Oil Posted by Stuart Staniford on Tue Nov 15 at 6:32 AM EST
Part of Dr Corsi's agenda seems to be to suggest that Peak Oil is a
left wing movement (a point he expanded on last night). This simply
is not the case. While there certainly are left wing peak oilers such
as Richard Heinberg, believers in peak oil include the conservative
republican Roscoe Bartlett, good capitalist economists such as James
Hamilton, republican investment banker Matt Simmons, and that's not
to even start on the neofascists. Peak Oil totally crosses the political
spectrum, and I don't think Dr Corsi is going to make that particular
framing of the debate stick, though I think we can expect him and whoever
his allies turn out to be to make a vigorous effort.
If indeed the Swiftboating of Peak Oil is beginning, it is striking
that the arguments are so very weak, and the champion so lacking in
credibility. Is this really the best they can do? If so, it suggests
things might be about to get very ugly, as mud is thrown in all directions
in a desperate attempt to disguise the paucity of their position.
GeoPoet on Tue Nov 15 at 11:12 AM EST
In the end, it doesn't matter if oil is abiotic or biogenic in origin.
What we look for is accumulations. These are found in structural trapping
mechanisms, and discovered using gravimetric surveys, seismic surveys,
and other technologies.
Sedimentary rock is far away the best rock type for migrating oil, accumulating
it and trapping it. There are some exceptions, but 99.99% of the time,
even these igneous traps have their fractures filled with sand (sedimentary)
or other rock.
Most igneous rock is incapable of developing sufficient sealing mechanisms
to trap large accumulations. Outside of cracks, there is very little
permeability to igneous rocks. Volcanic breccia and pumice have porosity,
but little permeability unless incorporated into some type of metamorphic.
Sedimentary rock, with it's planar nature, is much more effective at
generating traps and allowing accumulation of oil or gas.
We WISH that oil and gas were abiotic - that would mean we have only
scratched the surface. But the weight of science, in particular respects
Shell's success at generating oil in-situ from source rocks, is behind
a biogenic origin for both oil and gas. The inability of igneous rock
to retain hydrocarbons or allow migration without loss points to sedimentary
basins as the best prospecting zones, regardless of origin.
weaving
together 9/11 "no planes" and "no Peak Oil" disinformation
A number of the loudest voices pushing the (discredited) claim that some
(or all) of the planes on 9/11 did not actually crash into their targets
have taken up the claims that Peak Oil is merely oil company propaganda
used to justify wars in the oil fields and profiteering. (The fact that
the real scam is that the oil companies and financial elites have excluded
the public from participating in decisions about how to use the remaining
oil - for solar panels or battleships - is lost on these advocates.)
Here is a representative sample of this propaganda campaign, posted as
a comment on the Rigorous Intuition blog:
Anonymous said...
All you idiots attempting to sell Michael Ruppert just seem so contrived
I'll have to say. Take it elsewhere, eh?
Ruppert as some sort of 9-11 truth leader is a lie.
[note: a considerable part of the earliest, best research on what
happened on 9/11 was published by Ruppert's From the Wilderness publication.
Crossing the Rubicon, published in 2004, is still the best work on the
mechanics of how 9/11 was facilitated and why. It's not perfect, but
it's better than anything else out there - which is why it attracts
these anonymous smear campaigns.]
Ruppert's ego loves to think he has a final say on truth and lies--and
he spends more time attacking 9-11 truth movement people who disagree
with him, with his belitting statements and hostile court suit threats,
that in my opinion with this (and his selective non-analysis of WTC7
or the controlled demolitions of the WTCs) there's much too much that
is fishy about Ruppert to be truly trustworthy.
[note: this contains several errors and innuendos that distract
from the facts -- there are some incompetents and some bad actors spreading
nonsense that is not fact checked or has been debunked by a variety
of sources. As for the "physical evidence" claims, they are
largely inferential at best, and put the truth seekers on the defensive
- precisely the reason why the mainstream
media defenders of the official story focus on the "physical evidence"
claims and avoid any mention of suppressed
warnings, wargames, how Flight 77 was
steered into the Pentagon's nearly empty sector,
and other evidence that has abundant evidence drawn from the official
record and the mainstream media.]
I think he's spot on, on some things (like the opening chapters of
his book on the U.S. as a completely irredeemable corporate criminal
regime of financiers running the country from the secret services and
intelligence services simply in the name of global piracy and espionage;
or his analysis of the treasonous behavior of Bush, Cheney, and others
on 9-11), though to ignore statements of admitted guilt from Silverstein
or to address the whole controlled demolition thing is a huge attempt
to steer away from the most obvious evidece of guilt of all involved.
Particularly when Silverstein admits performing a controlled demolition
on his WTC7 building later in the day of 9-11.
[note: the "Silverstein" quote is bait for the 9/11 skeptics
- "pull it" is not a demolition
industry term, Silverstein is merely toying with the "truth activists"]
Don't defend Ruppert's dictatorial attitude. It's uncalled for.
Second, despite no evidence, he keeps selling the snake oil lie of peak
oil.
more on that:
newswire article commentary portland metro 05.Jul.2006 22:43
energy & nuclear
Greg Palast says Oil Empire aimed at NOT producing oil--Peak Oil Theory
trumped by liberal
author: Dr. Know
Peak Oil people claim that Peak Oil is around the corner. They base
their theory largely on the same people who have been stalwarts of the
conventional energy industry since the days of Standard Oil. Yet Greg
Palast, in his recent speech in Portland and in his new book, Armed
Madhouse, debunks those theories (as he did less explicitly in his book,
The Best Democracy Money Can Buy) by revealing that the actual conspiracy
has been to constrain oil production and boost the prices realized by
the oil industry....
So how do the Peak Oil fanatics reconcile the fact that one of the Left's
most prominant investigative reporters has produced documented proof
that Big Oil has been actually trying to limit availability of "proven
reserves" for the last 80 years? Well, they can't. Palast's book,
Armed Madhouse, has without really aiming to do so, proven that conventional
theories of "peak oil" are Big Oil originated and aimed at
formulating public opinion.
[note: Palast's "facts" in his attempt
to debunk the reality of natural limits to resources are flawed. Palast
did great work on the vote fraud in Florida in 2000 and several other
scandals, but that does not mean his expertise is endless or that his
work is beyond scrutiny. It's also ironic that an anonymous internet
troll promoting "no planes on 9/11" would cite Palast as an
impeccable source, since Palast claims that 9/11 was a surprise attack
even though there's lots of solid evidence that it was not.]
and see the comments:
article is here
Soon as he drops his spiel on the lies of peak oil as something behind
9-11 (which he with incredible hostility peddles everywhere), he can
move on toward what is really going on.
McGowan's, Palast's, and other's information has completely made that
peak oil assumption seem like the PR psyop it is.
You don't require a potential government spook (who was dating a corrupt
CIA officer running drugs into the U.S, through New Orleans, as per
his admittals!) as a hero, when there is so much overflowing truth out
there that Ruppert looks more like a tiny spigot now.
[note: this is an example of "snitch jacketing" -- falsely
accusing a social change activist of working for the government as an
agent provocateur. Anyone who bothers to read Ruppert's account of how
covert forces tried to recruit him and then hounded him when he refused
will see through this nasty smear. Furthermore, there is an "overflowing"
of 9/11 information that markets itself as "truth," but there
have been very few verifiable facts in 2005 and 2006 that actually add
to the understanding of what happened on 9/11 and why. It seems obvious
that the perpetrators have spread increasingly silly and rabid lies
to distract from the best evidence. Some of this material has snared
unwitting "truth" activists, much of it is used by the media
to paint "9/11 truth" as a lunatic cause lacking any veracity.]
And see 9-11 Loose Change while you're
at it if you have yet to do so.
[Note: for the coup de grace, a promotion of a clever, but mostly false film that is loose with truth - it used fake evidence (no planes) to pollute the real
conclusion (inside job).]
plate
tectonics, chemistry and geology debunk abiotic claims
Abiotic oil is a "theory" that predates the understanding of
plate tectonics. "Hubbert's Peak" by geologist Kenneth Deffeyes
is a wonderful, short book that concisely explains how plate tectonics
formed oil and natural gas.
Since we have new members and visitors joining us constantly, I decided
to re-post my response from an earlier thread. I emailed this information
to Richard Heinberg, and he said that it is the best short rebuttal
to the abiotic oil theory that he's seen anywhere. Dave van HarnI did
some web searching for information on Dr. Gold and the abiotic theory
of hydrocarbon creation. I noticed that most of the sites backing the
abiotic theory were non-scientific. The best rebuttals to the abiogenic
theory that I came up with were from the American Association of Petroleum
Geologists at this web site:
http://www.aapg.org/explorer/2002/11nov/abiogenic.cfm
and Dr. John Clarke, a geologist and astrobiologist from Australia (his
bio is at this link:
http://aca.mq.edu.au/People/jclarke.htm
I e-mailed Dr. Clark and received permission to post a rebuttal he posted
in another forum to the theory of abundant abiotic oil:
Quote:
The fact remains that the abiotic theory of petroleum genesis has zero
credibility for economically interesting accumulations. 99.9999% of
the world's liquid hydrocarbons are produced by maturation of organic
matter derived from organisms. To deny this means you have to come up
with good explanations for the following observations.
1) The almost universal association of petroleum with sedimentary rocks.
2) The close link between petroleum reservoirs and source rocks as shown
by biomarkers (the source rocks contain the same organic markers as
the petroleum, essentially chemically fingerprinting the two).
3) The consistent variation of biomarkers in petroleum in accordance
with the history of life on earth (biomarkers indicative of land plants
are found only in Devonian and younger rocks, that formed by marine
plankton only in Neoproterozoic and younger rocks, the oldest oils containing
only biomarkers of bacteria).
3) The close link between the biomarkers in source rock and depositional
environment (source rocks containing biomarkers of land plants are found
only in terrestrial and shallow marine sediments, those indicating marine
conditions only in marine sediments, those from hypersaline lakes containing
only bacterial biomarkers).
4) Progressive destruction of oil when heated to over 100 degrees (precluding
formation and/or migration at high temperatures as implied by the abiogenic
postulate).
5) The generation of petroleum from kerogen on heating in the laboratory
(complete with biomarkers), as suggested by the biogenic theory.
6) The strong enrichment in C12 of petroleum indicative of biological
fractionation (no inorganic process can cause anything like the fractionation
of light carbon that is seen in petroleum).
7) The location of petroleum reservoirs down the hydraulic gradient
from the source rocks in many cases (those which are not are in areas
where there is clear evidence of post migration tectonism).
8 ) The almost complete absence of significant petroleum occurrences
in igneous and metamorphic rocks (the rare exceptions discussed below).
The evidence usually cited in favour of abiogenic petroleum can all
be better explained by the biogenic hypothesis e.g.:
9) Rare traces of cooked pyrobitumens in igneous rocks (better explained
by reaction with organic rich country rocks, with which the pyrobitumens
can usually be tied).
10) Rare traces of cooked pyrobitumens in metamorphic rocks (better
explained by metamorphism of residual hydrocarbons in the protolith).
11) The very rare occurrence of small hydrocarbon accumulations in igneous
or metamorphic rocks (in every case these are adjacent to organic rich
sedimentary rocks to which the hydrocarbons can be tied via biomarkers).
12) The presence of undoubted mantle derived gases (such as He and some
CO2) in some natural gas (there is no reason why gas accumulations must
be all from one source, given that some petroleum fields are of mixed
provenance it is inevitable that some mantle gas contamination of biogenic
hydrocarbons will occur under some circumstances).
13) The presence of traces of hydrocarbons in deep wells in crystalline
rock (these can be formed by a range of processes, including metamorphic
synthesis by the fischer-tropsch reaction, or from residual organic
matter as in 10).
14) Traces of hydrocarbon gases in magma volatiles (in most cases magmas
ascend through sedimentary succession, any organic matter present will
be thermally cracked and some will be incorporated into the volatile
phase, some fischer-tropsch synthesis can also occur).
15) Traces of hydrocarbon gases at mid ocean ridges (such traces are
not surprising given that the upper mantle has been contaminated with
biogenic organic matter through several billion years of subduction,
the answer to 14 may be applicable also).
The geological evidence is utterly against the abiogenic postulate.
Cheers
Jon Clarke
What I would really love to see proponents of abiotic oil theory explain
away are biomarkers. Any attempt would be tantamount to trying to rationalize
away guilt for murder when you have your bloody fingerprints on the
weapon, your skin under the victim's fingernails, your hair on their
garments, and your semen in their body. Everything we would expect to
find if the parsimonious hypothesis that fits the evidence was true,
and evidence that can't exist if the alternate theory was true. If any
attempt to explain that is forthcoming, it will be apologetic ad-hoc
ill contrived nonsense at best. Abiotic oil does exist, but it is in
insignifigantly miniscule, noncommercially viable quantities, and the
rate at which is produced hasn't shown to be any faster than biotic
oil, which is around 20 million years.
Most of the time when people really dig into the chemical composition
of crude oils, they find biomarkers. Things called hopanes and phytanes
and such. These chemicals can be traced directly to, say, the lipids
that make up cyanobacterial cell membranes (and only those membranes),
or to the wax that coats the leaves of some extinct tree from Tasmania
- and fossils of the same leaves are found 100 km away in coal of the
same age.
The oil we've been using to power our world is a fossil fuel. While
an indigenous origin has been proposed by several notable geologists,
there are things
that make this unlikely.
The first clue we find is, of course, that oil is carbon-based, much
like life. The second is that nitrogen and porphyrins, found in living
things, are found in many petroleum deposits as well. Porphyrins,
FYI, cannot survive temperatures of more than around 200 degrees Celsius,
common deep below the earth's surface.
A very important clue is the fact most oil occurs in or near sedimentary
rocks of marine origin--if oil was leaking up from deep within
the crust, we would expect most of it to occur in assorted rock near
fault lines instead.
Coastal upwelling, a phenomenon associated with much of the hypothesized
formation of organic oil, embeds larger amounts of phosphorus in the
layers of dead marine plankton it creates, than the ocean at large.
And what do we find in places like California and Montana, which were
formerly coastal and possess oil deposits? Petroleum with much phosphorus
content...
The carbon-12 / carbon-13 isotope ratio in oil deposits is a nice
approximation to that in known living things.
Finally, and this is pretty much decisive, the molecular structure
of hydrocarbons can often be directly linked to pigments, chlorophyll,
leaf waxes, etc. of species that biology and paleontology tells us were
dominant at those places during times when oil formed. (Source)
This is not all of the evidence for a biological origin of oil, but
it should be enough. Any of it can be explained with an appropriate
ad-hoc rationalization, but this practice can weaken its explanatory
power compared to the mainstream view.
Now, oil can be formed naturally. This is no secret to geologists.
There are a few known examples of this phenomenon, most notably a few
Russian oil fields. But this oil (1) tends to differ in identifiable
ways from the usual variety, and (2) is by far miniscule compared to
our oil needs and reservoirs of organic origin.
As in any other field, there have been other challenges to mainstream
views on the formation of oil, with various levels of incompetency.
Among the most hilarious are young-earth creationist claims that oil
and coal are a result of Noah's flood. But these minority viewpoints
are less successful when trying to predict which areas and/or rocks
have most chance of yielding oil, the key test of any such hypothesis.
Peer-review in a prestigious journal does not entail accuracy; merely
the lack of utterly newbie scientific errors. And then, there have been
rare examples of those in peer-reviewed journals, too.
Basically, the hypothesis that oil is formed abiotically:
Cannot readily account for the geology or chemistry of
known oil deposits, both of which render the indigenous origin implausible;
Is true on a micro level, since small amounts of various hydrocarbons,
and methane, are demonstrably formed by non-organic geologic processes;
Does not, as of yet at least, match the predictive power of mainstream
geology, which consistently and successfully tells us, in advance,
which rocks are most likely to contain oil. In other words, the fact
that oil is produced by non-organic processes deep within the earth's
crust in miniscule quantities is something no geologist will debate.
Sure, they exist, but they are infintessimally minute and null for
all practical intents and purposes reguarding future sustainability.
The theory of all petroleum being abiotic, or even a large quantity
of it, is not well-established and is currently considered inferior
to the mainstream view for obvious reasons. It's ideologically-sponsored
and demonstrably "crank" science like many such "alternative
theories" ("HIV doesn't cause AIDS," "global warming
isn't happening," various forms of creationism, etc.). Confidently
asserting commercial reserves of oil aren't fossil fuels is as ridiculous
as it gets.
The
"Abiotic Oil" Controversy
Richard Heinberg explains why this theory is nonsense at best, delusional
thinking at worse.
Abiotic
Oil: Science or Politics?
Professor of Chemistry Ugo Bardi offers a simple assessment of the abiotic
theory. His logic is so clear, and the culmination of his argument is
so cogent, that even a child could understand it. The conclusion is
inescapable one to any honest enquiry - abiotic theory is false, or
at best irrelevant.
Quote:
The G7 has just admitted that the world economy is threatened today,
not tomorrow. How does it benefit oil companies or markets if no one
can buy their goods and services, or if there is no power to use them
with? Now is the time for these critics to produce their vast limitless
energy resources, because the G7 has just admitted that everything's
falling apart. (As if we hadn't noticed.) That's what these "critics"
argued would happen when the time came: there would be some magic
switcheroo, and a new energy source would be unveiled.
Quote: One cannot materialize a hot dog in a bank vault no matter
how much money is there. The earth is a bank vault and we are all
collectively locked inside it.
Show us the oil! People are dying now. The G7 has done everything
but state that this is just the beginning unless more oil is found.
Remember that it can take three years to bring a new oil field (once
found) online. Don't attack us anymore. You have said there is an
easy solution. Produce it for us all, even for yourselves. For you
are not immune to what is coming. We have tried to warn even you.
As FTW's energy editor Dale Allen Pfeiffer once wrote to me, "Peak
Oil will defend itself quite nicely."
Put up or shut up.
It's unquestionably apparent that this delusional fantasy of abiotic
oil has been put to rest once and for all, so "nuff' said"
on that.
There is some speculation that oil is abiotic in origin -- generally
asserting that oil is formed from magma instead of an organic origin.
These ideas are really groundless. All unrefined oil carries microscopic
evidence of the organisms from which it was formed. These organisms
can be traced through the fossil record to specific time periods when
quantities of oil were formed. Likewise, there are two primal energy
forces operating on this planet, and all forms of energy descend from
one of these two. The first is the internal form of energy heating the
Earth's interior. This primal energy comes from radioactive decay and
from the heat energy originally generated during accretion of the planet
some 4.6 billion years ago. There are no known mechanisms for transferring
this internal energy into any secondary energy source. And the chemistry
of magma does not compare to the chemistry of hydrocarbons. Magma is
lacking in carbon compounds, and hydrocarbons are lacking in silicates.
If hydrocarbons were generated from magma, then you would expect to
see some closer kinship in their chemistry. The second primal energy
source is light and heat generated by our sun. It is the sun's energy
that powers all energy processes on the Earth's surface, and which provides
the very energy for life itself. Photosynthesis is the miraculous process
by which the sun's energy is converted into forms available to the life
processes of living matter. Following biological, geological and chemical
processes, a line can be drawn from photosynthesis to the formation
of hydrocarbon deposits. Likewise, both living matter and hydrocarbons
are carbon based. Finally, because oil generation is in part a geological
process, it proceeds at an extremely slow rate from our human perspective.
Geological processes take place over a different frame of time than
human events. It is for this reason that when geologists say that the
San Andreas fault is due for a powerful earthquake, they mean any time
in the next million years -- probably less. Geological processes move
exceedingly slow. After organic matter has accumulated on the sea floor,
it must be buried by the process of deposition. In geological time,
in order for this matter to be a likely prospect for hydrocarbon generation,
the rate of deposition must be quick. Here is an experiment you can
conduct to get an idea how slow the rates of deposition are. Place a
small stone on the bottom of a motionless pond. Take another stone of
about the same size and place it at the mouth of a small stream, a stream
where the current is not so great that it will sweep the stone away.
Check both of these stones yearly until they have been buried by deposition.
You might see the stone at the mouth of the stream covered over within
a few years, but it is unlikely that you will see the stone in the pond
buried within your lifetime. It is a simple geological fact that the
oil we are using up at an alarming rate today will not be replaced within
our lifetime -- or within many lifetimes. That is why hydrocarbons are
called non-renewable resources. Capped wells may appear to refill
after a few years, but they are not regenerating. It is simply an effect
of oil slowly migrating through pore spaces from areas of high pressure
to the low-pressure area of the drill hole. If this oil is drawn out,
it will take even longer for the hole to refill again. Oil
is a non-renewable resource generated and deposited under special biological
and geological conditions.
[emphases added]
From: "Mike Ruppert"
Date: Sun, 15 Feb 2004 16:52:01 -0800
Subject: RE: [911truthalliance] Ice Age anyone?
More unfounded bs.
I will give $1,000 cash money to anyone who can show me one oil field
that is today producing oil from abiotic sources. Thomas Gold's 1980s
nonsense discovery in the Gulf of Mexico is today a dry hole. He is laughed
at by everyone in the industry, not the financiers, but the geologists
(both private and from universities) and the actual drillers.
All that happened in the 1980s was that oil which had been pushed into
interstitial spaces by secondary recovery (steam injection) slowly seeped
back into the vacuum left by pumping. The well went dry in a few years.
This is a common occurrence for anyone who's worked in the industry. Thomas
Gold was an astronomer who foolishly decided to leave his field of study
and he is a standing joke throughout the industry.
Ethanol is an absolute waste of time and money as demonstrated by the
French government who decried it as nothing more than a subsidiary to
agribiz. The French minister of Energy spoke to us in Paris last May and
laughed about how much more energy went into ethanol than was produced
by burning it.
Again, a $1,000 cash offer to anyone who can demonstrate numerically,
in terms of net energy, land area and productivity that US transportation
needs can be met with ethanol.
I will hold claimants to the same scientific standards of proof that
FTW has used for three years. And, as part of that bet, I will demand
that each claimant pay me $50 for my time when I prove them wrong. That's
20 to 1 odds. Just throwing a bs article at me won't qualify. You have
to show me a hard scientific paper from a university or a producing well
where it has been demonstrated that the oil is abiotic and that reserves
are refilling.
But before you do, please see (It might save you some money):
Copyright 2004, From The Wilderness Publications, www.fromthewilderness.com.
All Rights Reserved. May be reprinted, distributed or posted on an Internet
web site for non-profit purposes only.
Abiotic Oil: Science or Politics?
By
Ugo Bardi
www.aspoitalia.net
[Ugo Bardi is professor of Chemistry at the University of Florence, Italy.
He is also member of the ASPO (Association for the study of peak oil).
He is the author of the book "La Fine del Petrolio" (the end
of oil) and of several studies on oil depletion.
Ugo Bardi offers a simple assessment of the abiotic theory. His logic
is so clear, and the culmination of his argument is so cogent, that even
a child could understand it. And the conclusion is inescapable - at least
to honest enquiry - abiotic theory is false, or at best irrelevant. -DAP]
OCTOBER 4, 2004: 1300 PDT (FTW) -- For the past century or so, the
biological origin of oil seemed to be the accepted norm. However, there
remained a small group of critics who pushed the idea that, instead,
oil is generated from inorganic matter within the earth's mantle.
The question might have remained within the limits of a specialized
debate among geologists, as it has been until not long ago. However,
the recent supply problems have pushed crude oil to the center stage
of international news. This interest has sparked a heated debate on
the concept of the "production peak" of crude oil. According
to the calculations of several experts, oil production may reach a maximum
within a few years and start a gradual decline afterwards.
The concept of "oil peak" is strictly linked to a view that
sees oil as a finite resource. Several economists have never accepted
this view, arguing that resource availability is determined by price
and not by physical factors. Recently, others have been arguing a more
extreme view: that oil is not even physically limited. According to
some versions of the abiotic oil theory, oil is continuously created
in the Earth's mantle in such amounts that the very concept of "depletion"
is to be abandoned and, by consequence, that there will never be an
"oil peak."
The debate has become highly politicized and has spilled over from geology
journals to the mainstream press and to the fora and mailing lists on
the internet. The proponents of the abiotic oil theory are often very
aggressive in their arguments. Some of them go so far as to accuse those
who claim that oil production is going to peak of pursuing a hidden
political agenda designed to provide Bush with a convenient excuse for
invading Iraq and the whole Middle East.
Normally, the discussion of abiotic oil oscillates between the scientifically
arcane and the politically nasty. Even supposing that the political
nastiness can be detected and removed, there remains the problem that
the average non-specialist in petroleum geology can't hope to wade through
the arcane scientific details of the theory (isotopic ratios, biomarkers,
sedimentary layers and all that) without getting lost.
Here, I will try to discuss the origin of oil without going into these
details. I will do this by taking a more general approach. Supposing
that the abiogenic theory is right, then what are the consequences for
us and for the whole biosphere? If we find that the consequences do
not correspond to what we see, then we can safely drop the abiotic theory
without the need of worrying about having to take a course in advanced
geology. We may also find that the consequences are so small as to be
irrelevant; in this case also we needn't worry about arcane geological
details.
In order to discuss this point, the first task is to be clear about
what we are discussing. 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).
Both versions state that petroleum is formed from the reaction of carbonates
with iron oxide and water in the region called "mantle," deep
in the Earth. Furthermore, it is assumed (see Gold's 1993 paper) that
the mantle is such a huge reservoir that the amount of reactants consumed
in the reaction hasn't depleted it over a few billion years (this is
not unreasonable, since the mantle is indeed huge).
Now, the main consequence of this mechanism is that it promises a large
amount of hydrocarbons that seep out to the surface from the mantle.
Eventually, these hydrocarbons would be metabolized by bacteria and
transformed into CO2. This would have an effect on the temperature of
the atmosphere, which is strongly affected by the amount of carbon dioxide
(CO2) in it. The concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is
regulated by at least two biological cycles; the photosynthetic cycle
and the silicate weathering cycle. Both these cycles have a built-in
negative feedback which keeps (in the long run) the CO2 within concentrations
such that the right range of temperatures for living creatures is maintained
(this is the Gaia model).
The abiotic oil-if it existed in large amounts-would wreak havoc with
these cycles. In the "weak" abiotic oil version, it may just
be that the amount of carbon that seeps out from the mantle is small
enough for the biological cycles to cope and still maintain control
over the CO2 concentration. However, in the "strong" version,
this is unthinkable. Over billions of years of seepage in the amounts
considered, we would be swimming in oil, drowned in oil.
Indeed, it seems that the serious proponents of the abiotic theory all
go for the "weak" version. Gold, for instance, never says
in his 1993 paper that oil wells are supposed to replenish themselves.1
As a theory, the weak abiotic one still fails to explain a lot of phenomena,
principally (and, I think, terminally): how is it that oil deposits
are almost always associated to anoxic periods of high biological sedimentation
rate? However, the theory is not completely unthinkable.
At this point, we can arrive at a conclusion. What is the relevance
of the abiotic theory in practice? The answer is "none." The
"strong" version is false, so it is irrelevant by definition.
The "weak" version, instead, would be irrelevant in
practice, even if it were true. It would change a number of chapters
of geology textbooks, but it would have no effect on the impending oil
peak.
To be sure, Gold and others argue that even the weak version has consequences
on petroleum prospecting and extraction. Drilling deeper and drilling
in areas where people don't usually drill, Gold says, you have a chance
to find oil and gas. This is a very, very weak position for two reasons.
First, digging is more expensive the deeper you go, and in practice
it is nearly impossible to dig a commercial well deeper than the depth
to which wells are drilled nowadays, that is, more than 10 km.
Secondly, petroleum geology is an empirical field which has evolved
largely by trial and error. Petroleum geologists have learned the hard
way where to drill (and where not to drill); in the process they have
developed a theoretical model that WORKS. It is somewhat difficult to
believe that generations of smart petroleum geologists missed huge amounts
of oil. Gold tried to demonstrate just that, and all that he managed
to do was to recover 80 barrels of oil in total, oil that was later
shown to be most likely the result of contamination of the drilling
mud. Nothing prevents others from trying again, but so far the results
are not encouraging.
So, the abiotic oil theory is irrelevant to the debate about peak oil
and it would not be worth discussing were it not for its political aspects.
If people start with the intention of demonstrating that the concept
of "peak oil" was created by a "Zionist conspiracy"
or something like that, anything goes. In this case, however, the debate
is no longer a scientific one. Fortunately, as Colin Campbell said,
"Oil is ultimately controlled by events in the geological past
which are immune to politics."
1 Thomas Gold, of Cornell University, has been one of the leading proponents
of the abiotic oil theory in the West. The theory, actually, had its
origin in the work of a group of Ukrainian and Russian scientists.
If it's true that there's plenty more oil, it just changes the
character of the coming crash -- it will be through toxicity or ecological
catastrophe instead of lack of energy, it will take longer, and the earth
is a lot more likely to die. Here's an excerpt from William Kotke's
summary of the 1972 "Limits To Growth" study:
The scholars programmed the computers so as to double the estimated
resource base, they created a model that assumed "unlimited"
resources, pollution controls, increased agricultural productivity and
"perfect" birth control. None of these or other aversion strategies
could take the world system past 2100.
The reason that the world system cannot go on with unlimited growth
is because each of the five factors is interactive. If we assume unlimited
fuels such as a simple fusion process, this simply drives the growth
curves faster. There is more cheap fuel so the wheels of industry churn
faster and resource exhaustion comes more quickly, population continues
to climb and pollution climbs. If there is more food production, then
population climbs and resources are exhausted more rapidly. If population
is stabilized, resources still continue to decline and pollution increases
because of increased consumption. If the factors of resources, food,
and industrial output grow then population grows but the resulting pollution
creates the negative feedback of having to maintain cancer hospitals
and institutions for the birth defected and mutations caused by pollution
as well as pollution damage to factors such as farm crops.
As of October 2004, the peak oil writers are finally posting some strong
critiques of the abiotic oil position. Here's one from Richard Heinberg,
who hits a few points but says the issues are so complex that you'd need
a whole book to cover it properly. And here's one from Ugo
Bardi, who argues that the abiotic generation rates would have to
be so small as to be politically insignificant. The consensus is that
there might be abiotic oil, but that it's not going to delay the crash.
WILL THE SO-CALLED "TRUTH MOVEMENT" HELP US AVOID A NEW STONE
AGE?
by Tate Ulsaker
[a good rebuttal to Alex Jones]
A fairly comprehensive list of links to the "pro-abiotic"
side are in the following article (with some rebuttals in bold)
www.prisonplanet.com/archives/peak_oil/index.htm
The Myth Of Peak Oil
Paul Joseph Watson & Alex Jones | October 12 2005
Peak oil is a scam designed to create artificial scarcity and jack up
prices while giving the state an excuse to invade our lives and order
us to sacrifice our hard-earned living standards.
Note: The real scam of Peak Oil is that a tiny elite is going
to decide how humanity will cope with declining resources caused by a
variety of overconsumptive practices. Anyone with any clue can see how
rapacious greed and out-of-control economic systems are outstripping the
capacity of the natural systems of the planet to restore the biosphere.
Jones and other abiotic enthusiasts confuse the very real reality
of price gouging and other forms of manipulation with a blind faith that
oil supplies are essentially endless. Their wishful thinking also obscures
many other forms of overshoot: declining natural gas, desertification,
climate change, deforestation, species extinction, overfishing, minerals
depletion, soil degradation, declining grain production, toxic and nuclear
wastes, and other limits to growth.
The existence of self-renewing oil fields shatters the peak oil myth.
If oil is a naturally replenishing inorganic substance then how can
it possibly run out?
There are two factors that must be considered regarding this
claim. First, and most important, it is true that removing oil from part
of an oil field can cause nearby oil deposits to migrate (slowly) toward
the depleted areas. That is not evidence that deeper layers in the Earth
are constantly creating vast amounts of oil. Second, the abiotic advocates
rarely mention the issue of rate of production. Assume that their claims
of new oil being made are true -- what is the rate that this new oil is
made? It is similar to claims by timber companies that their clearcutting
of ancient forests is acceptable because forests grow back - claims that
ignore the fact that they are cutting much faster than forests grow. (There's
also the issue of what happens to the atmosphere if we keep accelerating
our overconsumption of oil, but that is not part of Jones's concern.)
Earlier this year Saudi Arabia reportedly increased its crude reserves
by around 200 billion barrels. Saudi oil Is secure and plentiful, say
officials.
Those claims have not been subjected to any outside peer review,
and the Saudis have not made substantial increases in their daily exports
of petroleum. They have increased their export of "sour crude"
that has lots of embedded sulfur, but not the export of the better grades
of crude oil that are more desirable for making gasoline and jet fuel.
It is interesting that Watson and Jones are trusting pronouncements from
the Saudi royal family without making any effort in their reporting to
verify whether these statements are true or false.
There is a clear contradiction between the peak oil theory and the
continual increase in oil reserves and production.
New untapped oil sources are being discovered everywhere on earth.
If Watson and Jones know of large discoveries in recent years,
they should let the world know about them, since the oil companies, financial
institutions and the world press are not aware of anything on the scale
needed to shift the timing of Peak Oil by more than a couple of years.
Citing articles in "conspiracy planet" and similar sources is
not journalism.
Richard
Heinberg shows why "abiotic oil" is a myth
In recent months a few of the many web sites that challenge
the official account of the events of 9/11/2001 have also attacked the
idea of peak oil. I would prefer to ignore this controversy--and there
are good reasons for doing so, as some of these web sites lack credibility
on other counts; nevertheless, as these sites are magnets for large
numbers of people who are just beginning to find their way out of the
consensus societal trance, they appear to be doing some palpable harm.
I have received at least a couple of dozen e-mails from sincere
people wanting to know my response to claims that “peak oil”
is a scam, and that oil is actually an inexhaustible resource.
So, once and for all, here is my take on the abiotic oil controversy.
The Gist of the Situation
The debate over oil’s origin has been going on since the 19th
century. From the start, there were those who contended that oil is
primordial--that it dates back to Earth’s origin--or that it is
made through an inorganic process, while others argued that it was produced
from the decay of living organisms (primarily oceanic plankton) that
proliferated millions of years ago during relatively brief periods of
global warming and were buried under ocean sediment under fortuitous
circumstances.
During the latter half of the 20th century, with advances in geophysics
and geochemistry, the vast majority of scientists lined up on the side
of the biotic theory. A small group of mostly Russian scientists--but
including a tiny handful Western scientists, among them the late Cornell
University physicist Thomas Gold--have held out for an abiotic (also
called abiogenic or inorganic) theory. While some of the Russians appear
to regard Gold as a plagiarist of their ideas, the latter’s book
The Deep Hot Biosphere (1998) stirred considerable controversy among
the public on the questions of where oil comes from and how much of
it there is. Gold argued that hydrocarbons existed at the time of the
solar system’s formation, and are known to be abundant on other
planets (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and some of their moons) where no
life is presumed to have flourished in the past.
The abiotic theory holds that there must therefore be nearly limitless
pools of liquid primordial hydrocarbons at great depths on Earth, pools
that slowly replenish the reservoirs that conventional oil drillers
tap.
Meanwhile, however, the oil companies have used the biotic theory as
the practical basis for their successful exploration efforts over the
past few decades. If there are in fact vast untapped deep pools of hydrocarbons
refilling the reservoirs that oil producers drill into, it appears to
make little difference to actual production, as tens of thousands of
oil and gas fields around the world are observed to deplete, and refilling
(which is indeed very rarely observed) is not occurring at a commercially
significant scale or rate except in one minor and controversial instance
discussed below.
The abiotic theorists also hold that conventional drillers, constrained
by an incorrect theory, ignore many sites where deep, primordial pools
of oil accumulate; if only they would drill in the right places, they
would discover much more oil than they are finding now. However, the
tests of this claim are so far inconclusive: the best-documented “abiotic”
test well was a commercial failure.
Thus even if the abiotic theory does eventually prove to be partially
or wholly scientifically valid (and that is a rather big “if”),
it might have little or no practical consequence in terms of oil depletion
and the imminent global oil production peak. That is the situation in
a nutshell, as I understand it, and it is probably as much information
as most readers will need or want on this subject. However, as this
summary contradicts some of the more ambitious claims of the abiotic
theorists, it may be helpful to present in more detail some of the evidence
and arguments on both sides of the debate.
Oil at the Core?
Gold is right: there are hydrocarbons on other planets, even in deep
space. Why shouldn’t we expect to find primordial hydrocarbons
on Earth?
This is a question whose answer is only partly understood, and it is
a complicated one. The planets known to have primordial hydrocarbons
(mostly in the form of methane, the simplest hydrocarbon) lie in the
further reaches of the solar system; there is little evidence of primordial
hydrocarbons on the rocky inner planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth, and
Mars). On the latter, possibly the hydrocarbons either volatized and
escaped into space early in the history of the solar system, or--as
Gold theorizes--they migrated to the inner depths. (Note: very recent
evidence of methane in the atmosphere of Mars is being viewed as evidence
of biological activity, probably in the distant past. (1)) There is
indeed evidence for deep methane on Earth: it vents from the mid-oceanic
ridges, presumably arising from the mantle, though the amount vented
is relatively small—less than the amount emitted annually in cow
farts (incidentally, there are persuasive biotic explanations for the
origin of this vented methane).
A new study by the US Department of Energy and Lawrence Livermore Lab
suggests that there may be huge methane deposits in Earth’s mantle,
60 to 120 miles deep. (2) But today oil companies are capable of drilling
only as deep as six miles, and this in sedimentary rock; in igneous
and metamorphic rock, drill bits have so far penetrated only two miles.
(3) In any attempt to drill to a depth remotely approaching the mantle,
well casings would be thoroughly crushed and melted by the pressures
and temperatures encountered along the way. Moreover, the DOE study
attributes the methane deposits it hypothesizes to an origin different
from the one Gold described.
More to the point, Gold also claimed the existence of liquid hydrocarbons—oil—at
great depths. But there is a problem with this: the temperatures at
depths below about 15,000 feet are high enough (above 275 degrees F)
to break hydrocarbon bonds. What remains after these molecular bonds
are severed is methane, whose molecule contains only a single carbon
atom. For petroleum geologists this is not just a matter of theory,
but of repeated and sometimes costly experience: they speak of an oil
“window” that exists from roughly 7,500 feet to 15,000 feet,
within which temperatures are appropriate for oil formation; look far
outside the window, and you will most likely come up with a dry hole
or, at best, natural gas only. The rare exceptions serve to prove the
rule: they are invariably associated with strata that are rapidly (in
geological terms) migrating upward or downward. (4)
The conventional theory of petroleum formation connects oil with the
process of sedimentation. And, indeed, nearly all of the oil that has
been discovered over the past century-and-a-half is associated with
sedimentary rocks. On the other hand, it isn’t difficult to find
rocks that once existed at great depths where, according the theories
of Gold and the Russians, conditions should have been perfect for abiotic
oil formation or the accumulation of primordial petroleum—but
such rocks typically contain no traces of hydrocarbons. In the very
rare instances where small amounts of hydrocarbons are seen in igneous
or metamorphic rocks, the latter are invariably found near hydrocarbon-bearing
sedimentary rocks, and the hydrocarbons in both types of rock contain
identical biomarkers (more on that subject below); the simplest explanation
in those cases is that the hydrocarbons migrated from the sedimentary
rocks to the igneous-metamorphic rocks.
Years ago Thomas Gold recognized that the best test of the abiotic theory
would be to drill into the crystalline basement rock underlying later
sedimentary accumulations to see if there is indeed oil there. He persuaded
the government of Sweden in 1988 to drill 4.5 miles down into granite
that had been fractured by a meteorite strike (the fracturing is what
permitted drillers to go so deep). The borehole, which cost millions
to drill, yielded 80 barrels of oil. Even though the project (briefly
re-started in 1991) was a commercial failure, Gold maintained that his
ideas had been vindicated. Most geologists remained skeptical, however,
suggesting that the recovered oil likely came from drilling mud.
The Russians (I must remind the reader that I am actually talking about
a minority even with the community of Russian geologists) claim successes
in drilling in basement rock in the Dneiper-Donets Basin in the Ukraine.
Professor Vladilen A. Krayushkin, Chairman of the Department of Petroleum
Exploration, Institute of Geological Sciences, Ukrainian Academy of
Sciences, Kiev, and leader of the exploration project, wrote:
The eleven major and one giant oil and gas fields here described
have been discovered in a region which had, forty years ago, been
condemned as possessing no potential for petroleum production. The
exploration for these fields was conducted entirely according to the
perspective of the modern Russian-Ukrainian theory of abyssal, abiotic
petroleum origins. The drilling which resulted in these discoveries
was extended purposely deep into the crystalline basement rock, and
it is in that basement where the greatest part of the reserves exist.
These reserves amount to at least 8,200 M metric tons [65 billion
barrels] of recoverable oil and 100 B cubic meters of recoverable
gas, and are thereby comparable to those of the North Slope of Alaska.
(5)
However, independent assessments of the situation do not support these
claims. First, the US Geological Survey does not agree that the Dneiper-Donets
reserves are that large (it cites 2.7 billion barrels for total oil
endowment). Second, the appearance of oil in basement rocks is unusual
but not unheard of, and there are various ways in which oil can appear
in basement rock. In the process of drilling through overlying sedimentary
rock, oil can be expelled downward so that it appears to come from below.
Then there are situations where igneous or metamorphic rocks have migrated
upward, or sedimentary rocks have migrated downward, so that basement
rock covers sedimentary rock (in some cases, the overthrust may be hundreds
of square kilometers in extent). In his paper “Oil Production
from Basement Reservoirs—Examples from USA and Venezuela,”
Tako Koning of Texaco Angola, Inc., cites source rocks such as marine
shales in nearly all instances. (6) More to the point, numerous studies
cite the existence of sedimentary source rocks in the Dneiper-Donets
region. (7)
Refilling Fields?
Abiotic theorists often point out evidence of fields refilling. The
most-cited example is Eugene Island, the tip of a mostly submerged mountain
that lies approximately 80 miles off of the coast of Louisiana. Here
is the story as related by Chris Bennett in his article “Sustainable
Oil?” on WorldNetDaily.com:
A significant reservoir of crude oil was discovered nearby in the
late ’60s, and by 1970, a platform named Eugene 330 was busily
producing about 15,000 barrels a day of high-quality crude oil. By
the late ’80s, the platform’s production had slipped to
less than 4,000 barrels per day, and was considered pumped out. Done.
Suddenly, in 1990, production soared back to 15,000 barrels a day,
and the reserves which had been estimated at 60 million barrels in
the ’70s, were recalculated at 400 million barrels. Interestingly,
the measured geological age of the new oil was quantifiably different
than the oil pumped in the ’70s. Analysis of seismic recordings
revealed the presence of a “deep fault” at the base of
the Eugene Island reservoir which was gushing up a river of oil from
some deeper and previously unknown source. (8)
A “river of oil” from an unassociated deep source? This
does sound promising. But closer examination yields more prosaic descriptions
and explanations.
According to David S. Holland, et al., in Search and Discovery, the
reservoir is characterized by
1. Structural features dominated by growth faults, salt domes, and
salt-related faulting.
2. Thick accumulations of predominantly deltaic deposits of alternating
sand and shale.
3. Young reservoirs (less than 2.5 m.y. old) with migrated hydrocarbons
whose origins are in deeper, organic-rich marine shales.
4. Rapidly changing stratigraphy, due to deposition and subsequent
reworking.
5. Numerous oil and gas fields with stacked reservoirs, long hydrocarbon
columns, and high producing rates. (9)
While it is true that the estimated oil reserves of Eugene have increased,
the numbers are not extraordinary. The authors note that “From
1978 to 1988, these operations, activities, and natural factors [including
better exploration and recovery technology] have increased ultimate
recoverable reserves from 225 million bbl to 307 million bbl of hydrocarbon
liquids and from 950 bcf to 1.65 tcf of gas.” Other estimates
now put the estimate of total recoverable oil as high as 400 Mb.
None of this is especially unusual for a North American oil field: most
fields report reserve growth over time as a consequence of Securities
and Exchange Commission reporting rules that require reserves to be
booked yearly according to what portion of the resource is actually
able to be extracted with current equipment in place. As more wells
are drilled into the same reservoir, the reserves “grow.”
Then, as they are pumped out, reserves decline and production rates
dwindle. No magic there.
Production from Eugene Island had achieved 20,000 barrels per day by
1989; by 1992 it had slipped to 15,000 b/d, but recovered to reach a
peak of 30,000 b/d in 1996. Production from the reservoir has dropped
steadily since then.
The evidence at Eugene Island suggests the existence of deep source
rocks from which the reservoir is indeed very slowly refilling—but
geologists working there do not hypothesize a primordial origin for
the oil. In “Oil and Gas—‘Renewable Resources’?”
Kathy Blanchard of PNL writes, “Recent geochemical research at
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution has demonstrated that the wide
range in composition of the oils in different reservoirs of the Eugene
Island 330 field can be related to one another and to a deeper source
rock of Jurassic-Early Cretaceous age.” (10) Her article explains
that this kind of migration from nearby source rocks is hardly unique,
and discusses it in the context of conventional biotic theory. A technical
paper by David S. Holland et al., “Eugene Island Block 330 Field—U.S.A.
Offshore Louisiana,” published by AAPG, notes that the Eugene
Island oils show abundant evidence of long-distance vertical migration.
Based on a variety of biomarker and gasoline-range maturity indicators,
these oils are estimated to have been generated at depths of 4572 to
4877 m (15,000 to 16,000 ft) at vitrinite reflectance maturities of
0.08 to 1.0% and temperatures of 150 to 170°C (300 to 340°F).
Their presence in shallow, thermally immature reservoirs requires significant
vertical migration. This is illustrated on Figure 36, which represents
a burial and maturation history for the field at the time of petroleum
migration, that is, at the end of Trimosina “A” time approximately
500,000 years ago. A plot of the present measured maturity values versus
depth is superimposed on the calculated maturity profile for Trimosina
“A” time to illustrate the close agreement between measured
and predicted maturity profiles. The clear discrepancy between reservoir
maturity and oil maturity is striking and suggests that the oil migrated
more than 3650 m (12,000 ft) from a deep, possibly upper Miocene, source
facies. Petroleum migration along faults is indicated based on the observed
temperature and hydrocarbon anomalies at the surface and the distribution
of pay in the subsurface. These results are consistent with those of
Young et al. (1977), who concluded that most Gulf of Mexico oils originated
2438 to 3350 m (8000 to 11,000 ft) deeper than their reservoirs, from
source beds 5 to 9 million years older than the reservoirs. (11)
Biomarkers
The claims for the abiotic theory often seem overstated in other ways.
J. F. Kenney of Gas Resources Corporations, Houston, Texas, who is one
of the very few Western geologists to argue for the abiotic theory,
writes, “competent physicists, chemists, chemical engineers and
men knowledgeable of thermodynamics have known that natural petroleum
does not evolve from biological materials since the last quarter of
the 19th century.” (12) Reading this sentence, one might assume
that only a few isolated troglodyte pseudoscientists would still be
living under the outworn and discredited misconception that oil can
be formed from biological materials. However, in fact universities and
oil companies are staffed with thousands of “competent physicists,
chemists, chemical engineers and men knowledgeable of thermodynamics”
who not only subscribe to the biogenic theory, but use it every day
as the basis for successful oil exploration. And laboratory experiments
have shown repeatedly that petroleum is in fact produced from organic
matter under the conditions to which it is assumed to have been subjected
over geological time. The situation is actually the reverse of the one
Kenny implies: most geologists assume that the Russian abiotic oil hypothesis,
which dates to the era prior to the advent of modern plate tectonics
theory, is an anachronism. Tectonic movements are now known to be able
to radically reshuffle rock strata, leaving younger sedimentary oil-
or gas-bearing rock beneath basement rock, leading in some cases to
the appearance that oil has its source in Precambrian crystalline basement,
when this is not actually the case.
Geologists trace the source of the carbon in hydrocarbons through analysis
of its isotopic balance. Natural carbon is nearly all isotope 12, with
1.11 percent being isotope 13. Organic material, however, usually contains
less C-13, because photosynthesis in plants preferentially selects C-12
over C-13. Oil and natural gas typically show a C-12 to C-13 ratio similar
to that of the biological materials from which they are assumed to have
originated. The C-12 to C-13 ratio is a generally observed property
of petroleum and is predicted by the biotic theory; it is not merely
an occasional aberration. (13)
In addition, oil typically contains biomarkers—porphyrins, isoprenoids,
pristane, phytane, cholestane, terpines, and clorins—which are
related to biochemicals such as chlorophyll and hemoglobin. The chemical
fingerprint of oil assumed to have been formed from, for example, algae
is different from that of oil formed from plankton. Thus geochemists
can (and routinely do) use biomarkers to trace oil samples to specific
source rocks.
Abiotic theorists hypothesize that oil picks up its chemical biomarkers
through contamination from bacteria living deep in the Earth’s
crust (Gold’s “deep, hot biosphere”) or from other
buried bio-remnants. However, the observed correspondences between biomarkers
and source materials are not haphazard, but instead systematic and predictable
on the basis of the biotic theory. For example, biomarkers in source
rock can be linked with the depositional environment; that is, source
rocks with biomarkers characteristic of land plants are found only in
terrestrial and shallow marine sediments, while petroleum biomarkers
associated with marine organisms are found only in marine sediments.
The Bottom Line
The points discussed above represent a mere sampling of the issues;
it would be difficult if not impossible for me to address all of the
arguments put forward by the abiotic theorists in a brief essay of this
nature. I circulated a draft of this essay on two energy-related email
newsgroups and received about a dozen thoughtful comments, some defending
the abiotic theory but most critiquing it. About half of the comments
were from physicists, geophysicists, or geologists. It quickly became
apparent to me that a book-length treatment of the subject is called
for.
J. F. Kenney has put forward a succinct and persuasive paper arguing
for the abiotic theory (5), but there is no prominently published rebuttal
piece that systematically discusses or attempts to refute his assertions.
A reader of Kenney’s web site might find fault with some of my
statements in this essay (for example, as a counter to my description
of the depth “window” of oil formation, a reader might refer
to Kenney’s discussion of Russian experiments that have shown
that oil can be formed at high temperatures and high pressures—conditions
similar to those that must exist in the Earth’s mantle). Yet among
the draft comments I received from scientists were convincing criticisms
of Kenney’s claims (returning to my example: even if oil were
formed in the mantle, as more than one commenter pointed out, abiotic
theorists have suggested no plausible means by which it could rise to
the depths at which we find it without passing through intermediary
regions in which the temperature would be too high and pressure too
low for liquid hydrocarbons to survive). Many other assertions by Kenney
and critiqued by the experts are more technical in nature and more difficult
to summarize.
So, rather than continuing along these lines, I would prefer now to
pull back from a focus on details and again emphasize the bigger picture.
There is no way to conclusively prove that no petroleum is of abiotic
origin. Science is an ongoing search for truth, and theories are continually
being altered or scrapped as new evidence appears. However, the assertion
that all oil is abiotic requires extraordinary support, because it must
overcome abundant evidence, already cited, to tie specific oil accumulations
to specific biological origins through a chain of well-understood processes
that have been demonstrated, in principle, under laboratory conditions.
Now, I like scientific mavericks; I tend to cheer for the underdog.
Peak oil is itself a maverick position, and for the past several years
I have been promoting a view that the Wall Street Journal recently described
as “crackpot.” (14) So I feel a bit unaccustomed and even
uncomfortable now to be on the side of the scientific “establishment”
in arguing against the abiotic oil theorists. The latter certainly deserve
their day in the court of scientific debate.
Perhaps one day there will be general agreement that at least some oil
is indeed abiotic. Maybe there are indeed deep methane belts twenty
miles below the Earth’s surface. But the important question to
keep in mind is: What are the practical consequences of this discussion
now for the problem of global oil depletion?
I have not personally inspected the oil wells in Saudi Arabia or even
those in Texas. But nearly every credible report that I have seen—whether
from the industry or from an independent scientist—describes essentially
the same reality: discoveries are declining, and have been since the
1960s. Spare production capacity is practically gone. And the old, super-giant
oil fields that the world depends upon for the majority of its production
are nearing or past their all-time production peaks. Not even the Russian
fields cited by the abiotic theorists as evidence for their views are
immune: in June the head of Russia’s Federal Energy Agency said
that production for 2005 is likely to remain flat or even drop, while
other officials in that country have said that growth in Russian production
cannot be sustained for more than another few years. (15)
What if oil were in fact virtually inexhaustible—would this be
good news? Not in my view. It is my opinion that the discovery of oil
was the greatest tragedy (in terms of its long-term consequences) in
human history. Finding a limitless supply of oil might forestall nasty
price increases and catastrophic withdrawal symptoms, but it would only
exacerbate all of the other problems that flow from oil dependency—our
use of it to accelerate the extraction of all other resources, the venting
of CO2 into the atmosphere, and related problems such as loss of biodiversity.
Oil depletion is bad news, but it is no worse than that of oil abundance.
Given the ongoing runup in global petroleum prices, the notion of peak
oil hardly needs defending these days. We are seeing the phenomenon
unfold before our eyes as one nation after another moves from the column
of “oil exporters” to that of “oil importers”
(Great Britain made the leap this year). At some point in the very near
future the remaining nations in column A will simply be unable to supply
all of the nations in column B.
In short, the global energy crisis is coming upon us very quickly, so
that more time spent debating highly speculative theories can
only distract us from exploring, and applying ourselves to, the practical
strategies that might preserve more of nature, culture, and human life
under the conditions that are rapidly developing.
Footnotes
1. See New Scientist www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99996425
2. www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2004-09/dlnl-mid091304.php
3. http://wow.osu.edu/Geology/ebmf.htm
4. See Kenneth Deffeyes, Hubbert’s Peak, pp. 21-22, 171; Walter
Youngquist, Geodestinies, p. 114.
5. www.gasresources.net/energy_resources.htm
6. www.dur.ac.uk/react.res/RRG_web/hydrocarbons_meet.htm
7. www.911-strike.com/pfeiffer.htm (link expired; click on “cached”)
8. www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=38645
9. #20003, 1999, www.searchanddiscovery.com/documents/97015/eugene.htm
10. www.pnl.gov/er_news/08_95/er_news/oil1.kb.html
11. www.datapages.com/97015/eugene.htm
12. See footnote 9.
13. www.giss.nasa.gov/gpol/abstracts/1997/FungFieldB.html
14. “As Prices Soar, Doomsayers Provoke Debate on Oil’s
Future,” 9/21/2004
15. www.mosnews.com/money/2004/06/17/oilproduction.shtml
Richard Heinberg is the author of Powerdown: Options and Actions for
a Post-Carbon World
