Such is the power of politics, driven by concerns about global warming, that according to the US-based online journal Grist, the tide has turned against coal and it is now officially “the enemy of the human race” with the states of California, Kansas, Florida and Washington denying permits or contracts for new coal-fired power stations.
It is also increasingly difficult for companies to undertake petroleum exploration in the US with production from existing fields not being replaced because potential new fields are off limits including off the coast of southern California, in Alaska and the eastern Gulf of Mexico.
US policy is, however, supporting an ethanol industry with the target of 36 billion gallons of renewable fuels likely to result in the construction of about 300 new ethanol plants, about 75 new corn ethanol facilities and more than 210 for conversion of cellulosic materials.
While this might all sound impressive and perhaps like the demise of fossil fuels, it is not really because renewables represent such a tiny part of energy production in the US. Indeed according to the latest forecast from the Energy Information Administration, traditional fossil fuels (oil, coal and natural gas) will still meet 83 percent of total US primary energy supply requirements in 2030, down only slightly from 85 percent in 2006. Furthermore, US demand for petroleum, the main source for transportation fuels, is forecast to rise 0.8 percent a year, from 21 million barrels per day in 2008 to 25 million in 2030.
So the US will remain dependent on the Middle East including Iraq for its energy? And the US and Iraqi governments are trying to dramatically boost oil production with the World Socialist Website reporting that there are plans to increase oil production from 2.5 million barrels per day to at least three million by the end of 2008, and to six million within a decade.
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
And what are the latest CO2 footprint numbers of:
oil refined to gas, then distributed and combusted in a car engine, vs. corn refined to ethanol, then distributed and combusted similarly to yield a passenger car mile driven?
Coal and oil both give comparable usable energy per co2 expelled.
The Chinese have coal seam fires burning out of control which contribute more co2 then the combined output of all US auto and light trucks.
You guys have that smoke mountain thing – what’s that been five, six thousand years?
There’s another coal seam fire that has been burning in Pennsylvania since before I was born.
Maybe it’s a stupid question (6000 years makes it more a cultural tradition rather then an eco disaster) but has anybody ever thought about putting these damn fires out?
The main difference between coal power and oil power – we don’t have to import coal.
James, you have pointed to an inconvenient truth and will probably be ignored by the climate god-botherers commenting here.
However I tire of the perpetuation of the pseudoscientific assertion that coal, oil and gas are fossil fuels – no one here or anywhere else has demonstrated by experiment that such hydrocarbons can be “spontaneously” generated by burying biomass at the depths typical for sedimentary basins.
I join the Russian scientists who maintain, along with Fred Hoyle, that these hydrocarbons are products of the mantle and not from “fossils”.
Those who are offended by this assertion have ample opportunity to demonstrate this by means of scientific experiment.
Further experimental evidence supporting the Russian-Ukrainian theory of Abiotic petroleum was published recently; (Freeman Dyson referred to it during the last 6 months).
We wait for the mainstream alchemists to offer their experimental evidence that Saudi Crude can be spontaneously produced by burying biomass.
James – “The Chinese have coal seam fires burning out of control which contribute more co2 then the combined output of all US auto and light trucks.”
You say these things however provide no references to back them up. Where did you get this information from?
Louis – “I join the Russian scientists who maintain, along with Fred Hoyle, that these hydrocarbons are products of the mantle and not from “fossils”.”
Even if this was true, which it is not, do you think the oil wells would refill at 85 million barrels per day? Even allowing abiotic oil to be true it would take millions of years to refill oil wells. So abiotic oil offers no solution to the current Peak Oil even if it was true.
And you did not answer the last time I asked so how do you explain fossils in oil and the fact that 100% of the current oil in production today is situated where large amounts of biological material accumulated for millions of years. Exactly 0% of current oil is produced from wells that you imagine are abiotic. Also oil is a complex mixture of hydrocarbons – how does this get manufactured by non biological processes?
“Further experimental evidence supporting the Russian-Ukrainian theory of Abiotic petroleum was published recently”
So post it here.
Ender,
where do you get the statistics that it will take millions of years to replenish the wells?
And Yes Ender, I will post it here in a short while.
Meantime I am still waiting for your posting of the evidence supporting biogenic oil, apart from regurgitating the well known logical fallacies that because petroleum, an excellent organic solvent, contains biological detritus, it must, perforce, be formed from such material.
Ender
as promised
http://www.agiweb.org/geotimes/nov04/NN_nonfossilfuels.html
But I add a comment to that research by J. Kenney of http://www.gasresources.net:
“The article by Scott et al, (over which Dyson so fulsomely slavers ) is no more than a pathetically weak, attempted copy-cat of the article written by my Russian colleagues and myself three years before and published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences two years before their own squib appeared. (The Evolution of Multi-Component Systems at High Pressure: VI. The Stability of Hydrocarbons and the Genesis of Petroleum (2002), (P.N.A.S.). A copy of this article may be found on the pages of our corporate website http:\\www.GasResources.net).
The work by Scott et al, was incompetently performed, dishonestly reported and dishonorably presented. Each of these qualities are taken up in turn, last to first.
1) An especially dishonorable aspect of their behavior is their claim to be the first to observe the spontaneous generation of methane at high pressures from the reagents (These were exactly the reagents that we had used and reported in our article. In short, theirs was no more than a copy cat charade). To claim precedence for work that has been done previously by others is plagiarism.
Scott et al. are plagiarists not only because they claim credit for work done previously by me and my colleagues. The spontaneous generation of methane from inorganic carbonate rocks in the presence of iron oxides and water has been observed by numerous Russian petroleum scientists since the 1960’s.
For the “difficulty” or “challenge” of observing the spontaneous generation of methane from carbonate rocks under high pressure in the presence of water, Russian and Ukrainian petroleum scientists have an expression which translates roughly as “women and children country.” The challenge has been to observe the spontaneous generation of heavy hydrocarbons such as pentane, hexane, octane, C10, diesel oil, etc.
This challenge had defeated us all for more than 30 years until G. Nikolaev designed and patented a variant of the Brashkin cell that would allow strict control of temperature and of high pressure while reducing temperature. With this one-of-a-kind apparatus, we performed the experiment reported in the Academy Proceedings.”
So, Ender, methane is one thing but demonstrating spontaneous production of higher octane variants at mantle pressures and temperatures has been done.
No come up with the contradictory experimental data supporting Biogenic oil! Heaven knows you lot have had the time and money to do it (You are in the pay of Government funded – governments control, via state owned or controlled oil companies, 96% of the earth’s recoverable oil – big oil, are you not)?
Ender
For the hat-trick, if petroleum (Greek for rock oil) is indeed a product of the mantle, then instead of waiting for it to replenish existing wells, as you suggest in your post above, have you allowed yourself the luxury of thinking about the possiblility of drilling into areas previously thought not to host oil?
I would start drilling deep wells near Collie in WA for oil, based on this theory.
Indeed if you did some homework you might find that a lot of oil companies are now producing oil from ‘basement’ rocks (crystalline basement) instead of the PC regions of sedimentary basins. Vietnam is a conspicuous example.
So what will decide the US’s future energy wise? Big Science, Big Government and Big Money, and as this combination is basically a workable definition of incompetence, the US will probably experience energy shortages until the next change in scientific paradigm happens, and that might be sooner than later if the present unravelling of the IPCC global warming scam is any indication.
Addendum! Delete from previous post “happens” in last sentence.
Louis – “where do you get the statistics that it will take millions of years to replenish the wells?”
First of all I do not think that they will replenish however logically the creation of oil must be a slow process as it happens at geological timeframes not human ones. Post one well that has replenished. ALL mature wells including all the supergiants are in decline and not replenishing. If for instance Ghawar in Saudi Arabia was replenishing would the water cut be 40% now?
http://home.entouch.net/dmd/ghawar.htm
Why did the Lower 48 States of the USA peak if the oil is replenishing?
http://dieoff.org/page180.htm
“Meantime I am still waiting for your posting of the evidence supporting biogenic oil, apart from regurgitating the well known logical fallacies that because petroleum, an excellent organic solvent, contains biological detritus, it must, perforce, be formed from such material.”
How about 2 or 3 trillion barrels of oil found where the biogenic theory of oil would predict it to be and 0 barrels of oil extracted from abiotic oil.
How did the pollens from plants get into the oil?
http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0026-2803(195510)1%3A4%3C368%3ASAPANS%3E2.0.CO%3B2-S
Fom your link:
“abiogenic methane exists in small quantities in the crust.”
I am sure that some abiogenic methane does exist however methane is a hell of a long way from the complex soup of hydrocarbon that is crude oil.
Basement rocks are the ONLY place where abiotic oil gets a look in and even then it is only 1 of 4 or more plausible theories.
Just how do you explain the amount of oil discovered by looking where there should be biotic oil? Also if you are so sure of this theory why do you not raise the 4 or 5 million dollars and hire a rig and start drilling. Your own backyard should be as good as anywhere according to you so start to it. Hang on that rig has just been taken by the Chinese the next one would be 10 or 20 million.
Finally just why is the Earth not awash with oil? If oil wells replenish at 85 million barrels per day then wherever we sink a well there should be a gusher. Any crack or fault should gush with oil and the surface of the Earth should be knee deep in the stuff – can you explain that one Louis?
Ender,
your post above indicates to me that your science teacher did not understand much of what he/she taught.
Mind you, a brave attempt to avoid the whale in the bathtub, so I suppose everyone here should conclude you have lost this one.
Your play muggins. New ball.
Sigh,,,,,,
Ender,
Just what did Kenney and the Russians empirically demonstrate as indicated above by my post before yours? Do you know what Saudi Crude is? Propane, Hectane, Diesel, ?????
And “Basement rocks are the ONLY place where abiotic oil gets a look in and even then it is only 1 of 4 or more plausible theories” – tell that to the Vietnamese!
Don’t you understand what you read here?
Oh, my apologies, I have asked you to jump, in a cerebrally challenging sense, a goal (or aim) higher than what you have been counselled for.
Whoopsies.
Louis – “your post above indicates to me that your science teacher did not understand much of what he/she taught.”
I see so you can’t answer any of the questions so of course you retreat to derision.
So post one oil well that has been proven to replenish.
Post one experiment that showed a complex mix of hydrocarbons similar to crude oil or coal being produced.
Post one oil well that has been drilled that is conclusively proven to be abiotic.
Explain why 2 trillion or more barrels of oil have been discovered with a flawed theory.
Explain why organic compounds and/or fossils are ALWAYS associated with oil and/or oil bearing rocks.
Explain to the readers why there is such a thing as a dry well. According to your theory any drilling should result in oil anywhere so there should be nowhere on Earth where you can drill where there is not oil.
Explain that if abiotic oil can refresh oil wells fast enough to meet demand why they are not doing so.
The sad fact is that you can explain none of these. You seem to think that to be a ‘free thinker’ you just need to believe the opposite of what everyone else thinks. Nothing could be further from the truth.
There is nothing scientific in abiotic oil. There is no practical or scientific evidence to support it and yet you cling to it like your other pet theories in farcical notion that holding the opposite view on everything that is mainstream makes you a rebel.
You are truly a rebel without a clue.
Ender I got that sentence directly from the wikipedia entry for “coal”.
It’s better that waste coal mine gas and coal seam methane be burned, releasing CO2 into the atmosphere, than for it to enter the atmosphere as methane.
Even better if the energy from burning is harnessed to produce energy, as is increasingly done in NSW. Turning waste coal mine gas into an energy source is one of the most greenhouse friendly things you can do, because you are replacing coal fired energy, and are also eliminating the emission of methane into the atmosphere.
Louis, I agree with your abiotic oil theory. The problem is that it won’t help, because the illuminati, as directed by their reptilian overlords living hundreds of miles below the earth’s surface, have successfully diverted all reservoirs of abiotic oil for their own purposes. Once the human race’s surface supplies have dwindled and we are energy scarce, the serpent people will come to the surface and resume their rightful place as our gods.
Happy New Year everyone!
James – “Ender I got that sentence directly from the wikipedia entry for “coal”.”
I am fine with that however why not just post the reference when you post the statement.
BTW this is not an indication that things are alright. Before we only had the coal seam fires etc releasing CO2 and this was enough sometimes to trigger climate change. Now we have the coal seam fires PLUS all the cars and trucks in the USA.
Globular warmening proved once and for all!
http://bp2.blogger.com/_Qc6MeLbzGHw/R3LTwb29q4I/AAAAAAAABv8/3yPJf2KFoio/s1600-h/global_468x273.jpg
The best thing that could happen is the government stop interfering and let the market sort it out.
It has gone to far now, our government should just announce a revenue-neutral carbon tax; raise the tax free threshold by the amount of carbon tax collected.
The other proposal I liked was to link the tax amount to a statistic based on the running average global temperature increase would suit those AGW skeptics like myself.
Then just get out of the way!
Ender says “Now we have the coal seam fires PLUS all the cars and trucks in the USA.”
AHA, I knew it wasn’t about pollution. You just have it in for OUR CARS.
I never expected you to admit it out in public though. lol
It’s been a hell of a year.
Ender,
countering my questions with your own means you cannot answer mine in the first place.
I’ve read your post above and, quite frankly, you know not of which you write.
I know you have your own website so I suppose the prolific comments you, (and Luke of the Dumbers) post here might be a result of the unimportance the rest of us attribute to your original efforts on your sites (if they actually exist). Hence the paranoid need to vilify your debaters on third-party blogs, (like this one), since no one bothers to comment on your own blogs.
Sad, isn’t it.
Steve
Oh, sorry you don’t agree with my theory – (it is, after all the Russian-Ukrainian theory) – so illumination by the Illuminiati might be considered as evidence of one not having an illuminating grasp of reality.
Stupid is as stupid does I suppose.
Ender
I quote you (and take note Tim Lambert)
“Explain why organic compounds and/or fossils are ALWAYS associated with oil and/or oil bearing rocks”.
INORGANIC ORIGIN IN UPPER MANTLE SEEN LIKELY FOR SOLID HYDROCARBON IN SYRIA PLATEAU BASALT
Oil & Gas Journal
October 28, 1991
Robert F. Mahfoud, James N. Beck
McNeese State University
Lake Charles, La.
Lower Pleistocene carbonatite with basanitic, ultrabasic, and alkaline basalt xenoliths, was locally disseminated with and cut by veinlets of a solid hydrocarbon in rifted and plateau basalt covered southern Syria.
Research in progress by the authors indicates that these rocks originated from the upper mantle (asthenosphere-lithosphere).
The purpose of this study was to determine the chemical compositions of the hydrocarbon and whether or not it was of abiogenic origin.
Petrographic, chemical, inductively-coupled plasma (ICP) and emission spectrometric, neutron activation, and gas chromatographymass spectrometric analysis showed 17 chemical compounds in the solid hydrocarbon, eight of which are n-alkanes and nine aromatic.
In addition, chlorine, bromine, carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, silicon, sulfur, mercury, antimony, and numerous metallic elements previously found in basanite and ultrabasic xenoliths, were detected.
The sources of chlorine, bromine, carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, silicon, sulfur, mercury, and antimony were the upper mantle, hot springs and/or hydrothermal systems surging from or crossing the thick rifted and fractured alkaline plateau basalt.
The lack of hydrous silicates in basanite, ultrabasic xenoliths and plateau basalt, and the oxidation and hydration of ferrous oxide only in xenolithic peripheral mafic minerals (olivine and pyroxenes), indicated a seepage of meteoric water along the rift and fractures. The depth reached by this seepage was probably hot enough to decompose water to elemental hydrogen and oxygen.
The oxidation of ferrous oxide to magnetite and hematite was done by the reaction of ferrous oxide and magnetite with carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, or oxygen (from water). The iron oxides acted as catalysts.
The hematite changed to goethite, Fe2O3, by hydration. The formation of the hydrocarbon occurred by the hydrogenation of carbon or by other reactions between catalysts, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, and water.
Reactions probably occurred between 230-500 C. (7-16 km in depth).
Drilling to more than 1,100 m in the alkaline plateau basalt did not reveal the presence of sedimentary rocks or any mother rocks (petroleum bearing).
The absence of mother rocks along with the difficulty of explaining otherwise the sources of all mentioned compounds suggested an inorganic or abiogenic origin in the mantle and/or along rift and fractures in basalt for the concerned hydrocarbon.
This abiogenic origin explained with ease all reactions, sources of elements, and their relationship with the tectonic events in southern Syria.
INTRODUCTION
Southern Syria is covered by a more than 1, 1 00 m thickness of alkaline plateau basalt lavas of Upper Tertiary age found by drilling.
Solid hydrocarbons uncommonly imbibe and fill small fractures cutting Lower Quaternary carbonatite in southern Syria. 1 2
The gray-brown to reddish vesicular carbonatite, in the forms of lavas, dikes, and tuffs, was found in six lower Pleistocene scoriaceous basanitic cinder cones, extruding the alkaline plateau basalt, in Jebel el Arab near the border with Jordan (Fig. 1).
It is also exposed on the surface of Khaldieh basaltic cone, and at Beer Hamam, about 18 km north-northwest of Khaldieh’s cone, where it is crossed by the same Damascus-Soueida highway (Fig. 1).
The carbonatite lavas and dikes were commonly loaded with ultrabasic and basanite xenoliths. The thick plateau basalt lavas, basanite cones, ultrabasic xenoliths, and carbonatite, of lithosphere and upper asthenosphere origins, suggested probable presence of an east-west trending rift related to that of Dead Sea-Jordan River .2
Abundant carbon dioxide of asthenosphere origin played a major role in the partial melting process in the dry mantle systems.
SAMPLES, ANALYTICAL METHODS
Chemical tests were done on reddish-gray (nonhydrocarbon bearing) and dark (hydrocarbon bearing) carbonatite samples from Khaldieh’s cone.
The samples are Kh1, dark carbonatite, deeply imbibed with and cut by anastomosing veinlets of solid hydrocarbon; Kh2, with about 50 vol % scattered pockets of dark solid hydrocarbon; and Kh3, without any obvious trace of hydrocarbon (Table 1).
Concentrated hydrochloric acid, with a specific gravity of 1.18, was used on equal, pulverized amounts from Kh1 (dark carbonatite), Kh2 (gray pockets without visible hydrocarbon), and Kh3 (gray carbonatite).
The purpose was to leach out and dissolve sulfur and other elements. To check for sulfur, small wires of fresh silver and rods of copper were dropped for 3 days into the filtered yellow liquid (specific gravity 1.20). ICP spectrometry, emission spectrometry, and neutron activation were also used to analyze the yellow liquid, along with Kh2, Kh3, and the black solid hydrocarbon (HC), for information on trace elements (Table 1).
Analysis by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry helped decipher the composition of the hydrocarbon compounds locked in the solid complex. For this purpose, three samples from Kh1 (with dark hydrocarbon) were pulverized and treated with hexane, chloroform, and diethyl ether (Table 2).
ANALYSES
Solid hydrocarbon from the dark carbonatite Kh1 and reddish carbonatite Kh2 samples were used for qualitative analysis by emission spectrometry.
Kh3 was used for quantitative analysis by neutron activation; whereas filtered yellow leachates from Kh1, Kh2, and Kh3 were analyzed by ICP.
The results are summarized (Table 1).
DISCUSSION
All elements listed in Table 1 except mercury, antimony, and perhaps tin, were derived from basanite and ultrabasic xenoliths (originally located in the upper asthenosphere-lower lithosphere) and carried to the surface by carbonatite magma of deeper origin .2
The concentration variations of those elements depended on the percentage of olivine, pyroxenes, spinel, and plagioclase found in xenoliths and included in carbonatite.
The mercury-concentration averages (Table 3), in six carbonatites, four ultrabasic xenoliths, and one basanite, from southern Syria, respectively were 0.007, < 0.005, and 0.47 parts per million weight (Ppmw). Therefore, mercury 4.14 ppmw (Table 1) probably originated from a shallower depth as the next section explains.
Mercury and antimony (mercury, as mercury (acetate-o) phenyl-, was also detected in the concerned hydrocarbon, by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry) presented relatively high concentrations (Table 1), and indicated shallow origin .3 4
Both metals also exhibit a strong affinity with the concerned hydrocarbon; and both originated from and were picked up by the vertically ascending hydrocarbon through Upper Tertiary fractured and/or faulted thick alkaline basaltic lavas in rifted southern Syria .2
Mercury and antimony are commonly associated with volcanic activity around the world, and in minerals such as cinnabar, livingstonite, corderoite, calomel, and others. 3 4 5
Tin, some zinc, and probably other elements, not listed in Table 1, may have also originated from those lavas.1 Sulfur was chemically detected, and its presence was confirmed by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (Table 2). It was probably derived from the upper mantle6 and/or from the alkaline basalt. 3 4 5
Sulfur and mercury are commonly found together in nature as cinnabar and to a lesser degree as corderoite and livingstonite.4
The results (Table 4) indicated that sulfur was not present in the pure carbonatite Kh3 (i.e. without any trace of hydrocarbon); and sulfur showed a strong affinity with hydrocarbon, which is a common fact acknowledged by petroleum geologists all over 6 7 1 the world.
HYDROCARBON’S CHEMISTRY
In order to decipher the chemical compounds in the concerned hydrocarbon, three pulverized samples from Kh1 (Table 1 for descriptions) were treated with chloroform (trichloromethane), hexane, and diethyl ether, then analyzed by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry.
The presence of trichloromethane and bromodichloromethane (when hexane was used as a solvent), and hexane (when chloroform was used) confirmed the existence of both compounds in the concerned hydrocarbon (Table 2).
The appearance of methane and hexane suggested that a series of straight-chain n-alkanes (paraffine or methane series CnH2+2) was included.8 9
On the other hand, the appearance of benzene compounds indicated the presence (Table 2) of aromatic hydrocarbons CnH2,-6. 8 9 The 17 discovered compounds included eight paraffinic and nine aromatic. The absence of naphthene series and the presence of aromatic compounds is worthy of note.
DISCUSSION
In addition to carbon and hydrogen, the hydrocarbon compounds contained the following substances nitrogen or nitrous oxide, carbon dioxide, oxygen, chloride, bromide, sulfur, mercury, and silicon (Table 2).
Nitrogen, probably derived from ammonia, has been found in volcanic hot spring emanations and hydrothermal systems along with CI2, CO2, H2S, Br2, and Si;5 8 or from the upper mantle .6 Carbon, CO2, CO, CI2, H2, Si, and hydrocarbons were also commonly found associated with ultrabasic, alkaline, and carbonatite rocks, which originated from the mantle (asthenosphere-lithosphere) beneath rift zones .6 10 11 12 13 14 15 16
Bubbles, exsolved in fractured and annealed olivine and pyroxene (in ultrabasic xenoliths) were observed petrographically by the authors. Such bubbles previously have been reported as CO2 by Wyllie.17
Hydrogen, N2 gases, and hydrocarbons were also detected above rift zones and were found associated with serpentinized peridotites and ultrabasic rocks.18 19
Ozocerite and asphalt (solid hydrocarbons), associated with silica, calcite, fluorite, and metallic sulfides were reported in hydrothermally altered traps.8
The carbon was probably derived from the reduction of carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide, from the carbonatite of mantle origin, by reacting with the catalyst ferrous iron (in mafic minerals) in the upper mantle 6 and during their vertical ascent through fractured ultrabasic and alkaline basaltic rocks.
The oxidation of ferrous oxide in mafic silicates to magnetite and hematite was petrographically commonly found in fractured olivine and pyroxenes (Fig. 2A). Goethite was also found along fractured mafic minerals (Fig. 2B).
The fracturing was caused by the expansion of ascending ultrabasic xenoliths from the mantle to the surface; and goethite formation by the downward seepage of meteoric water, through the rift and fractures (also reported by Gough 20), probably to a depth, hot enough to break the water to H2 and 02 (hematite and goethite are found together, Fig. 2B).
Part of the oxygen reacted with the catalyst ferrous oxide, or with magnetite, to form hematite; and H2 with C to form hydrocarbons.
It is worth mentioning here that part of the carbon could have been derived from CO2 dissolved in meteoric water. The following H2O-CO2-CO-reduction reactions, based on Fischer-Tropsch method, and applied by many, probably took place in rifted southern Syria to form the original hydrocarbons. Ferrous oxide, in the reactions, refers to ferrous magnesium silicates (olivine and pyroxenes) in the ultrabasic rocks and, to a lesser extent, in basalt.
2FeO + CO -Fe2O3 + C
3FeO + CO -Fe3O4 + C
3FEO + CO2 -Fe3O4 + CO
2Fe3O4 + CO- 3Fe2O3 + C
2FeO + H2O-Fe2O3 + H2
3FeO + H2O – Fe3O4 + H2
2Fe3O4 + H2O 3Fe2O3 + H2
Fe2O3 + H2O Fe2O3.H2O
Other reactions pertaining to the formation of hydrocarbons are numerous. 21 22 23 24 25 26
Rare earths, nickel, and perhaps cobalt and platinum, besides iron, in carbonatite and ultrabasic rocks, probably also acted as catalysts in speeding up the reactions and subsequent formation of hydrocarbons. 11 26
Differential hydrogenations of carbon, probably between 230-500 C (7-16 km of depth), led to the synthesis of the mentioned paraffinic and aromatic compounds (Table 2).18 19 26 27 28 29
The other elements (CI2, Br2, Hg, S, Si, N2, etc.) were picked up during or shortly after the chemical reactions with catalysts started to prepare for the hydrocarbon formation probably in the upper mantle 6 30 3 1 and/or along the rift (deep fault as called by Porfr’ev6 32) , and fractures in basalt.6 32
Bromine, and probably the others, easily reacted with ethylene or methyl compounds, as confirmed by Lyday. 33
GENESIS OF HYDROCARBON
The intimate association of the concerned solid hydrocarbon with carbonatite suggested a close genetic relationship between the two.
The hydrocarbon occurred only in very small concentrations and mostly as irregular veinlets cutting carbonatite.
This kind of showing has been reported in many areas of the world,’ and the carbonatite was probably formed by the combination Of CO2, originating from the asthenosphere, and calcium oxide that was the result of depletion of peridotite.
Some carbonatite thin sections showed fine dark grains of hydrocarbon, densely disseminated, and randomly mixed with carbonate, in addition to veinlets. Paragenetically, the hydrocarbon was probably syngenetically formed with, or slightly younger than, carbonatite.
As mentioned earlier, the necessary hydrogen must have been derived from meteoric water; first, because of the total absence of hydrous silicate minerals in the ultrabasic xenoliths and alkaline basalt; and second, because of the occurrence of secondary magnetite, hematite, and geothite only along peripheral fracture mafic minerals in the xenoliths (Fig. 2).
It is deduced, therefore, that the process of hydrocarbon formation has taken place in the crust after a deep infiltration of meteoric waters. No sedimentary mother rocks (petroleum-bearing sedimentary rocks) or any other sedimentary rocks, but only fractured basalts, were found by drilling to more than 1,100 m in southern Syria.
Therefore clear field evidence suggesting an organic origin for the concerned hydrocarbon is lacking.
The presence of carbonatite dikes, carrying ultrabasic xenoliths coated with basanite, indicated an origin from the asthenosphere; and along with the thick plateau basalt, suggested the presence of a rift more than 70 km deep probably connected to the Dead Sea-Jordan Valley rift.
This depth certainly discounted any organic origin for the concerned hydrocarbon, ” and offered favorably the probability of an inorganic (abiogenic) genetic rift-upper mantle source.
This probability easily explained all relationships between the concerned hydrocarbon and the petrologic and tectonic history in southern Syria.
CONCLUSIONS
All chemical and analytical results favor an abiogenic origin for the concerned hydrocarbon in the upper mantle and/or along the rift and fractures in the plateau basalt in southern Syria.
Carbon and hydrogen, necessary for the formation of hydrocarbons, originated from the reactions Of CO2, CO, and H2O with catalysts, especially ferrous oxide and magnetite in mafic silicates (olivine and pyroxenes), at 230-500 C.
Carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide were probably mostly derived from the mantle, whereas H2O was derived from meteoric water.
Eight n-alkanes and nine aromatic compounds were found in the hydrocarbon. Included with the hydrocarbon were CI2, Br2, CO2, S, Hg, and Si; which probably originated from the upper mantle, hot springs, and/or hydrothermal systems that surged from or crossed the rifted and fractured alkaline plateau basalt.
All metallic elements listed in Table 1 probably originated from ultrabasic, basanitic, and, plateau basalt, rocks during the formation of the hydrocarbon.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The first author sincerely thanks the General Establishment of Geology and Mineral Resources, Syria, for having provided samples used in the research. Both authors acknowledge the help of the chemistry department and that of McNeese State University by allowing them to use laboratory facilities. The authors are deeply appreciative of J.D. Tauber, G. Ramelow, and E. Murray, professors at McNeese, for their needed lab assistance, and of J. Batchelor, the geology coordinator, for his financial support.
REFERENCES
1. Afanasiyeva, N., and many others, Geological map of Syria, scale 1:1 million:General Establishment of Geology and Mineral Resources, 1986, Damascus.
2. Mahfoud, R.F., and J.N. Beck, research in progress.
3. U.S. Bureau of Mines, Mercury potential of the U.S., Bureau of Mines IC 8252, 1965, 376 p.
4. Carrico, L.C., Mercury: Mineral Facts and Problems, Bureau of Mines Bulletin, Vol. 675,1985, pp. 499-508.
5. Park, C.F. Jr., and R.A. MacDiarmid, Ore deposits (Third Edition), Freeman & Co., San Francisco, 1975, 530 p.
6. Porfir’ev, Y.B., Inorganic origin of petroleum, AAPG Bull., Vol. 58, 1974, pp. 3-33.
7. Morse, D.E., Sulfur: Mineral Facts and Problems, Bureau of Mlnes Bull., Vol. 675,1985, pp. 783-797.
8. North, F.K., Petroleum Geology: Allen & Unwin Inc., Winchester, 1985, 607 p.
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What the US is telling the world with its ethanol subsidy is it wants to drive inflation in staple food commodities. And the think tanks that came up with this policy would be well aware of the fact that if you drive food inflation and food shortages, then it will only serve to perpetuate instability in food price sensitive regions. China, India and Russia! Now why would the US want to do that … Its the only card the US has left to play. It effectively controls the food.
Louis – “cut by veinlets of a solid hydrocarbon in rifted and plateau basalt covered southern Syria.”
This is not oil. Luke posted this a while ago:
http://www.searchanddiscovery.com/documents/abstracts/2005research_calgary/abstracts/extended/mello/images/fig02.htm
“The application of high resolution biomarker technologies using GC-MS, GC-MS-MS, Diamondoids, CSIA-B and CSIA-D methods, integrated with detailed
geological and paleontology cal characterization, provide scientific evidence that that oils can be attributed to organic-rich sedimentary rocks
of specific geological age and depositional environments.
Oil samples related to sedimentary rocks of a certain depositional environment and geologic age show biomarkers derived from organisms that are
known to have derived from biological precursor that evolved by that time (Figs 1 and 2). For example, oils that can be related to late Cretaceous and Tertiary source rocks generally show Oleanane, which derives from triterpane
precursors in angiosperms that evolved and radiated in the Cretaceous and Tertiary, and/or they show the highly branched isoprenoid, which is synthesized by diatoms that evolved and radiated in about the same geologic time-span. Clear examples from major oil-producing basins are Venezuela,
Nigeria and California (USA). ”
Sorry Louis solid hydrocarbon is not oil. There may be simple hydrocarbons that are created abiotically however there are no examples of complex mixtures of long chain hydrocarbons like crude oil that are clearly abiotic.
No-one comments on my blog because I stopped writing there a while ago. I guess I prefer to converse with people where they are rather than the incoherent rantings that characterise your loosely termed blogs.
Ender
OIL is HYDROCARBON.
D’oh
Seems to me if tectonic shifts can make oil then we humans can make oil faster by doing the squeezing with machines. Mother Gaia is just slowing the process down. Let’s cut her out of the loop.
Louis – “OIL is HYDROCARBON.
D’oh”
So is methane CH4 – is that oil as well?
What is in crude oil:
http://science.howstuffworks.com/oil-refining1.htm
” The major classes of hydrocarbons in crude oils include:
* Paraffins
o general formula: CnH2n+2 (n is a whole number, usually from 1 to 20)
o straight- or branched-chain molecules
o can be gasses or liquids at room temperature depending upon the molecule
o examples: methane, ethane, propane, butane, isobutane, pentane, hexane
* Aromatics
o general formula: C6H5 – Y (Y is a longer, straight molecule that connects to the benzene ring)
o ringed structures with one or more rings
o rings contain six carbon atoms, with alternating double and single bonds between the carbons
o typically liquids
o examples: benzene, napthalene
* Napthenes or Cycloalkanes
o general formula: CnH2n (n is a whole number usually from 1 to 20)
o ringed structures with one or more rings
o rings contain only single bonds between the carbon atoms
o typically liquids at room temperature
o examples: cyclohexane, methyl cyclopentane
* Other hydrocarbons
o Alkenes
+ general formula: CnH2n (n is a whole number, usually from 1 to 20)
+ linear or branched chain molecules containing one carbon-carbon double-bond
+ can be liquid or gas
+ examples: ethylene, butene, isobutene
o Dienes and Alkynes
+ general formula: CnH2n-2 (n is a whole number, usually from 1 to 20)
+ linear or branched chain molecules containing two carbon-carbon double-bonds
+ can be liquid or gas
+ examples: acetylene, butadienes
”
The crude oil that is traded at the moment is also a liquid at room temperature.
Oil is a hydrocarbon however that does not mean that all hydrocarbons are oil. You have just demonstrated how truly ignorant you are.
In short:
“Oils ain’t Oils Sol”
Ender
Come up with experimental evidence supporting your belief that hydrocarbons are spontaneously produced by the burial of biomass, or shut up.
Whoops, ignorant twit that I am, I should have qualified the demand:
“Come up with experimental evidence supporting your belief that bitumen (an hydrocarbon) is spontaneously produced from the burial of biomass, or shut up”.
Louis – “Come up with experimental evidence supporting your belief that hydrocarbons are spontaneously produced by the burial of biomass, or shut up.”
Sure – you read the reference about biomarkers in oil and the fact that over 2 trillion barrels of oil have been discovered looking in places where biomass has accumulated in the two main oilmaking periods of the Earths history. Pretty overwhelming evidence.
I guess that you are trying to pull the one that science cannot create oil from biomass in the laboratory so therefore it cannot be true. Science cannot replicate many natural processes however they still exist. An example is spider silk. Just how does a spider at room temperature and pressure with water as a solvent create a long chain polymer that can have six or seven different characteristics and is as strong as our best man made fibres that are created at high temperatures and pressures.
Are you going to suggest that because we cannot replicate spider silk in the lab means that spider silk cannot exist? The other practical evidence that spiders are seen to extrude the silk overcomes the fact that we cannot replicate it.
In the same way oil turning up where we predict it would from areas that we know large amounts of biomass accumulated and the fact that it has biomarkers that only could have come from the animals and plants that it was created from overcomes the fact that we have not as yet replicated the entire oil making process in the lab and does not invalidate the biotic theory of oil formation.
The problem that abiotic theory has is that not one barrel of oil has yet been discovered where the theory would predict it would be and that no barrel of oil yet discovered has no biomarkers. Also there is no plausible way long and complex chain organic compounds could be created from heat and pressure without the intervention of some form of DNA based life. I am dead sure that there are organic hydrocarbons that have been created abiotically in the Earth’s crust however the complex mix of hydrocarbons that is crude oil was absolutely created from once living biomass.
Louis
have you told your employers you believe in fringe, anti scientific theories? I wouldn’t if I was you, as a scientist, it could well cost you your job.
Good point — Mr. Hissink, don’t ever admit you believe in “fringe, anti scientific theories” like catastrophic AGW. Leave that to “the 3 zealots” of this blog.
Alaska Oil Drilling Delay Could Cost $3 Trillion, Lawmaker Says
http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewPolitics.asp?Page=/Politics/archive/200801/POL20080124b.html
In a letter to Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) late Tuesday, Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska) said he was “disappointed” by Markey’s efforts to block oil and gas exploration in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) and more recently in the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) lease 193 along the Chukchi Sea.
Markey’s bill would delay the sale — currently scheduled for Feb. 6 — until after the Department of Interior makes a decision on whether to classify the polar bear as an endangered species. Lease 193 is a core part of the polar bear’s habitat. “It’s a continuation of his longstanding opposition to developing domestic energy….
According to the letter, “OCS lease sale 193 is estimated to contain 15 billion barrels of oil and 77 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, for a combined total of 27.8 billion barrels of oil equivalent. ANWR is estimated to hold another 10.4 billion barrels of oil, for a total of 38.2 billion barrels of oil. “This would almost double the total United States proven reserves of oil,” it states. “Lease Sale 193 and ANWR represent nearly $3 trillion to the U.S. economy, if we choose to develop them.”