“RESEARCHERS at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Stockholm have been able to prove that the fossils of animals and plants are not necessary to generate raw oil and natural gas. This result is extremely radical as it means that it will be much easier to find these energy sources and that they may be located all over the world.”
That’s according to their own media release which continues:
“WITH the help of our research we even know where oil could be found in Sweden!” says Vladimir Kutcherov, Professor at the KTH Department of Energy Technology in Stockholm.
Together with two research colleagues, Professor Kutcherov has simulated the process of pressure and heat that occurs naturally in the inner strata of the earth’s crust. This process generates hydrocarbons, the primary elements of oil and natural gas.
According to Vladimir Kutcherov, these results are a clear indication that oil supplies are not drying up, which has long been feared by researchers and experts in the field.
He adds that there is no chance that fossil oils, with the help of gravity or other forces, would have been able to seep down to a depth of 10.5 kilometres in, for example the US state of Texas, which is rich in oil deposits. This is, according to Vladimir Kutcherov, in addition to his own research results, further evidence that this energy sources can occur other than via fossils – something which will cause a lively discussion among researchers for a considerable period of time.
“There is no doubt that our research has shown that raw oil and natural gas occur without the inclusion of fossils. All types of rock formations can act as hosts for oil deposits,” asserts Vladimir and adds that this applies to areas of land that have previously remained unexplored as possible sources of this type of energy.
This discovery has several positive aspects. Rate of success as concerns finding oil increases dramatically – from 20 till 70 percent. As drilling for oil and natural gas is an extremely expensive process, costs levels will be radically changed for the petroleum companies and eventually also for the end user.
“This means savings of many billions of kronor,” says Vladimir.
In order to identify where it is worth drilling for natural gas and oil, Professor Kutcherov has, via his research, developed a new method. The world is divided into a fine-meshed grid. This grid is the equivalent of cracks, known as migration channels, through strata underlying the earth’s crust. Good places to drill are where these cracks meet.
According to Professor Kutcherov, these research results are extremely important not least as 61 percent of the world’s energy consumption is currently based on raw oil and natural gas.
The next stage in this research is more experiments, especially to refine the method that makes it easier to locate drilling points for oil and natural gas.
The research results produced by Vladimir Kutcherov, Anton Kolesnikov and Alexander Goncharov were recently published in the scientific journal Nature Geoscience, Volume 2, August.
http://www.kth.se/aktuellt/1.43372?l=en_uk
************************
Notes and Links
The above media release is via Benny Peiser – thanks.
Of course Louis Hissink has been telling us about Abiotic Oil at this blog since at least 2006:
“There is a widely held belief that coal and oil are the result of a conversion from organic matter, both vegetable and biotic, that accumulated in sedimentary basins over geological time to become fossil fuels. It is presumed that vast periods of geological time converted the raw buried organic material into petroleum at the base of the sedimentary piles in the earth’s crust. An alternative theory proposes that coal and oil are abiotic in origin and derived from upper mantle processes as suggested by the modern Russian-Ukrainian theory of abiotic oil, but also popularised by the late Tommy Gold in his controversial book, ‘The Deep Hot Biosphere’.*
In this guest blog post Louis Hissink explains the alternative theory, but begins by explaining how the current consensus came to be …
http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/2006/11/abiotic-oil-a-note-from-louis-hissink/
And…
An article published in Science on 1st February 2008 entitled, ‘Abiogenic Hydrocarbon Production at Lost City Hydrothermal Field’ states in the Abstract that, ” Our findings illustrate that the abiotic synthesis of hydrocarbons in nature may occur in the presence of ultramafic rocks, water, and moderate amounts of heat.”
So, there is now evidence of a mechanism for the abiotic synthesis of hydrocarbons. This is not to say that significant amounts of oil are abiotic in origin, but it is interesting nevertheless.
***************
[TC and JM I have posts from you which I will get up … but have a few other things on at the moment … so don’t hold your breathes… but over next few days]
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
Hardly ‘news’ as Vlad has been flogging this particular geologic horse for the better part of a decade now.
And to think that I just sold the old classic V12.
Since I’m relatively igneous about geology, I’ve had a difficult time wading through even the popularized articles about the biotic vs abiotic oil debate. From both sides, there’s too much hand-waving, too much technical jargon, and too much petty sniping.
It’s my understanding that Russian petroleum geologists operate under a different set of assumptions than their colleagues in the US. The Russians drill in places that their Merkin counterparts would turn up their noses at. The Russians drill deeper. And they manage to find oil in surprising places.
Eventually we’ll have to play catch-up with the Russians, and spend a lot of money drilling deeper. (There are supposed to be huge oil reserves at great depth under North Dakota, for example.) But after the recession ends, I don’t expect to see crude oil prices returning to the level of a decade ago–even after we adjust for inflation. At best, we can only hope to manage the decline in our energy-intensive way of life, as oil prices continue to creep upward.
Professor Lance Endersbee believes water is abiotic also, our deep aquifiers are fed from below, not above.
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/latenightlive/stories/2006/1808528.htm
Grendel
Correct hardly news is correct – and I see you continue to engage in the usual troll method of sliming those who contradict your beliefs.
Proponents of Biotic Oil have some serious problems to deal with.
Biotic oil theory assumes that over long periods of geological time biomass accumulates in sedimentary basins that are slowly moved to deeper levels in the crust where the elevated pressures and temperatures convert that biomass into petroleum. Worse still, the theory also maintains that the sediments known as oil shales and tar sands comprised of kerogens when buried will on an elevation of both pressure and temperature, produce oil and gas.
I don’t refute this – of course raising kerogens to high temperature and pressure will break it down to yield oil and gas. It’s the origin of the kerogen in the sediments in the first place that is of crucial importance. And where are the known deposits of tar sands and oil shales? Not close to any subduction zone.
What the biotic supporters cannot provide is physical evidence showing that burying biomass to diagenetic conditions spontaneously produces kerogen in shales or sands. If it occurs where are the empirical facts on the surface of the earth that led to that deduction? There are none. Kerogen in oil shales or tar sands are believed to have been formed there, or deposited from the erosion of older oil shales/tar sands, (which is really just moving the goal posts). It is a logical deduction from the observation but then the next step is to find a present day analog supporting this deduction. There are none. Other ideas need to be considered.
Additionally there have to be sediments transitional between accumulations of recent dead biomass through the whole spectrum of from methane (1 C) through C12….C222 which is kerogen. They have not been found either. These are needed to support the hypothesis of biogenic oil production.
Burying biomass in any case produces methane – and this methane will escape into the Earth’s atmosphere unless capped by an impermeable layer. If slow burial means a slow conversion of biomass to increasing Dalton Number hydrocarbons, then by the time the sediment reached P=T conditions where liquid hydrocarbon could spontaneously form, then from what? The gas phases would have already left the sediment, depleting it of carbon in an accelerated process.
Biotic oil theory totally relies on plate tectonics for its operation but no where in the known subduction zones are there accumulations of sediment, let alone biomass in those sediments. The biosphere, like it or not, continually recycles itself. We do not see any fossils forming anywhere.
Fossils are life forms that have been biochemically frozen in an instant do that putrefaction is slowed or stopped. This is done by rapidly moving a life form into an alien environment, a snake in a desert environment to a polar one, from which the snake is quickly frozen. Otherwise living things on death decay by bacterial action and release methane, among other piquant odours.
I’ll leave it for now for cerebral activity.
Janama
Water origin – Endersbee – spot on – have a look at the spatial location of artesian water and oil and gas fields in Australia.
🙂
Larry
Dick Cheney was involved in trying to buy Russian deep drilling technology some years back – failed of course, but also remember that governments control the world oil supplies, not oil companies.
Those who vilify oil companies as “Big Oil” don’t realise that the oil concessions are gifts of the state, (government), and it is they, the bureaucrats who call the shots.
So guess what AGW is all about.
The only criticism I have of Jennifer’s introduction is the assumption that Biotic oil is a proven scientific fact and Abiotic oil theory a possible alternative.
This belief is not based in empirical fact but from belief and hence consensus – Biotic oil theory is not a scientific theory, as is AGW since neither are based on a prior empirically confirmed scientific fact.
Both are based on an “assumed” accuracy of a generally held idea.
I, as a strict empiricist, call that pseudoscience.
abiotic oil is a pretty good explanation for the weird discussion we are having here.
you folks believe every weird theory, as long as it supports your position. (abiotic oil does, by making it unnecessary to use the oil reserves carefully)
things get so much eassire with your believes: animal species wont die out, no matter how much pressure we put on them. they are all masters of adaption.
cliamte change is caused by cosmic rays, and will surely stop, when we got “out of the last little ice age”.
and food must not be bought in the super market or grown on fiels. it is “abiotically” formed directly in the fridge.
a brave new world!
Sod,
Thank you so much for your kind, considered insights. I am sure all of us have benefitted from them and look forward to meeting you in the Brave New World hospitality section when you will be offered a new programming option.
Forrest Gump has declined this exiciting offer, sad to say.
Fossils are life forms that have been biochemically frozen in an instant do that putrefaction is slowed or stopped. This is done by rapidly moving a life form into an alien environment, a snake in a desert environment to a polar one, from which the snake is quickly frozen. Otherwise living things on death decay by bacterial action and release methane, among other piquant odours.
did ypou really write that snake example? i cnat believe it!
The only criticism I have of Jennifer’s introduction is the assumption that Biotic oil is a proven scientific fact and Abiotic oil theory a possible alternative.
This belief is not based in empirical fact but from belief and hence consensus – Biotic oil theory is not a scientific theory, as is AGW since neither are based on a prior empirically confirmed scientific fact.
people who accept the reality of biotic oil, have been using it for nearly a century to succesfully find oil.
i made the error to look back at Louis article. he is uanable to explain the biotic parts in his “abiotic oil”.
Sod,
“his belief is not based in empirical fact but from belief and hence consensus – Biotic oil theory is not a scientific theory, as is AGW since neither are based on a prior empirically confirmed scientific fact.”
What, drilling structural lows close to deep seated crustal fractures improves the success of finding oil?
And what about the biotic parts?
Perhaps we close the discussion for the moment.
You’re hearts not in it sod and even by your low standards your comments are pretty bad; do you have one curious, questioning bone in your brain? No, of course not, it’s all pessimissm and Malthusian constraints and limitations; what a misery-guts!
why not start by explaining the isotopic ratio?
J.F. Kenny has a good website more or less devoted to aboitic hydrocarbons:
http://www.gasresources.net/index.htm
Many of the recent large discoveries are in fractured basement formations. A nice summary though a little out of date can be found here:
Hydrocarbon production from fractured basement formations – Version 8 – December 2005.
http://www.geoscience.co.uk/downloads/fracturedbasementver8.pdf
You’re hearts not in it sod and even by your low standards your comments are pretty bad; do you have one curious, questioning bone in your brain? No, of course not, it’s all pessimissm and Malthusian constraints and limitations; what a misery-guts!
Do you get a buzz out of hanging out with the wacky people? Gives you a sense of excitement and adventure in an otherwise boring life?
apart from not being able to explain this, i was shocked to find, that Louis:
1. does not think that biomass is accumulating now. (ever had a garden pond?)
2. thinks that biotic oil is a “once of” thing.
3. believes that finding evidence of abiotic oil destroys the theory of biotic oil.
Luke did link to this pretty perfect description of the discussion:
Second point: Exactly what kind of “proof” do we need of the validity of the biogenic theory of oil formation? Here, too, the example of urea can be useful. Suppose that someone had read about Wohler’s abiotic synthesis of urea and, on the basis of that, claimed that all urea is created abiotically. Suppose also that this someone, in analogy with the case of oil, were to require as “proof” of the biogenic formation of urea a demonstration that it can be synthesized in a test tube starting from – say – a meal of hamburgers, fries, and beer. Maybe urea could be produced in this way but, in practice, you can’t find any such “proof” on the internet or in the scientific literature. However, using the same logic required for oil, from this some people could feel authorized to claim that the biological origin (“biogenesis”) of urea is not proven. They would claim that the theory is a hoax, a scam, and a conspiracy created by the pharmaceutical companies in order to sell expensive drugs to people affected by kidney ailments.
Of course, only the most extreme skeptics would claim that urea is made in abiotic kidneys from inorganic reactants. However, we find that idea absurd only because we are familiar with the basic facts of biological metabolism. We are much less familiar with the underground processes which created oil. Since nobody, it seems, ever felt that it was necessary to report on the internet that oil could be created in the laboratory starting from, say, a dead mouse, it is understandable that some people might have become confused. Still, the lack of an easily traceable proof of the biogenic oil theory should not be considered anything more suspicious than the analogous case for urea.
http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/012805_no_free_pt3.shtml
in short:
The geological evidence is utterly against the abiogenic postulate.
From Wikipedia.
Most popular in Russia and Ukraine between the 1950s and 1980s, the abiogenic hypothesis has little support among contemporary petroleum geologists, who argue that abiogenic petroleum does not exist in significant amounts and that there is no indication that an application of the hypothesis is or has ever been of commercial value.[1]
This is Russias geological equivalent of Lysenkoism.
I have never had much interest in the a/biotic oil issue.
I do wonder, since the topic is raised, if the mass balances of oil and gas reserves vs. bio stock sources work out OK.
Also, after the paper that was posted yesterday regarding a significant amount of energy coming to the Earth, as Louis has been talking about, might make people dismiss him a bit more carefully.
As for wiki, I think they are well established as not being very reliable.
“Do you get a buzz out of hanging out with the wacky people?” I must little will, I converse with you and sod. But seriously if anyone thinks we, the general public, are getting the truth about energy supplies they are indeed wacky
As for the isotopic ratio I guess if you look at Ferdinand Engelbeen the C13/C12 ratio indicates ACO2 atmospheric dominance, but if you look at Steve Short’s and Professor Segalstad’s work you get the opposite.
You’re hearts not in it sod and even by your low standards your comments are pretty bad; do you have one curious, questioning bone in your brain? No, of course not, it’s all pessimissm and Malthusian constraints and limitations; what a misery-guts!
look cohenite, the discussion between the two of us, in general are me pointing out your errors.
it is the same here. again.
As for the isotopic ratio I guess if you look at Ferdinand Engelbeen the C13/C12 ratio indicates ACO2 atmospheric dominance, but if you look at Steve Short’s and Professor Segalstad’s work you get the opposite.
i was (rather obviously, if you decide to take a look at the topic), talking about the isotopic ratio in petroleum. Louis is ducking this rather massive problem in the abiotic oil theory. (there are many other remnants of obvious organic origin in petroleum and the surrounding rock)
and as i said in my first post: the fringe discussion on abiotic oil is exposing many other flaws and methods in the denialist arguments on this site. for example the constant demand for “proofs” (here: for CO2 accumulation in the atmosphere being from human emissions) just to ignore it when it is presented, by hand waving or fringe positions (like the one from Segalstad).
Jonathan wrote:
“Many of the recent large discoveries are in fractured basement formations.”
30 years ago, conventional petroleum geologists would have said:
Drilling for oil in granite? Are you nuts?
Yet this is exactly what the Russians did off the coast of Vietnam. The result is the successful White Tiger oil field.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Tiger_oil_field
Conventional geologists then tried to rationalize the result.
But that granite is fractured and near sedimentary rock. The oil must be leaking from the sedimentary rock reservoirs into the granite.
Yeah right. In my view, sticking one’s neck out, putting one’s money where one’s mouth is, and making successful (and profitable) predictions is more sporting than playing Monday-morning quarterback.
Yeah right. In my view, sticking one’s neck out, putting one’s money where one’s mouth is, and making successful (and profitable) predictions is more sporting than playing Monday-morning quarterback.
the results are NOT “rationalized”. the oil from White Tiger field is biotic. (isotopic ratio, biomarkers)
99% of the worlds oilfields have been discovered by people who do NOT believe in abiotic oil. if you want to put your money on successful predictions, then it should NOT be on abiotic oil.
Louis Hissink,
O/T but have you seen this: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/09/10/solar-wind-suprise-this-discovery-is-like-finding-it-got-hotter-when-the-sun-went-down/#more-10728
To add to the discussion:-
http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=336869598898259
Forget ‘Peak Oil’ — Drill, BP, Drill
By INVESTOR’S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Thursday, September 03, 2009 4:30 PM PT
Energy Policy: Ignoring peak-oil Cassandras, BP has made another giant oil find in the Gulf of Mexico. We’re not running out of oil. Our government just doesn’t want us to look for it.
http://www.offshore-mag.com/index/article-display/23172/s-articles/s-offshore/s-volume-55/s-issue-4/s-news/s-general-interest/s-middle-east-geology-why-the-middle-east-fields-may-produce-oil-forever.html
“look cohenite, the discussion between the two of us, in general are me pointing out your errors.”
Ho, ho, ho. If I make an error sod I admit it; what do you do infallible one?
Eyrie,
yes – interesting but they should be using Maxwell’s and Lorentz equations to work out the energy inputs. As it is they are still in the mechanical Newton mind set calling it a “wind” etc.
Sod,
How about pointing to an existing sedimentary basin where biomass is accumulating without bacterial decay. Using your garden pond as an example is facile. And for that matter how about pointing to a place where fossils accumulate in the sediments, and in sufficient quantities to allow the conversion to the known use of hydrocarbons.
As for the geological evidence being totally against the abiotic evidence, please prove that by showing examples in the stratigraphic record showing precursor sediments containing biomass that has not yet been transformed into hydrocarbons, and precursor sediments awaiting lithification full of fossils since you need these first in order to bury them to produce oil according to the Biotic Theory.
Ian Beale,
And let’s not forget that all governments control the oil supplies – getting oil concessions to drill an explore is given by government. Same applies for coal.
Hunter – I am not too bothered with being dismissed by the pseudoscientists – geology’s problem is Charles Lyell – his effect on the science remains pervasive and 200 years of dogma are not easily overcome.
Sod,
Isotopic ratios cannot be used to distinguish biotic from non biotic oil – an archaean diamond of 8.5 carats was tested and produced a dee pee value of -35% making it unequivocally biotic.
Either our model is wrong, or isotope ratios cannot discriminate between mantle and organic carbon.
You have a problem.
Hi guys, I’ve been reading most of the comments on this site with both interest and amusement over the last couple of weeks. I have to say that I’m not a big fan of Sod et al., but this time I have to at least partially agree with him. If isotope ratios can’t distinguish between biotic and abiotic carbon, then why do we have to have it either or? Why can’t both be true?
PS. I’ll say up front that I’m nowhere near as educated as most of the contributors to this blog (including Sod et al.) clearly are.
Louis’s diamond paper;
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/120045321/abstract?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0
Derek Smith
Biotic oil theory demands that biomass is converted to kerogen by subjecting the sediments in which the biomass exists to pressures and temperatures slightly above the metamorphic grade of zeolite facies. This is not physically and chemically possible.
Nor do we observe fossils forming in sediments, so just how did the Biotic oil camp decide that oil is biotic? Because a Russian Scientist observed leaf fragments in oil and thereby concluded oil must be biogenic. It was never tested experimentally by accepted as true by consensus.
All the geochemical evidence cited is quite correct – oil does contain specific biomarkers but not because it was formed from those biomarkers, but because those biomarkers were already there in the sediments when the mantle derived oil seeped up into the sedimentary deposits.
The argument of whether oil is biotic or abiotic is crucial to the AGW argument for they insist that oil is fossil fuel and represents CO2 removed from the Earth’ atmosphere.
The ABiotic argument is that oil, hydrocarbons, have nothing to do with the biosphere, but is the stable phases of the H-C system in the upper mantle, and is in terms of volume in the Earth, near enough inexhaustible.
If one wants to assert that oil is biotic, demonstrate it by showing an experiment that this is possible. Doing this experiment is far easier technically than putting marble, iron oxide and water in a diamond anvil and creating pressures of 20 Kbar and 1500 degrees Celsius, and then freezing the product fast enough so that it doesn’t spontaneous revert to it’s stable phases at the earth’s surface.
So far no one in the Biotic camp has provided the experimental evidence, probably because they can’t. Hence the resort to rhetoric to persuade us that oil is biotic – the Charles Lyell factor.
Thanks for the reference cohenite, has there been an assumption that all primordial carbon is C12?
How does that paper answer my previous question?
Does this new info cast doubt on the accuracy of carbon dating and how long before the recent earth creationist jump on this to cast doubt on geologic time spans?
Cohenite
That link to Wiley simply stops me since it wants a session cookie.
The subject of abiotic hydocarbons have been around for a long time.
Coal is without doubt biotic.
There is certainly abiotic methane on earth, not to mention the other planets.
While most geologists say oil is biotic, there are some very interesting arguments around. I have an open mind and continue to monitor the subject. Latest interesting subject was how the Canadian tar sands got where they are. Still waiting to hear the arguments on oceanic 35,000 foot oil.
OLD SOD says,
“why not start by explaining the isotopic ratio?”
Well, lemme see, if the Russkies are right the oil is forced towards the surface through cracks. On its trip it would naturally pool in areas where there is room to pool, like, say, sedimentary deposits. These deposits WILL have the right ratios which will be mixed with the oil (and gas and other products.) There would also be associated fossils and miscellaneous “evidence” that would be associated with the Carbon.
As all oil found earlier in the last century was close to the surface, it would then appear that all Hydrocarbons are associated with fossils. Unfortunately for you there has now been oil found from deep drilling that does NOT have the associations you expect.
Correlation does NOT equal Causation!!!Please write that a few million times. If nothing else it will keep you out of trouble for a while.
http://www.searchanddiscovery.net/documents/2008/08013hedberg_abs/abstracts/extended/carmona/carmona.htm
“Differences in the isotopic curves of Fig. 2f may be due to variations in the organic facies on the source rock.”
Hmmmm, it appears that people who believe in Biotic oil think the oil isotope ratios can be affected by the material with which it is in contact!!! Wonder how much the effect is?!?!?!
By the way SOD, you need to do some research on the variability of decay rates. I realise this is rather new to you, but, the information has been out for a while!!
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20227141.400-solar-ghosts-may-haunt-earths-radioactive-atoms.html
http://www.astroengine.com/?p=1382
As usual, just because the current paradigm APPEARS to be bullet proof don’t mean squat!!!
Nor do we observe fossils forming in sediments, so just how did the Biotic oil camp decide that oil is biotic? Because a Russian Scientist observed leaf fragments in oil and thereby concluded oil must be biogenic. It was never tested experimentally by accepted as true by consensus.
you don t think that coal being obviously of biotic origin was involved in the idea of biotic oil?
obviously biotic mass has been accumulating on land. enough of it, to form a lot of biotic coal.
more on the experimental biotic oil could have been found here:
Furthermore, the “lack of proof” of the biogenic theory of oil formation is only apparent, not real. It is only an effect of the internet bias that tends to hide the scientific literature produced before the 1980s-1990s. The earliest successful laboratory tests to transform organic matter into oil were carried out in 1913 by the German chemist Engler. The laboratory demonstration of all the steps of the standard biogenic theory was done in a series of studies carried out by the American Petroleum Institute (API) in the 1930s -1940s. These early studies are not easy to find even in academic libraries and many petroleum geologists seem to know these results only as they are presented in later textbooks. However, this is no more an indication of a scientific conspiracy than seeing physicists calculate spacecraft trajectories without having read Newton’s Principia.
http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/012805_no_free_pt3.shtml
yes, oil could pick up all that organic matter in the ground. (where it doesn t accumulate, according to Louis). and it could form isotopic ratios, that even allow a distinction between the plants being grown on land or sea, by chance. or we could follow the well accepted and much simpler explanation of biotic oil.
“Differences in the isotopic curves of Fig. 2f may be due to variations in the organic facies on the source rock.”
Hmmmm, it appears that people who believe in Biotic oil think the oil isotope ratios can be affected by the material with which it is in contact!!! Wonder how much the effect is?!?!?!
massive cherrypick:
The Boyacá oils were probably generated from marine organic matter deposited under more reducing marine conditions than the oils of the Ayacucho, Junín and Boyacá areas.
http://www.searchanddiscovery.net/documents/2008/08013hedberg_abs/abstracts/extended/carmona/carmona.htm
i think you simply misunderstood your source.
Correlation does NOT equal Causation!!!Please write that a few million times. If nothing else it will keep you out of trouble for a while.
pretty funny, that you folks would lecture me on logic.
the majority of you can t even see the difference between:
there might be abiotic oil. (that is what jennifer s article says)
and
the petroleum we have found is abiotic. (that is what Louis believes)
As for the Isotope ratio, experiments with methane passed through a vertical rock tube show that C13 depletion occurs the higher methane travels up that tube. Same with mantle oil – as it moves up the C13 preferentially reacts with the surrounding rocks, causing the oil to become enriched in C12.
This is explained in a paper on the gas resources site. Other examples of given from measurements and of course the diamond example.
HI, just read Sod’s link and I have to say it’s pretty specific and pretty compelling.
“The carbon isotopic values of the oils and their saturate, aromatic, resin and asphaltene fractions are between (– 26.5 and –28.0)‰ δ13C. The δ13C isotopic ratios from saturate and aromatic fractions (Fig. 2d) also indicate that the oils are derived from organic matter that is predominantly marine (Sofer, 1984). The ternary diagram of C27,C28 y C29 steranes (Fig. 2e) shows as well that all these oils are derived from marine organic matter (Peters, 2005). ”
Perhaps someone could explain to me why I shouldn’t believe Mr. Peters’ conclusions.
Louis; that paper and its abstract;
EVIDENCE THAT STABLE CARBON ISOTOPES ARE NOT A RELIABLE CRITERION FOR DISTINGUISHING BIOGENIC FROM NON-BIOGENIC PETROLEUM
A. A. Giardini* Charles E. Melton**
*Departments of Geology, University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602, USA **Departments of Chemistry, University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602, USA
Copyright 1982 SCIENTIFIC PRESS LTD
ABSTRACT
The isotopic abundance of presumably-pristine primordial carbon has been determined by analyzing carbon dioxide entrapped in a 8.65 carat natural diamond of African origin. The results were 12C = 98.9275% and13C = 1.0725%, which giveδ13C = -35.2‰/00. This value is well within the range used to assign a biogenic origin to carbon-containing compounds, i.e., more negative than -18.0‰/00. Similar negative values have been reported for some natural diamonds and carbon-bearing meteorites. It is concluded, therefore, that stable carbon isotopes can be an unreliable criterion for assigning a biogenic origin to petroleum
Derek,
The oil that seeps upwards into a sedimentary basin will dissolve all the organic matter in the sediment – hence it becomes contaminated by the debris. Peter’s conclusions are quiet predictable – but it does not demonstrate that the oils were derived from marine organic matter, only that the oil contains marine organic matter.
To demonstrate that you have to show that marine organic matter when subject to the pressures and temperatures found at the depth oil is found will spontaneously transform into those oils. When that is done and replicated by experiment, I will accept biogenic oil theory.
Cohenite
Ahah – thanks for that – I recognise the paper. I discovered I was registered with Wiley via Blackwell whom Wiley seem to have taken over, hence the initial puzzlement when both Safari and IE8 on the Virtual Machine bombed out on cookies.
Derek, if non biogenic carbon produces biogenic isotope ratios, then the method should not be used. Carbon producsts using the Fischer Tropsche method produce similar ratios that indicate temperature of formation rather than biogenic provenance.
cohenite, your argument has this logical structure:
“i have seen a black sheep. so white sheep cannot exist.”
Louis, why not keep it simple:
please explain to us, why there is enough organic matter to form biotic coal, but not enough to form biotic oil. (the most obvious flaw in your pretty weak line of arguments)
To demonstrate that you have to show that marine organic matter when subject to the pressures and temperatures found at the depth oil is found will spontaneously transform into those oils. When that is done and replicated by experiment, I will accept biogenic oil theory.
to show how the moon was formed, you have to form a moon. to show that i was born, you have to give birth to me. science would seriously progress, if we would use your method….
The oil that seeps upwards into a sedimentary basin will dissolve all the organic matter in the sediment – hence it becomes contaminated by the debris. Peter’s conclusions are quiet predictable – but it does not demonstrate that the oils were derived from marine organic matter, only that the oil contains marine organic matter.
yes, and while seeping upwards, by pure chance they produce the isotopic ratios that correspond to the bio indicators they pick up.
you are successfully beating the lottery, aren t you?
Sod: you write – “you don t think that coal being obviously of biotic origin was involved in the idea of biotic oil?”.
Brown coal is obviously vegetable matter, which I personally saw when I visited the Morwell Open Cut mine decades ago, and from my underground work for SMEC when I had to go down a coal mine under Cordeaux Dam to locate a fault that was in the way of the proposed rail tunnel for coal haulage. And I worked the for NSW geological survey coal section for a couple of years, so I think I might know my coals.
Coal is basically a carbon deposit formed by he compression of vegetation by burial. This is the standard model. I wonder if it has been experimentally verified or has Lyell’s influence on the use of rhetoric to demonstrate scientific proof prompted science not to verify something which is so obviously true.
The Abiotic theory instead proposes that upwelling mantle derived methane deposits carbon preferentially, and that it is an ongoing process.
I have to find the references but there was one report of a coal seam with a tree trunk extending upwards from the coal seam into the overlying sandstone completely replaced by anthracitic coal. The vertical disposition of the tree trunk showed that no significant vertical compression occurred.
Methane gas in coal mines is a persistent danger, but the general theory is that it’s the coal producing the methane. No its the methane producing the coal.
Sod,
You have completely misunderstood what I wrote. Mantle oil, being an excellent organic solvent, invading a sedimentary sequence, will dissolve all the organic debris in those sediments. The isotope ratios are for those contaminants in the oil, and if mantle oil invades a marine sequence, it will show isotope ratios indicative of a marine source for the biodebris.
But while Biotic oilers then interpret that to mean the oil was derived from marine organic matter is nothing other than the logical fallacy of arguing the consequent.
Empiricists would instead conclude that that particular oil contained marine derived organic matter. To determine whether marine organic matter could produce oil at that depth would involve a labaoratory experiment, and if oil is spontaneously formed by subjecting marine organic matter to the pressure and temperature inferred at the bottom of a sedimentary basin, then so be it. The oil has a biotic origin.
Except no one has been able to do this experimentally and hence why Kenney’s offer of $10,000 US for anyone doing so and publishing it in a peer reviewed journal remains unclaimed.
SOD
in addition we know from experiement that hydrocarbon while ascending upwards through rock will gradually become depleted in C13, (which reacts preferetnially with the rocks) and dominated by C12.
So yet again mantle derived oil will ‘appear” to be biotic from depletion of C13 while ascending upwards through the crust.
Hence isotope ratios cannot be used to differentiate it from biogenic sources.
This is a test to see whether my posts are indeed consistently deleted. I posted a comment yesterday but can’t find it.
I found it. It was posted on another thread:
Louis: “If mantle oil moves upwards into a sedimentary basin then it will, as an excellent organic solvent, incorporate all the biological debris present in that sedimentary basin. Hence it the sediments are marine in will absorb those biomarkers. If it is a fluvial basin, then the biomarkers absorbed by the oil will be diagnostic of that particular basin.”
Louis, this doesn’t work when stacked reservoirs have oils from different kitchens with different source rocks that are separated by sealing strata. Secondary migration paths can often be mapped and the oils correlated with their (assumed) source rock provinces. Also the degree of maturity can often be correlated with the depths of the source rocks in question. With abiotic oils this wouldn’t be the case.
Chris Schoneveld,
We have the geometry of subsurface basins that well defined from seismic and drilling that such definitive assertions are possible?
Stacked reservoirs separated by sealing strata – an impression gained from the drill hole data and the interpretations therefrom. Given my experience underground and with geophysics in exploration, I take anything from geophysicists with justified scepticism, oil included.
But whatever, you have missed the fundamental point – does burying biomass to the depths oil is found, irrespective of its biogenic provenance, spontaneously produce those oils so found at those depths, and has this been confirmed by experiment?
The rest of the discussion might be technically interesting but avoids the fundamentals.
Brown coal is obviously vegetable matter, which I personally saw when I visited the Morwell Open Cut mine decades ago, and from my underground work for SMEC when I had to go down a coal mine under Cordeaux Dam to locate a fault that was in the way of the proposed rail tunnel for coal haulage. And I worked the for NSW geological survey coal section for a couple of years, so I think I might know my coals.
you denied to answer my question and instead decided to bbring up your rather unimportant credentials.
so again: why does enough biotic accumulate to form coal, but not enough to form oil?
here are the arguments that you bring up against biotic oil:
a) biotic material does not accumulate in the required amounts.
b) nobody can show how it is formed today
c) i have not seen a lab experiment that shows how it is formed.
all of them woul affect coal as well. yet you come to a completely different concluson on coal. that is no surprise to me, as it is a textbook example of denilaits arguments.
Sod,
You are not SJT under a different hat are you?
And don’t confuse animals with vegetables – brown coal is simply large accumulations of vegetation but there isn’t any ‘
coal” there, the black stuff.
And instead of pointing out my arguments, why not produce experimental evidence supporting yours?
And don’t confuse animals with vegetables – brown coal is simply large accumulations of vegetation but there isn’t any ‘
coal” there, the black stuff.
another attempt to mislead?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Coal_anthracite.jpg
lots of the black stuff there, methinks.
And instead of pointing out my arguments, why not produce experimental evidence supporting yours?
sorry, but i don t have the lab equipment to simulate pressures and environments of a millenia long process. but i obviously have enough understanding, to poke holes into the nonsense theories that you are bringing up.
again: why are your critera for coal completely different then for oil?
why is there enough bio mass to form coal, but not enough to form oil?
when you are looking for oil in formation, i would advice you to dig here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqryaKRSQjE
(Formation of Oil in Mississippi Delta)
SOD asks,
“why are your critera for coal completely different then for oil? ”
Because the conditions and especially energy requirements for the formation of coal are completely different than for most other hydrocarbons, especially oil and natural gas.
Coal can be produced in about 30 years under bogs and other ideal areas with little pressure and energy input(comparatively).
Oil, well, here is a site that you might be able to get that answer from:
http://www.gasresources.net/
Click on “Scientific Publications” on the left
Click on “The Statistical Thermodynamics of Petroleum Science” on the right
Now, click on, and read, the published papers that destroy the possibility of Biotic oil production.
Other articles on the site cover the straw man of Carbon isotope ratios.
Sod,
I am not bothering to answer any of your posts – if you cannot understand the difference between brown coal and anthracitic coal, then there is no point following the issue any further.
I am not expecting you to do the experiment, but I do expect Biotic Oilers to provide experimental evidence that producing oil from burying biomass is possible. The Abiotic oil people have had no problem doing their experiments, I may add.
The Biotic oilers seem to rely on rhetoric to make their case, and eloquent is sometimes is, but the aversion to the compulsion of empirical fact is obvious – it’s a typical reaction of cognitive dissonance to contradictory fact and Pious Silence, or chattering one’s way out of the fact seems the preferred option.
Even the latest issue of Benny Peiser’s Ccnet has one poster maintaining that abiotic oil was discredited during the 1950’s by the fact that many of the molecules in oil were similar to animal lipids. Sure, sedimentary basins are full of minute amounts of these lipds, and any oil that subsequently invades those sediments will dissolve them. As I’ve pointed out before, it’s a logical fallacy operating here – the Lyellian Legacy I suppose.
And don’t for one instance think the geophysicists have the earth’s structure right either – the erred big time in the drilling of the Kola Peninsula deep hole project where the geothermal gradient and the identity of the high velocity zone between 3-6 kilometres depth were badly modeled. They were out by about 80 % for the geothermal gradient, and totally wrong for the identity of the high velocity zone which they reckoned would have been basalt or some mafic rock – it was water saturated felsic gneiss and you can’t get more whoopsie than that!
Even today the geophysicists cannot get near surface modeling right, and I have had the galling experience of having to drill some shallow holes only to find that their depth estimate was more than twice out (their estimate was 50 metres, the actual drilled depth was 130 metres).
Remember that plate tectonics was initially a geophysical theory, and there are many geologists who just don’t buy it. Hence the slowly dawning realisation that if plate tectonics is wrong, so then the mechanism to move fictitious masses of biomass deep into the lower crust.
It’s quite likely we have the geology of the formation of sedimentary basins wrong too – but I’m not going to waste your time on this, since this might distract you from your other areas of trolling.
Because the conditions and especially energy requirements for the formation of coal are completely different than for most other hydrocarbons, especially oil and natural gas.
that might very well be. but does not counter my point. Louis believes, that there is not enough bio mass, to produce oil. he wrote:
And for that matter how about pointing to a place where fossils accumulate in the sediments, and in sufficient quantities to allow the conversion to the known use of hydrocarbons.
and more on this topic in his own article about abiotic oil. the obvious truth is, that enough biomass does accumulate to form coal and also oil. his line of argument is wrong. it is based on completely false assumptions. a trademark of you denialists.
Sod,
I am not bothering to answer any of your posts – if you cannot understand the difference between brown coal and anthracitic coal, then there is no point following the issue any further.
another chicken out?
all coal is produced from plants. your focus on brown coal was an obvious attempt of moving the goal post.
my pretty simple question again, that you obviously can not answer:
why is there enough bio mass accumulating to form coal, but not enough to form oil?
Hence the slowly dawning realisation that if plate tectonics is wrong, so then the mechanism to move fictitious masses of biomass deep into the lower crust.
ouch. even more anti-science. just when i thought it couldn t get worse, it did.
“my pretty SIMPLE question again, that you obviously can not answer:
why is there enough bio mass accumulating to form coal, but not enough to form oil?”
Simple as you are sod.
Have you looked at a forest lately? Noticed the trees and other plants?
Also, noticed the fauna? (that’s animals for you)
Simple question for you, is it possible to bury plant matter in quantities by and upheaval, to make eventual coal formation possible?
Does the same apply to animals in the same way, ie. to have them accumulating in one place without decay and put them in a position to turn into oil? Take into account the enormous quantities required!
What you think?
Even if you are thinking about a marine environment, given the varied and numerous locations of oil fields, I find it hard to imagine.
SOD
“Louis believes, that there is not enough bio mass, to produce oil. he wrote:”
You don’t understand the issues.
Please leave.
Marcus,
SOD is SJT – look at its posts above.
Simple as you are sod.
Have you looked at a forest lately? Noticed the trees and other plants?
Also, noticed the fauna? (that’s animals for you)
Simple question for you, is it possible to bury plant matter in quantities by and upheaval, to make eventual coal formation possible?
Does the same apply to animals in the same way, ie. to have them accumulating in one place without decay and put them in a position to turn into oil? Take into account the enormous quantities required!
do you think that the trees in a wood form coal, and the animals in the wood form oil? that is silly.
You don’t understand the issues.
i actually do. you made a false claim, and no deny to admit your error.
SOD is SJT – look at its posts above.
i am not.
A lot of this original science came out of Russia. it makes the American oil finders a little queezy.
Some of this came from extra deep drilling in russia. I have friends in america that belong to the 5 mile club. Where did all the dirt come from to cover the oil by 5- 10 miles of rock?
“fossil fuel” connotes scarcity. Big Oil has the motivation to perpetuate the misnomer.
http://whatreallyhappened.com/content/new-experiment-shows-evidence-biotic-origin-oil
I am not qualified to enter this argument on scientific grounds, but I do find Louis Hissink’s arguments persuasive.
Am I imagining it, or are those who are sceptical about AGW also sceptical about oil being a fossil fuel? At the same time, supporters of the AGW hypothesis also seem to oppose, and try to ridicule, any questioning of biotic oil formation.
Since climate change and oil formation are not obviously connected, I wonder if it is the mental attitudes on each which have a common cause, namely independent, sceptical minds versus frame dependent, hidebound ones?
sod
I tried to keep it simple for you, obviously not simple enough.
Sorry, as Louis said, talking with you is a waste of time, I read your comments on your old blog, and I agreed with some.
Don’t take politics into science, Oh you already did!
Never mind.
SOD,
“and more on this topic in his own article about abiotic oil. the obvious truth is, that enough biomass does accumulate to form coal and also oil. his line of argument is wrong. it is based on completely false assumptions. a trademark of you denialists.”
When you can explain how trees can grow through multiple levels of coal deposition, you will have something interesting to say about coal development. Hint, the same problem is seen with the so-called evolution manifold of sedimentation.
As far as bio-mass, since oil is abiotic, it matters not how much biomass did or did not accumulate. Here is a challenge. Find your best experts and figure out the maximum oil and coal that could have been made based on biomass theories. We can then sit back and allow time to answer the question!!
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Louis wrote:
“As for the Isotope ratio, experiments with methane passed through a vertical rock tube show that C13 depletion occurs the higher methane travels up that tube.”
That’s very interesting to me, as I’m interested in chemical separations. Was the tube made from zeolite, or was it some other kind of rock? Do you have a link for that?
Larry,
I think it’s in one of the papers on Kenney’s site. I’ll see if I can locate it quickly and post the link here.
BlabberMouth
Big oil is actually government – they control 96% of the world’s known oil reserves.
Larry
The link is http://www.gasresources.net/THECARBONISOTOPERATIONONSENSEcorrectedbyElyzabethforWashConference.htm – Kenney summarises the experiment and footnotes the paper (2).
Green Davey
The link between AGW and fossil fuel theory is the common mindset behind both theories – both are based on empirically unverified starting assumptions – and reasonable persuasion is then used to mount the argument to prove the theory correct. Notice that adherents of both focus their efforts on proving it right while avoiding the need for experimental verification.
This is the legacy of Charles Lyell two centuries ago when he wrote his Principles of Geology.
AGW and Fossil oil are simply Whig sciences, then as now. Both are maintained by the herd instinct. Both depend on a consensus approach as well.
I also think it might be related to those of us who were taught to think, or lucky enough to discover it, and those who were trained what to think.
Sod must be SJT for both have the interesting trait of not addressing their posts to whom it is intended.
Just a question Louis….. I have read that the deep ocean basins in the past and perhaps whole oceans, below 250 meters, were anoxic for tens of millions of years….. Would that not be enough time for massive accumulations of organic material and sedimentation that would be place specific?
This would also account for the lack of current biota accumulation for new future oil fields, because it is only an infrequent circumstance when the Earth has ocean currents blocked by continents, as this is the process by which ocean wide anoxic conditions can happen….
However one area of study would be the Black Sea as this large body of water is anoxic below 120 meters and has only been in that circumstance for about 8000 years….. The mediterranean also becomes anoxic from time to time….. the last time was about 8000 to 10000 thousand years ago apparently.
I am just wondering if you have thought of this when wondering at the current lack of accumulated dead biota.
Why the problem with the primordial non biogenic origin of higher hydrocarbons? There are plenty of hydrocarbons on Titan, tarry stuff on comets and that ice in the polar craters of the Moon likely has hydrocarbons mixed up in it. It may even be hydrocarbons, not ice. It was the hydrogen that was detected by Clementine.
Verily Oh Louis,
So the fundamental problem is psychological and philosophical. How do we get that message across to the politicians? Might there be serious psychological and philosophical barriers to that exercise?
P.S. I have been pondering the solar wind, earth’s magnetosphere, ascenosphere, and even the moon’s gravity. Are they all studiously ignored ‘elephants in the room’ with regard to climate? Perhaps you could start a thread on this by stating your ideas. I’m sure SJT, Luke, and Sod will contribute with open minds – or should that be vacant?.
J Hansford,
The issue is not so much the accumulation of organic material but the physical impossibility of that material being spontaneously transformed to crude oil under the pressure-temperature conditions prevailing in the lower crust from burial.
Consider the experimental evidence recently published and forming the subject of this thread.
Methane was subject to a temperature of > 1200 degrees Celsius and pressures > 15Kbar and it produced ethane, butone and propane, graphite and free hydrogen. Crude oil was not produced, but just some higher carbon number gases. Oil? no, bitumen? no.
And these physical conditions are far in excess of what any sediment would be exposed to from burial so the the fact we observe oil shales means explicitly that those shales remain essentially unmetamorphosed sediments and were never subjected to temperatures and pressures greater than zeolite facies.
Burying organic matter and accumulating it as you suggest in the Black Sea is one thing, but simple burial of that material will not cause that organic matter to undergo a change to bitumen or any of the other higher order hydrocarbons. You could wait for the end of time and buring such an organic rich sediment will only produce methane.
My position is based on the necessity of empirical proof that the reaction proceeds spontaneosly.
The Biotic oilers position is one based on arguing the consequent, that because oil contains bio markers and other geochemical signatures that it “must” have been formed from biomass or organic material.
My position is empirical while the Biotic oilers rhetorical – Charles Lyell’s legacy and which science is still in thrall of.
Green Davey
It’s probably as you describe and I’ve occasionally wondered whether the issue is pyschological – why are some biassed to emotional analysis and reliant on consensus – including the tendency to rely on authority, contrasted with those tending in the opposite direction.
As for the various elephants in the room suggestion, that approach seems to be driving the Thunderbolts.info site as well as the various online fora anyone can contribute to, but to elaborate my ideas as you suggest would be great if I could find the time. Now if I were of independent means and retired, then yes.
Climate studies assume a geocentric earth with the only external factor being the radiant energy of the Sun.
Grab the proverbial stick by it’s other end and if we are looking at an electrical system then the known mega-amperes of charged particles entering the Earth’s Poles, and powering it’s rotation, will have a significant input to the Earth’s thermal state.
Greenhouse effects are necessary when your model is an inert ball immersed in a vacuum – the standard model. Throw in electromagnetics and electricity and new insights become possible.
Volcanoes, for example, seem to be electgric discharges from the earth to space, in the manner of the Earth being likened to a leaky capacitor. And capacitors store electrical energy as well.
Earthquakes are now thought of possibly being subterranean lightning bolts.
And to make life even more interesting, while the Abiotic oil group limit their physics to pressure and temperature plus the usual suspects of matter, they have not added electrical forces to their models. The Earth is continually rumbling seismically and it is due to, in part, continual subterannean electric discharges – if so then what’s going down there is far more interesting than any of us could imagine.
The main stumbling black is the lack of understanding of plasma double layers, or Langmuire sheafs. The biologists have recognised these things as cellular walls.
It might be that life and electricity are inseparable, and that’s why there is a deep hot biosphere down there.
If Jennifer wants to continue this on a new thread, okay with me, but my contributions have to be limited since I only have so many hours in the day on top of work and editing in addition. Field work means no internet access for days on end as well.
Davey,
Thanks for the link. I’m still puzzled by a couple of things from the isotope-analysis-debunking article. It did not say what type of rock was used in the column. I get the impression that it was a mixture of different types.
More to the point, I’m not clear on how the methane was reacting with the rock. Are we talking simple adsorption, or is it something more interesting?
Thanks Louis,
I will leave it up to Jennifer to persuade you, if she wants. I think it would be a really useful thread.
Fascinating, forsooth.
Larry,
Sorry, I can’t help. I don’t know how methane reacts with rock. Perhaps you meant your query for Louis.
Anybody interested in the future directions of science might care to google ‘aurora’. It has been suggested that science is finished, the big questions have been answered, that it is only a matter of mopping up. I don’t theeeenk so…
Louis and Davey,
Sorry, I was having a senior moment. I’d intended to address my last comment to Louis.
Larry
From what could work out, the rock column was basically crushed rock representative of the crust. That said one would then need to get the original paper cited in that article. Other than that I assume Kenney is quoting accurately.
Green Davey
Yes it would be an interesting thread – and prescient comment about science – in the empirical sciences the position is that a scientific theory is always provisional because someday someone will make a discovery falsifying a previous theory. So in this case scientific theories can never be proven but they can be falsified.
Beliefs however can never be falsified, such being the nature of the beast.
It helps to realise that thinking is a physical process of the brain and thinking can be as habituating as any other physical activity. The technique of brainwashing relies on it entirely. Hence I support the idea that young children should not be exposed to religion or other dogmas until they reach university and then, if they wish, to be exposed to history, religion and other related areas of human endeavour.
But it’s not to be unfortunately, hence most people are conditioned to a particular thinking pattern and the pseudoscience being criticised here is one such outcome of that process.
Larry
I checked the original citation and it’s in German – 1967 – but the title is understandable – earth gas and isotopes. I guess with the typical precision the German authors would have been very precise in detailing the experiment. All this before the post modernists started their befouling science.
J Hansford,
The issue is not so much the accumulation of organic material but the physical impossibility of that material being spontaneously transformed to crude oil under the pressure-temperature conditions prevailing in the lower crust from burial.
well, not so long ago, you had a completely different position:
. If petroleum is truly biotic, then enormous masses of organic material must be accumulating somewhere on the earth’s surface to form future oils. Why don’t we see them? Could the biogenic oil theory be wrong?
and
This is a serious problem for the fossil fuel theory – just how are these enormous deposits of petroleum formed from organic material, given that we are not observing any modern day accumulation of organic material.
http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/2006/11/abiotic-oil-a-note-from-louis-hissink/
what was a “serious problem” back then, according to Louis is not so important any longer now.
in reality, he made an error, and now is unwilling to admit it. and i can even understand that. his claim about no accumulation of biomass is so blatantly false, that he can t take it back without admitting, that he knows basically nothing about this subject. and he wrote an article about it, on Jennifer’s “science” blog….
beyond that, i wouldn t really call a process that takes lots of time, pressure and heat “spontaneous”. but what would i know.
Methane was subject to a temperature of > 1200 degrees Celsius and pressures > 15Kbar and it produced ethane, butone and propane, graphite and free hydrogen. Crude oil was not produced, but just some higher carbon number gases. Oil? no, bitumen? no.
apples were subjected to a temperature of 1200°C and pressure, and it produced quite a mess.
but an apple pie was not produced.
strange, isn t it?
My position is based on the necessity of empirical proof that the reaction proceeds spontaneosly.
another false use of the term spontaneous.
From what could work out, the rock column was basically crushed rock representative of the crust.
and that column was multiple kilometres high and the exact representation of the rock that the abiotic oil passed through?
or was it just a similar rock, and just a few metres of it? and calculations doing the rest of the work? basically the rock experiment is an exact copy of the CO2 experiments about absorption of infrared light by CO2?!?
but Louis accepts one, but not the other!
My position is empirical while the Biotic oilers rhetorical – Charles Lyell’s legacy and which science is still in thrall of.
please explain the myth, that the biotic origin of petroleum is just a strange idea by Lyell to my neighbour. he is filling the tank of his diesel car with vegetable oil for a couple of years now. he will be very interested in your theory!
———————-
and finally:
My position is based on the necessity of empirical proof …
says Louis, and:
Earthquakes are now thought of possibly being subterranean lightning bolts.
you are applying your “necessity of empirical proof” extremely selectively…
for all those interested in real science, here is a link to a online textbook, with lots of material about organic accumulation.
http://books.google.de/books?id=26Xp9wv-FP0C&printsec=frontcover&hl=en&source=gbs_v2_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q=&f=false
SOD,
After reading your post above one comes to the conclusion that your comprehension is, might we say a little chaotic? You have conflated quite separate issues into an incomprehensible melange on nonsense.
Well done – you might be able to run as a Democrat for Ted Kennedy’s vacant seat, for you certainly have the necessary character skills.
Now if I were of independent means and retired, then yes.
write the book Louis. Use the time you spend sitting out in the desert 🙂
janama
Good grief – what an excellent suggestion – hmmmm, I could start it now since I am in holding pattern with the NT NLC – colleague thought it might take them a year to sort things out. In this case it’s pure bureaucratic bungling and incompetence.
Thank you 🙂
look Louis, it is simply impossible that you can t see the contradiction between your two statements:
The issue is not so much the accumulation of organic material but the physical impossibility of that material being spontaneously transformed to crude oil under the pressure-temperature conditions prevailing in the lower crust from burial.
and
This is a serious problem for the fossil fuel theory – just how are these enormous deposits of petroleum formed from organic material, given that we are not observing any modern day accumulation of organic material.
SOD,
No contradiction at all – show everyone here the enormous amounts of organic matter that must exist as deposits somewhere to form the hydrocarbons.
And stop resorting to straw men arguments.
SOD,
I should be more specific in terms of present day processes – show us where right now where organic material is actively being removed from the biosphere into sediments, that can be shown to on their way down into the lower crust by tectonic processes as is required for the fossil fuel theory – remember you call it fossil fuel and hence you need to show where fossils are being formed in the here and now. (I suspect you have quoted me out of context in your last post).
Louis,
When you write your book about the elephants in the climate change room (solar wind, magnetosphere, ascenosphere etc.) you might consider a quote from Francis Bacon. There is a nice one suggesting that, when people do not understand something, they often try to ridicule it, so hoping their ignorance will seem like good judgement.
Green Davey,
Yes, it would be the standard quote for the attention of the conceptionally challenged.
I’ve received a link to a paper by Glasby in which he trys to trash Abiotic Oil, and currently doing a do diligence on the kerogen is due to diagenesis argument – looking for any experimental evidence – so far (and it’s a pre and post work day effort) all the proof is wonderfully argued and written arguments of the consequent – Lyellian Lyricisms, but not one reference to “we got some plankton and stromataloids and other marine organic matter and subject it to diagenetic temperatures and pressures and produced kerogen” type of citation. reminds me of that famous cartoon in which the first step is defined, the third step as the conclusion but the intermediate one which a peer considered problematical – the one which stated “An then a miracle occurred”.
Louis – I was thinking about what you said about volcanoes being electric discharges to space. I mentioned once before about how I had the rare experience of flying right by the Mt Pinatubo eruption in 91.
When we first sighted it I thought it was a huge thunderstorm because it was full of lightning – it wasn’t until we got close that I realised it couldn’t be a storm because it disappeared above us and we were at 10,000m. But I can assure you a volcano is chock full of electricity.
janama
Really – you were that close? (and survived).
Thanks for your “in situ” observations – what we empiricists call data.
The Lyellians, or AGW supporters, dismiss as “error”.
Please send me more of these !
Green Davey,
It’s moments like those Janama recounted, that causes one to stop and revalue our ancestor’s observations of “natural” phenomena, and to then accept as a physical possibility.
Drafting a book on this isn’t all beer and skittles.
Janama
And CAT – clear area turbulence – I wonder if those might be electric discharges as well.
The problem lies in the lack of data.
C’est ca.
I was flying from Melbourne to Hong Kong in a 747 – the volcano blew as we left Melbourne. We reached Manila around sunset as the lights of Manila were just turning on.
The plane flew right past the volcano plume, looking out my window I couldn’t see down to it’s source and looking up it just disappeared. It was huge swirling plumes of dust with bolts of lightning going in all directions. I thought it was an intensive thunder storm.
The pilot never said a word and he turned the plane away from the plume to avoid flying straight through it which was our original course.
I didn’t realise what it was until I reached HK and saw the newspaper reports about the eruption.
A week ago, I favored the fossil hypothesis for the origin of oil. But Louis has raised reasonable doubt.
Now it’s time for a few tough questions. Some Free-Market fundies who embrace the abiotic hypothesis claim that the world’s oil supply is infinite. Reading between the lines, they’re really saying: I don’t give a rat’s arse about future generations; I’ll be dead long before the fit hits the shan. In risk analysis parlance, a less extreme version of this attitude is known as “discounting the future”. As always, the devil is in the details.
Assuming that the abiotic hypothesis is true, what’s a reasonable estimate for the true value of our oil reserves? How many years do we have left at our present level of oil consumption? If that time is less than the number of years before the sun eventually toasts our cookies, wouldn’t it make sense to implement some reasonable energy conservation strategies now? And what kind of future-discounting function would you use in evaluating the reasonableness of a given energy conservation measure?
Janama
Your description is quite concise – maybe volcanic eruptions are the end product of a slow buildup of electrical potential inside the earth, and an eruption is hence a short circuit into space. Magma is plasma, by the way. Pre empting it but volcanic lightning is not produced by volcanic ash bumping against each other causing charge separation. If this process was valid then your Dyson vacuum cleaner would be electrically dangerous, or at best an electric generator.
No, volcanic lightning is simply electric current leaving earth but short circuiting in arc mode.
Larry,
I think the hydrocarbons are being continuously formed by the deep hot biosphere, but as history has shown, we never run out of resources – new discoveries are continually made and there is no reason to doubt that we will stumble on another energy source. I reckon oil will be powering humanity for a long time.
Abiotic oil disproved:
Glasby, G.P.(2006). Abiogenic Origin of Hydrocarbons: An Historical Overview, RESOURCE GEOLOGY, vol. 56, no. 1, 85–98 http://static.scribd.com/docs/j79lhbgbjbqrb.pdf.
Google “The Fake Oil Crisis of 1973”
There’s a problem with the abiotic oil hypothesis.
It just doesnt make any difference.
While for the moment the science of the abiotic fringe is at best shakey when explaining the large conventional oil reserves where we get most of our oil from today, there are some still intriguing ideas contained in it once you strip out some of the genuine loonies that are beating the drum for it – but it still doesnt and wont make a difference.
The supply of oil to the market is largely controlled by economic and political forces and not its origin – its that simple.
For example the origin of the hitherto untapped oil in Alaska and off the US coasts could just as well be ancient fairy farts or Gil Gerard’s seminal fluids for all the difference it would make – if we’re not allowed to extract it, arguing over its origin is pointless.
Next we need to consider that although oil wells have been observed to refill (which in itself does no injury to prevailing biotic theory) they do not refill at a rate that is even close to being comparable with the rate at which we are using it. So if oil is forming abiotically, its rate of formation – or at the very least the rate at which it seeps up from the mantle to places where is can aggregate in quantities sufficient to make extraction worthwhile – is far outstripped by the rate at which we are consuming it. So its origin makes no difference.
The best candidates put forward by abiotic acolytes for operating oil and gas reserves of abiotic origin are almost exclusively deep, relatively small, and above all expensive to explore and extract from – the very fact that we are exploring and exploiting these reserves is a fucntion of the scarcity of the commodity pushing the market price to a level where these reserves make economic sense.
Therefore the exploitaion of these supposed abiotic reserves (and there’s VERY good evidence that these reserves are of conventional origin anyway) is reliant upon the commodity being scarce not abundant. So its origin makes no difference.
Google “Quadri-Track ZCT”
Interesting blogg jennifer
A very interesting project have been started in sweden. the siljan meteorite impact area.
Previously it is well known from the deepdrilling project promoted by prof. Thomas Gold, but unfurtenately this project failed.
A new company have started to evalueate the impact area http://www.igrene.se/ and it
seems as they are being very successful in their exploration.
Unfurtenately their homepage are in swedish, so i had to use google translation in order
to get some idea about their project, acccording to their latest newsletter methane have
been located of abiotic origin and that prof. vladimir kutcherov have been involved in their
project.
If they will be successful in their ongoing exploration work, than at least i feel that thomas gold did drilled at the wrong locations.
It seems as they are using the same exploration thinking as the russian geologist
at the kola peninsula and the danish at greenland, where they are concentrating on their
Nepheline Syenit alcalic intrusions being the magmagenerator for the hydrocarbons.
Thomas gold general idea were migration in general from the deep crust, but now days new thinking more and more points towards the fact that the right type of reduced magma is needed in order to produce abiotic hydrocarbons – thought as working as the
Fischer-Tropsch process – wich makes sence.
Also the meteorite impact is supposed to have had an important role in the process, the
siljan impact is considered to be europs largets impact site and that it actualy could have generated a very late stage start of young reduced alcalic intrusions (Nepheline Syenite) that pushed upwards towards the older granite complex roof.
Unfurtenately Thomas Gold did not have this thougts when he established his ideas
and therefore drilled at the wrong locations.
The ICDP research program have found it so interesting that have have financed a research drilling program via their swedish SDDP organisation in order to find out more
about this interesting area http://www.icdp-online.org/front_content.php for future
development.
Anyway, it is an interesting blogg you have.
Are