THE Abiotic Oil Thread (merged)

TheDude · **Posted:** Tue Feb 05, 2008 4:00 pm

Picked up at World Net Daily,natch. Longer excerpt at richarddawkins.net, of all places.

Quote:

The Lost City hydrothermal vents, some of which are 60 metres tall, sit above magnesium- and iron-rich deposits called 'ultramafic' rock. The minerals contained in the rocks interact with water to produce an environment with plentiful hydrogen, making it chemically favourable for the creation of the hydrocarbon molecules that make up oil and gas.

WorldNet links to a good page on the Lost City. As usual this is interesting and undoubtedly irrelevant to future oil production - the Lost City is on the Mid Atlantic Ridge, should we be trawling the ocean for oil? Or should we expect a fillup on Ghawar in 200 years?

epii · **Joined:** Tue Apr 15, 2008 12:00 am **Posts:** 6

{thread merged}

Please forgive me for bringing up this bloody subject as I would imagine most of you are sick to death of it. Me too. I'm trying to find credentialed scientists like maybe NAS or AAAS members that refute J.F. Kenney's claims (from a paper that appeared in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences) of oil as being essentially of in-organic origin. I'm not a scientist but it is clear that the larger body of scientists regard oil as being of biotic origin and that's good enough for me, however the NAS isn't known for publishing shoody science.. so what's the deal?

I was only made aware of the "peak oil" debate fairly recently and feel like I've rammed into a wall at 150 m/p/h with the can-o-worms debate of "biotic" vs. "abiotic" theory. I'm very concerned about the human propensity for growth in everything from population growth to proportional growth rates in monetary wealth and the future sustainability of growth on a the finite space of this planet.

Richard Hienberg is a personal favorite of mine and has made his opinion on the so-called "abiotic" theory well known, however I've not heard him speak on the relatively recent discovery of abundant hydro-carbons on Saturn's moon, Titan. This has become an oft touted "proof" of late by the abiotic crowd in support of their "theory".

I don't pay much attention to anyone who hasn't been peer reviewed by the established scientific academies like NAS. Too much bogus science out there. I just want the truth as to whether or not petrolium is from organic or in-organic processes. Is this even being debated amongst the smartest of the smart? Or is it just a red herring?

Again, I'm sorry for bringing up this sore subject and if anyone can direct me to a serious article on a serious scientific website that deals with the subject of "oil origins", I would very much appreciate it. I'm having a very hard time finding an unbias website on the subject, seems they are all advocacy groups that get into the debate.. and I don't rate advocacy groups very high on my credability list.

Thanks,
epii

KingM · **Posted:** Tue Apr 15, 2008 4:43 pm

What if it were abiotic in origin? Would we suddenly find huge new reservoirs of oil?

epii · **Joined:** Tue Apr 15, 2008 12:00 am **Posts:** 6

I guess an op yanked my posting from another forum so to be safe I'm posting it again here:

Please forgive me for bringing up this bloody subject as I would imagine most of you are sick to death of it. Me too. I'm trying to find credentialed scientists like maybe NAS or AAAS members that refute J.F. Kenney's claims (from a paper that appeared in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences) of oil as being essentially of in-organic origin. I'm not a scientist but it is clear that the larger body of scientists regard oil as being of biotic origin and that's good enough for me, however the NAS isn't know for publishing shoody science.. so what's the deal?

I was only made aware of the "peak oil" debate fairly recently and feel like I've rammed into a wall at 150 m/p/h with the can-o-worms debate of "biotic" vs. "abiotic" theory. I'm very concerned about the human propensity for growth in everything from population growth to proportional growth rates in monetary wealth and the future sustainability of growth on a the finite space of this planet.

Richard Hienberg is a personal favorite of mine and has made his opinion on the so-called "abiotic" theory well known, however I've not heard him speak on the relatively recent discovery of abundant hydro-carbons on Satern's moon, Titan. This has become an oft touted "proof" of late by the abiotic crowd in support of their "theory".

I don't pay much attention to anyone who hasn't been peer reviewed by the established scientific academies like NAS. Too much bogus science out there. I just want the truth as to whether or not petrolium is from organic or in-organic processes. Is this even being debated amongst the smartest of the smart? Or is it just a red herring?

Again, I'm sorry for bringing up this sore subject and if anyone can direct me to a serious article on a serious scientific website that deals with the subject of "oil origins", I would very much appreciate it. I'm having a very hard time finding an unbias website on the subject, seems they are all advocacy groups that get into the debate.. and I don't rate advocacy groups very high on my credability list.

Thanks,
epii

TheDude · **Posted:** Tue Apr 15, 2008 10:40 pm

epii wrote:

Richard Hienberg is a personal favorite of mine and has made his opinion on the so-called "abiotic" theory well known, however I've not heard him speak on the relatively recent discovery of abundant hydro-carbons on Satern's moon, Titan. This has become an oft touted "proof" of late by the abiotic crowd in support of their "theory".

I posted the List of molecules in interstellar space from Wikipedia, which tells you what a variety of complex matter can be found in hostile environments. I wasn't surprised they found some hydrocarbons on Titan, used it here as the basis of a joke in fact. We have had some discussions of Titan's potential however, like Harvesting hydrocarbons from Titan: not feasible.

Dunno if anyone has written any serious papers on abiotic. You might carefully check out the Wiki page's foonotes/refs.

Plantagenet · **Posted:** Sat Apr 19, 2008 12:03 pm

NASA says there are more than 1,000x as much hydrocarbons present in surface lakes on Titan then exists in all the oil reservoirs combined on earth.

Huge amounts of abiotic oil exist............on Titan!

Titan seems to have similar natural processes to earth. If the same natural processes that create abiotic hydrocarbons on Titan also operate on earth, then we'd have at least some abiotic hydrocarbon on earth.

bodigami · **Joined:** Wed Jul 26, 2006 12:00 am **Posts:** 2330

opxcpx wrote:

An abiotic source of oil in the deep mantle/lower crust is incredibly unlikely. I have read the article linked that is "proof" of this process and it is scientifically flawed and easy to refute.
(...)
Furthermore, carbon compounds derived from inorganic sources ARE chemically distinguishable from those in organic sources. Their formula and structures can be identical, but their isotopic compositions are distinct. Many isotope studies have shown that petroleum is derived from biotic sources. I can supply references to those who are interested.

Best,
Chris

Please do, if you provide such links it may stop the abiotic oil cornucopians. :lol:

Welcome to this site, have some pie.

doodlebug2 · **Joined:** Sun May 25, 2008 12:00 am **Posts:** 57

I read today that some expert said Oil is Abiotic, It forms in the Earth's mantle and reproduces. As a newby here, I was saying to myself, "This can't be true, how would it (oil) form thius way". Have others heard this or is mumbo-jumbo.

3aidlillahi · **Joined:** Tue Mar 25, 2008 12:00 am **Posts:** 1573

It's mumbo-jumbo. Fact: Oil and gas only occur in sedimentary formations which are where organic materials are/were. Abiotics claim that oil and gas is formed deep inside the Earth. But if that were the case, wouldn't oil/gas be found in igneous rocks almost exclusively, rather than in sedimentary rocks? Wouldn't Hawai'i, Iceland and other volcanic "hotspots" be the major oil producers then? Instead hydrocarbons are often found in places with the least amount of volcanic and even tectonic activity: Texas, GOM, Middle East, North Sea, and so on.

Micki · **Posted:** Wed Jul 30, 2008 5:14 am

A search for 'aibiotic' in this forum would have been appropriate before posting as this has been discussed extensively.

ROCKMAN · **Posted:** Wed Jul 30, 2008 5:33 am

doodlebug2,

Abiotic hydrocarbon theory was long promoted by the Russians. They were (maybe still are) drilling a very deep well looking for some in far eastern Russia. You might try searching Russian oil geology if you're still interested.

Niagara · **Posted:** Wed Jul 30, 2008 5:49 am

Carlhole · **Joined:** Mon Jul 05, 2004 12:00 am **Posts:** 3977

Abiogenic Origin of Hydrocarbons: An Historical Overview by Dr. Geoffrey Lasby [PDF]

Quote:

Abstract: The two theories of abiogenic formation of hydrocarbons, the Russian-Ukrainian theory of deep, abiotic petroleum origins and Thomas Gold's deep gas theory, have been considered in some detail. Whilst the Russian-Ukrainian theorywas portrayed as being scientifically rigorous in contrast to the biogenic theory which was thought to be littered with invalid assumptions, this applies only to the formation of the higher hydrocarbons from methane in the upper mantle. In most other aspects, in particular the influence of the oxidation state of the mantle on the abundance of methane, this rigour is lacking especially when judged against modern criteria as opposed to the level of understanding in the 1950s to 1980s when this theory
was at its peak.

Thomas Gold's theory involves degassing of methane from the mantle and the formation of higher hydrocarbons from methane in the upper layers of the Earth's crust. However, formation of higher hydrocarbons in the upper layers of the Earth's crust occurs only as a result of Fischer-Tropsch-type reactions in the presence of hydrogen gas but is otherwise not possible on thermodynamic grounds. This theory is therefore invalid. Both theories have been overtaken by the increasingly sophisticated understanding of the modes of formation of hydrocarbon deposits in nature.

jlw61 · **Posted:** Wed Jul 30, 2008 6:37 am

And while I don't believe in it, I use this comparison to explain why it's worthless even if it is true.

Say there is about 30 Trillion barrels of oil that is locked into the earth (that's way, way, way above any estimate that I'm aware of).

Let's say all of this oil has been produced in the last 10 million years through this Abiotic process.

30,000,000,000,000 / 10,000,000 = 3,000,000 barrels produced a year or about 8,200 barrels a day.

Again, so what? We consume about 85,000,000 barrels a day or over 1,000 times what the earth might be producing!

Nickel · **Posted:** Wed Jul 30, 2008 6:59 am

jlw61 wrote:

30,000,000,000,000 / 10,000,000 = 3,000,000 barrels produced a year or about 8,200 barrels a day.

Again, so what? We consume about 85,000,000 barrels a day or over 1,000 times what the earth might be producing!

I don't believe it either, but saying "so what" is kind of daffy. Look at it from the flip side. How many years of development for fusion, wind power infrastructure, and solar power efficiency research would that much oil, or even a tenth of it, buy us? It's not healthy, I know; but the time do something about it was back when "Good Morning, Starshine" was on the hit parade, and we didn't, so here we are...

THE Abiotic Oil Thread (merged)

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