Abiotic theory of oil - 'infinite' supply

Hi, just joined this forum.Thought you might like to know about the abiotic theory of oil that's been around for over 40 years but ignored by the West. It's a "plenty" theory, which is opposite to the fossil fuel hypothesis - touted as being incorrect and outdated.

I've recently written an article that refers to it on another site:
World Oil Reserves are "Infinite"? Petroleum Resource is Always Replenished and Continuous

There's a mp3 audio from a referred site (GasResources.net) that gives you a quick appreciation what the theory is about.
Link to National Public Radio interview:

Let me know if you have any info on this.

Cheers



[edit on 22-5-2008 by hschlang]

[edit on 22-5-2008 by hschlang]

[edit on 22-5-2008 by hschlang]

Interesting point to bring up.

I think the only reason why the abiotic theory hasnt taken the world by storm is that it fails to explain the molecular origin of crude oil.

While the biotic theory says that oil is the "pressurised" remains of sea-flora and fauna (just like coal = pressurised wood), the abiotic theory cannot explain where this material comes from.

Does it perhaps mean that oil is a naturally occuring liquid? Would we not eventually use it up even if reserves kept replenishing, eventually it must run out. Unless the oil is produced in the core of the earth, which seems completely out of question, since it would be burnt off.

Well, first off, what is it inside the Earth that is creating oil? Is it magick? Your article doesn't mention possible causes.
Secondly, gas and oil exploration is based upon established geologic principals. People search for oil and gas around faults located near ancient sea beds. Is it just coincidence that this inorganic abiotic oil is found in these areas?
Thirdly, if it was emmanating from within the pressurized core, surely it would follow that it's most natural escape route would be through fractures like volcanoes or rifts? We never ever see oil in igneous areas, or flowing from volcanic openings, yet they are deep fractures.
Another thing, the deeper you go, the less the porosity of rock.
Also, there are a lot of capped wells about - ones that have emptied the oil and gas, and are then closed. a lot of these, some of the largest in fact, have been capped for over 40 years, yet they haven't filled up again. I was looking at seismic data for a large oil field in Texas, about a week ago, and I can see exactly where the old drills where, and where they were drilling too. It's par for the course in oil exploration to check that your find isn't iconnected to a fault that's already been drilled. Aquaintences of mine drilled 6 weeks ago, and hit the wrong side of a bad fault, and ended up in an already drilled pocket from the 1980's. Needless to say, there was no oil, and they wasted $1.4m.

reply to post by hschlang


What I don't understand is why are all the outer planets loaded with methane? Is that something that gets formed in prior suns and supernova's like heavier elements such as gold and high pressure crystals like diamonds? Is it possible under the pressure of a supernova to press methane into oil? If so is it possible that all the methane burned off or evaporated from the earth during formation and only oil remained...maybe even filling the earth?

Maybe there is a cover up of the theory in the west?

The Russians certainly believe in the theory, that is why they have so much of it - they simply went and looked where abiotic theory suggested it would be - and they found heaps.

The Peak Oil 'crisis' is real, but only in the sense that is a case of them 'turning the taps' off. Just like they did the last time back in the 70s. There's plenty there, and it is replenshing, (but whether at a good rate I don't know) - but it doesn't seem likely that it is going to get western media airplay. Even the Russians keep it pretty quiet.

I know quite a few guys in the business of locating oil, minerals etc - and the word in their circles is that abiotic oil is for real - but it aint worth losing your contract by blabbing about it.

Duncan

This has been discussed before here. Here are some existing threads on the topic.

www.abovetopsecret.com...
www.abovetopsecret.com...
www.abovetopsecret.com...
www.abovetopsecret.com...

Hi and welcome, hschlang

I am pretty familiar with the abiotic oil theory, and tend to believe in it. We pump millions of barrels of oil out of the ground every day and have done so for decades. That's a lot of dead dinosaurs!

There is also the fact that many oil wells around the world have been pumped dry and capped, only to discover a couple years later that there's plenty of oil in them. I doubt that more T-Rex's died in that couple of years.

As to the origin of abiotic oil, there is a theory on that: we normally see chemical change as some form of 'burning'... we burn gasoline, converting hydrocarbons into water and CO2. We burn wood, with the same effect. Coal, methane, diesel fuel, the list goes on. For the average layman, the idea of something burning under water (i.e. a reaction rather than an oxidation) seems miraculous.

Yet oxygen on our planet is confined to two areas of nature: free oxygen which is contained in our atmosphere, mostly due to photosynthesis from fauna, and as oxides, which have that oxygen pretty well locked up in compounds. Inside the earth's crust, there is no free oxygen to oxidize substances.

There is hydrogen. Hydrogen does not bond with other substances as strongly as oxygen (this is the basis for acid-base reactions). There is also an abundance of carbon. Under the high heat and pressures inside the earth, that carbon will naturally bond with hydrogen to form... [drum beat] ...hydrocarbons! Which we then pump out of the crust as oil.

In short, it is the anaerobic reaction of the most abundant element in the universe (hydrogen) with the most abundant element in the earth's crust (carbon). It happens other places as well; as nitrobandit pointed out, multiple outer planets have entire atmospheres of methane, which is itself a hydrocarbon, just lighter than those contained in crude oil.

In short, we are not running out of dead dinosaurs. We may at some point be using oil as fast as the planet can make it, but we aren't there yet. There is no oil shortage at present or in the near future.

TheRedneck

I decided to go and do some reading on an interesting subject, as I had no knowledge of it.
As a typical example of the info out there, the very first hit on Google summarises things quite well:
ranprieur.com...
So the claim for abiotic oil is based upon deep-well sources around the Caspian basin, but as stated, although they released a paper on the non-biotic basis for the oil, they give no reason as to how or why.
It also states that wells are not replenished, and that this is not an infinite supply.
I would love to know how deep these wells are! Obviously, the deeper you drill, the more exspensive it gets. It must be shallow enough to make it more worth while than hitting shallower organic deposits.
They are pretty vague about how they found the site too. Anyone have any more info or sources about the seismics involved? Is this the only abiotic well in operation, or are they hitting multiple, tested deposits?

Also, just read this today:
www.reuters.com...
Do you think it possible that organic life living and dying within the mantle could possibly be contributing to organic deposits?

Hi H.P.

Originally posted by hschlang
World Oil Reserves are "Infinite"? Petroleum Resource is Always Replenished and Continuous

Linky thingy no worky for me.

Let me know if you have any info on this.

Allow me to quote myself.

Originally posted by makeitso
Here is the PNAS information. Dated 2002.
PNAS The genesis of hydrocarbons and the origin of petroleum

Conclusions from the PNAS: The pressure of 30 kbar, at which the theoretical analyses of section 4 predicts that the Hydrocarbon system must evolve ethane and heavier hydrocarbon compounds, corresponds to a depth of more than 100 km. The results of the theoretical analysis shown in Fig. 2 clearly establish that the evolution of the molecular components of natural petroleum occur at depth at least as great as those of the mantle of the Earth, as shown graphically in Fig. 4, in which are represented the thermal and pressure lapse rates in the depths of the Earth.

Here is the followup testing (Again) Dated 9-2004
Physicsweb - Petroleum under pressure

Scientists in the US have witnessed the production of methane under the conditions that exist in the Earth's upper mantle for the first time. The experiments demonstrate that hydrocarbons could be formed inside the Earth via simple inorganic reactions -- and not just from the decomposition of living organisms as conventionally assumed -- and might therefore be more plentiful than previously thought.

And the PNAS for it:
Generation of methane in the Earth's mantle: In situ high pressure?temperature measurements of carbonate reduction

Conclusions: The study demonstrates the existence of abiogenic pathways for the formation of hydrocarbons in the Earth's interior and suggests that the hydrocarbon budget of the bulk Earth may be larger than conventionally assumed. The wide pressure?temperature?composition stability field of methane documented here has broad implications for the hydrocarbon budget of the planet and indicates that methane may be a more prevalent carbon-bearing phase in the mantle than previously thought, with implications for the deep hot biosphere (25). In particular, isotopic evidence indicating the prevalence of biogenic hydrocarbons pertains to economically exploited hydrocarbon gas reservoirs, largely in sedimentary basins (2); these observations and analyses do not rule out the potential for large abiogenic reservoirs in the mantle. Moreover, the assumption that CO2 is the sole carrier of mantle-derived noble gasses (26, 27) should be reevaluated. Finally, the potential may exist for the high-pressure formation of heavier hydrocarbons by using mantle-generated methane as a precursor.

From the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Dated 1999
Abiogenic methane formation and isotopic fractionation under hydrothermal conditions

These results, combined with the increasing recognition of nickel-iron alloy occurrence in oceanic crusts, suggest that abiogenic methane may be more widespread than previously thought.


Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Nagoya University, Japan. Dated 1994.
Mantle hydrocarbons: abiotic or biotic?

It appears that hydrocarbons may survive high pressures and temperatures in the mantle, but they are decomposed into lighter hydrocarbon gases such as CH4 at lower pressures when magmas intrude into the crust; consequently, peridotite cumulates do not contain heavier hydrocarbons but possess hydrocarbon gases up to C4H10.

[edit on 29-10-2004 by makeitso]

reply to post by makeitso


Nice collecting of pertinent info!
Thank you very much.
It'll take me a while to get through it.

Newbie, still acclimating, but I do have an interest in this topic.

There seems to be a lot of discussion surrounding abiotic oil. My take is pretty simple, and should appeal to those of us that believe that conspiracies abound ( I guess that would be 99.99% of the viewership of this board).

If I were in charge of the oil supply, the last thing I'd want to see my market doing would be exploring alternatives that would lead to the reduction of my sales/revenue. I'd want all of the sheep to believe that oil was renewing itself, and that there was no need to go exploring as there was no real problem. All we have to do is open up exploration in other areas of the country, all the while keeping the prices up, so that my investment in new extraction methods in oil sands/oil shale remains adequately profitable.

In the meanwhile, people keep putting off alternatives. By the time alternatives are practical, I'll have those under my control as well.

Yes, oil is renewable... but are you willing to wait a few million years?

Just my take,

Grim

Here is the most comprehensive source I can find on abiotic hydrocarbons: oilismastery.blogspot.com...

This article was recently released and it might address your question.
I feel sure that the many Geologists who are dedicated to the theory of "Peak Oil" will try and debunk this article, but...

I call your bluff. Let's let science decide, shall we?
Did any of you ever think that it might even maybe be remotely possible that hydrocarbons could be produced from the fossils of plants and animals and be produced from the extreme pressure and heat from the Earth's core.
The two do not need be mutually exclusive.

If these gentlemen have produced an experiment then let us see if it is replicated and if it is then what is the success rate.

www.sciencedaily.com..." target="_blank" class="postlink">www.sciencedaily.com...

reply to post by TheRedneck


Wow. Kudos to ATS once again.

That makes sense. The science of oil taught in high school doesn't say this - it says that it is the result of dead sea life and woods from the past that sank, got compressed and made oil. In light of what I just read, that doesn't make sense!

It would make sense that oil is made the same way as diamond for example - all it requires is the right conditions and it will happen.

S+F!

Originally posted by hschlang
Hi, just joined this forum.Thought you might like to know about the abiotic theory of oil that's been around for over 40 years but ignored by the West. It's a "plenty" theory, which is opposite to the fossil fuel hypothesis - touted as being incorrect and outdated.

I've recently written an article that refers to it on another site:
World Oil Reserves are "Infinite"? Petroleum Resource is Always Replenished and Continuous

There's a mp3 audio from a referred site (GasResources.net) that gives you a quick appreciation what the theory is about.
Link to National Public Radio interview:

Let me know if you have any info on this.

Cheers



[edit on 22-5-2008 by hschlang]

[edit on 22-5-2008 by hschlang]

[edit on 22-5-2008 by hschlang]

I work in the oil and gas and the whole peak oil theory is laughed off the platform by most of the guys.
I've worked offshore for several years now and can tell you the flow of hydrocarbons is non-stop and it comes up from the earth at a very warm temperature.
We've suspended production for months at a time for various reasons and a mini-recovery takes place more often than not.

I worked on Forties Alpha platforms in the North Sea a while back.
Before I was there they were sold off by one of the big oil companies (I forget which) they reckoned the oil field was practically dried out.
Well another oil company (a mature field developer) came in and after re-starting production lo and behold the reservoir had mysteriously filled up again.
So it's an open secret offshore about this recovery theory which goes hand in hand with the abiotic oil origin.
The 'science' says it must be from a deeper, conventional, oil field we can't reach. But then they would say that

There is no abiotic oil. Period. Peak oil is not some conspiracy cooked up by any political tool puppet. Peak oil is not a theory. Leaving out any predictive incriments of chronological time keeping, at some point, there will be no more "accessible" oil. Oil will be there, but no technocopian hopes and dreams will get it out of the ground in sufficient amounts to continue with BAU.

You should have given a little more attention in your physics 101 class.

Read this (all the way through):

www.fromthewilderness.com...

Spend the next 3 yrs reading everything you can get your hands on concerning this topic. Everything! Not just what fits your biased hopes and fantasies.

Fill your tank up with that my friend.

You obtained your geology degree from Walmart maybe?

these are some great replies. agree that there have been many other threads as well. while i do not buy totally into abiotic theory due to the lack of science behind it, it makes for an incredibly good conspiracy. lets pretend that oil actually can come from compressed methane with some other forces/elements involved deep underground. yes, clearly, i'm not a scientist. that being said, if it were true, wouldn't this be the ultimate secret that the most powerful multinational corporations would literally kill people to keep quiet? the theory would actually put trillions of dollars at stake of being lost with jobs and continued r&d programs being moot, if abiotic theory was true. if anyone actually came up with plausible or even rational scientific control tests, they would be dead within 24 hrs. this is not a game for speculative or intelligent minds to ponder. it has to do with real substantive money as the bottom line. no person in their right mind would want to succeed in investigating this theory, because it would mean the end of that person's life.