Energy: Are Oil And Natural Gas Renewable?
Unbeknownst to Westerners, there have actually been for quite some time now two competing theories concerning the origins of petroleum. One theory claims that oil is an organic 'fossil fuel' deposited in finite quantities near the planet's surface. The other theory claims that oil is continuously generated by natural processes in the Earth's magma.
One of the world's leading advocates for the theory that hydrocarbons are renewable is Dr. Thomas Gold who contends that oil is not a limited resource, and that oil, natural gas and coal, are not so-called 'fossil fuels.'
See: If hydrocarbons are renewable- then is "Peak Oil" a fraud?
Two further commentaries on the matter of oil exploration and discovered but capped oil reserves follow here, as forwarded and commented by Michael Robb:
From: "Michael Robb"
Subject: Oil wells, or oil wars - King George III or his epigone george II
Date: Mon, 5 Sep 2005The first of these two short commentaries is a publication notice of another oil paper; it seems promising, though skirting the surface of the primordial abiotic theory of oil origin; the one which is being used by certain deep drillers; and is observable in wells off the US Gulf Coast.
The second report describes the oil well capping practice of new finds by the drillers in US. Lindsey Williams wrote an interesting expose of this practice concerning the great finds in the Prudhoe Bay in Alaska. He was there and worked in daily contact with the men on the job and many of the executives, and the capping practice is well corroborated.
The two articles prove there is no shortage of oil, only a business strategy of investing in inventory.
If one wishes to complain about this as being unfair, immoral, unjust, or ill-mannered, he may need to find something illegal about it first: fertile fields for finding grounds and standing of some consequence may exist in the political entrepreneurership expected to pay off for the firms practicing this inventory speculation.
What does this mean? It means one could make the case that firms will not make large investments in drilling exploration and discovery for mere inventory speculation UNLESS they have good reason to believe the political contributions they make will pay off in definite rewards. What rewards are these?
First of all would be emphasis on disruptive foreign and military policies and widespread warmongering that will be certain to cause fear and panic in the oil markets driving prices upward in spite of plentiful supply.
And, if scare talk is not enough to satisfy certain price expectations (that one would expect to be made known as a performance guarantee measurement in return for the political contribution) full force mobilization will be enacted by executive order to put additional pressure on prices due to its radical effect on normal supply lines.
If that is still not enough, there is always the option to announce by another executive order the increase in the petroleum reserve, and/or the advisability of starting another war (Iran).
Will there ever be another election that is about doing something good for the country, instead of merely instituting oil industry cartel devices and dirty work. There is no evidence for it. Not when people are comfortable with a political regime based entirely on magnitudes of lies, distortions, half-truths; coupled with thorough hierarchical corruption, matched in decadence only by the profound historical ignorance of the populace.
This is why more and more people have come to the realization that gov't causes more harm than good, and is more trouble than it's worth. And the sooner we get back to our traditional principles of law and liberty, the better off all will be. This day of "The Big Dog gets the Meat" must end at once.
We will be much better off going back to the original configuration of rights and responsibilities that held high the principles of life, liberty, property and justice; it was a time when gov't was expected to obey the law as well as the populace, and it did. That was a prescription for peace and prosperity whereupon remarkable achievements were made.
We have an example to return to; or we have an example to learn from in moving ahead. We could simply disband and abandon the national gov't entirely, since it has clearly become an obstacle to peace and prosperity, not only here at home, but at the empire level to the far abroad.
Self government means allowing whatever governing and policing functions that choose to arise privately.
When you think about it, what is there that anybody would ever want or need that couldn't be found in the Yellow Pages (expanded now by the worldwide web)?
That would include high quality professional legal, judicial, dispute resolution and jurisdictional services, private police patrol and protection, and territorial security protection services; offered, most likely, by firms more interested in the protection and even insuring of life and property (than by the current gang of pretenders who are clearly only interested in the destruction of life and property; you hear them bragging incessantly about practicing it always, and everywhere).
The oil wars of the 20 year bush-clinton Mercantile Cartel can mark the time to defeat the tyrannical empire of mis-management and non-representation, -- the same way the antics of King George III and his Mercantile controlled Parliament marked the time and cause for defeat of the great power of the world in our ancestor's day.
Two hundred and thirty years is an appropriate time to realign with our senses, don't you think so?
Interestingly, two hundred and thirty three (2008) is a prime number in the famous psychological-sociological natural number sequence (each number is equal to the sum of the two previous numbers in the sequence) seen so often and everywhere in beginning numbers, the larger numbers can only apply to consequences of a more momentous dimension and consequence. The sequence is often seen in application to events of very great significance and importance.
Petroleum geology
Raining hydrocarbons in the GulfBelow the Gulf of Mexico, hydrocarbons flow upward through an intricate network of conduits and reservoirs. They start in thin layers of source rock and, from there, buoyantly rise to the surface. On their way up, the hydrocarbons collect in little rivulets, and create temporary pockets like rain filling a pond. Eventually most escape to the ocean. And, this is all happening now, not millions and millions of years ago, says Larry Cathles, a chemical geologist at Cornell University.
"We're dealing with this giant flow-through system where the hydrocarbons are generating now, moving through the overlying strata now, building the reservoirs now and spilling out into the ocean now," Cathles says.
He's bringing this new view of an active hydrocarbon cycle to industry, hoping it will lead to larger oil and gas discoveries. By matching the chemical signatures of the oil and gas with geologic models for the structures below the seafloor, petroleum geologists could tap into reserves larger than the North Sea, says Cathles, who presented his findings at the meeting of the American Chemical Society in New Orleans on March 27.
This canvas image of the study area shows the top of salt surface (salt domes are spikes) in the Gas Research Institute study area and four areas of detailed study (stratigraphic layers). The oil fields seen here are Tiger Shoals, South Marsh Island 9 (SMI 9), the South Eugene Island Block 330 area (SEI 330), and Green Canyon 184 area (Jolliet reservoirs). In this area, 125 kilometers by 200 kilometers, Larry Cathles of Cornell University and his team estimate hydrocarbon reserves larger than those of the North Sea. Image by Larry Cathles.
Cathles and his team estimate that in a study area of about 9,600 square miles off the coast of Louisiana, source rocks a dozen kilometers down have generated as much as 184 billion tons of oil and gas ˜ about 1,000 billion barrels of oil and gas equivalent. "That's 30 percent more than we humans have consumed over the entire petroleum era," Cathles says. "And that's just this one little postage stamp area; if this is going on worldwide, then there's a lot of hydrocarbons venting out."
According to a 2000 assessment from the Minerals Management Service (MMS), the mean undiscovered, conventionally recoverable resources in the Gulf of Mexico offshore continental shelf are 71 billion barrels of oil equivalent. But, says Richie Baud of MMS, not all those resources are economically recoverable and they cannot be directly compared to Cathles' numbers, because "our assessment only includes those hydrocarbon resources that are conventionally recoverable whereas their study includes unconventionally recoverable resources." Future MMS assessments, Baud says, may include unconventionally recoverable resources, such as gas hydrates.
Of that huge resource of naturally generated hydrocarbons, Cathles says, more than 70 percent have made their way upward through the vast network of streams and ponds, venting into the ocean, at a rate of about 0.1 ton per year. The escaped hydrocarbons then become food for bacteria, helping to fuel the oceanic food web. Another 10 percent of the Gulf's total hydrocarbons are hidden in the subsurface, representing about 60 billion barrels of oil and 374 trillion cubic feet of gas that could be extracted. The remaining hydrocarbons, about 20 percent, stay trapped in the source strata.
Driving the venting process is the replacement of deep, carbonate-sourced Jurassic hydrocarbons by shale-sourced, Eocene hydrocarbons. Determining the ratio between the younger and older hydrocarbons, based on their chemical signatures, is key to understanding the migration paths of the oil and gas and the potential volume waiting to be tapped. "If the Eocene source matures and its chemical signature is going to be seen near the surface, it's got to displace all that earlier generated hydrocarbon ˜ that's the secret of getting a handle on this number," Cathles says.
Another important key to understanding hydrocarbon migration is "gas washing," Cathles adds. A relatively new process his research team discovered in the Gulf work, gas washing refers to the regular interaction of oil with large amounts of natural gas. In the northern area of Cathles' study area, he estimates that gas carries off 90 percent of the oil.
Ed Colling, senior staff geologist at ChevronTexaco, says that identifying the depth at which gas washing occurs could be extremely useful in locating deeper oil reserves. "If you make a discovery, by back tracking the chemistry and seeing where the gas washing occurred, you have the opportunity to find deeper oil," he says.
Using such information in combination with the active hydrocarbon flow model Cathles' team produced and already existing 3-D seismic analyses could substantially improve accuracy in drilling for oil and gas, Colling says. ChevronTexaco, which funds Cathles' work through the Global Basins Research Network, has been working to integrate the technologies. (Additional funding comes from the Gas Research Institute.)
"All the players are looking for bigger reserves than what's on shore," Colling says. And deep water changes the business plan. With each well a multibillion dollar investment, the discovery must amount to at least several hundred million barrels of oil and gas for the drilling to be economic. Chemical signatures and detailed basin models are just more tools to help them decide where to drill, he says.
"A big part of the future of exploration is being able to effectively use chemical information," Cathles says. Working in an area with more oil by at least a factor of two than the North Sea, he says he hopes that his models will help companies better allocate their resources. But equally important, Cathles says, is that his work is shifting the way people think about natural hydrocarbon vent systems ˜ from the past to the present.
Lisa M. Pinsker
- - -09-04-05 03:07 PM
In 2000 I worked in the Gulf of Mexico for two different OSV companies that provided support services to the "oil patch". The two companies did very different work for the oil companies so I got to get an eye full.
The first thing that I'd like to expose is the fact that nearly all of the new wells in the gulf are immediately capped off and forgotten about. I saw well after well brought in only to see them capped off and left. Oil or natural gas it didn't matter. I asked a couple of petroleum engineers what exactly was going on and I was told by both (they worked for different companies) that there was no intention of bringing that oil to market until the "price was right".
That wasn't the only bogus thing that was happening. Seismic technology had developed to the point that they could not only tell the companies where the oil was but how much oil was there. All they had to do was go out and stick a straw in and suck it out. They didn't. Once again, the oil prices weren't right. When they are ready and want it they know right where to go get it.
Another lie I'd like to lay to rest is the one about all of the "terrible damage" done to the oil platforms and rigs in the gulf during hurricanes. This is how they justify the price spikes that occur because of lost production. If anyone cared to see this for themselves they could travel the entire Gulf of Mexico in search of destroyed oil rigs and they won't find any- not one. There is a damed good reason that this is so and that reason is that they are built so well that a hurricane can't touch them.
Think about it . If you're going to build something in an area where you are guaranteed to see 150-180 mph winds, storm swells up to 60-80 feet and it will happen year after year, how would you build them? Out of chicken wire and duct tape? Hell no and they don't. The platforms are designed to offer almost no wind resistance and the majority of platforms are at least 120 feet above the water level. They are built so well that several of them have suffered direct hits by watercraft of all sizes with little harm. They were damaged but they were far from destroyed.
The reason that I know how well they are constructed is because for awhile I worked with a company that salvaged derelict oil rigs. When the wells ran dry and the oil companies didn't need them any more the company that I worked for would buy them, take them apart, haul them back to land, refurbish and then resell them. It is an incredible process to take these things apart because they are constructed so well. I've worked on the boats that hauled explosives to the job sites to speed the disassembly process.
Another lie regards the "burp" in the supply line. Oil companies are as stingy as any on earth and one of the ways that they cut costs is to eliminate the number of people that they need on a rig to keep it running. Most active wells are totally automated and require almost no human intervention. The oil companies have guys that travel from rig to rig via helicopter to check on things periodically but most never see a human on them unless something goes wrong or some maintenance is needed. During a hurricane about the only rigs that need to be evacuated are the drill rigs that have workers on them. The active wells and pumping stations are controlled by remote control from the shore and if it weren't for the evacuation of land based personnel from areas where there is danger from the hurricanes these things could continue to pump right through the worst hurricane.
So, regarding a burp in the supply chain there shouldn't be one and that is because most of the oil from the Gulf of Mexico goes to the refinerys at Port Arthur or other points in Texas and the tankers from the middle east go to Galveston to offload.
When oil moves across the Atlantic during hurricane season the tanker traffic may have to kill some time to let a storm get ahead of them but once it does they haul ass right behind it. Anyone who has seen how fast an oil tanker can move in open water will tell you that they don't dawdle around. Most of them can move around 30-40 knots and for a ship that size that baby is moving on. The only reason they would have to kill any more time would be if a hurricane suddenly changed course and was headed for Galveston. So far this year that hasn't happened. So why the "break" in supply?
Everything that we hear about oil from the oil companies is a big fat lie. Have we hit "peak oil" as a good many insist that we have? I'll make a wager with anyone who would care to take the bet. I bet that when oil hits $100 a barrel (I have a hunch that's the target price) there will be no shortage. Any takers?
Denny Meredith
Louisville, Ky.
USAOriginals on http://www.elitetrader.com/
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See also:
Discovery backs theory oil not 'fossil fuel'
A study published in Science Magazine today presents new evidence supporting the abiotic theory for the origin of oil, which asserts oil is a natural product the Earth generates constantly rather than a "fossil fuel" derived from decaying ancient forests and dead dinosaurs.The lead scientist on the study – Giora Proskurowski of the School of Oceanography at the University of Washington in Seattle – says the hydrogen-rich fluids venting at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean in the Lost City Hydrothermal Field were produced by the abiotic synthesis of hydrocarbons in the mantle of the earth.
The abiotic theory of the origin of oil directly challenges the conventional scientific theory that hydrocarbons are organic in nature, created by the deterioration of biological material deposited millions of years ago in sedimentary rock and converted to hydrocarbons under intense heat and pressure.
BLACK-GOLD BLUES
'Fossil fuel' theory takes hit with NASA finding
New study shows methane on Saturn's moon Titan not biological
NASA scientists are about to publish conclusive studies showing abundant methane of a non-biologic nature is found on Saturn's giant moon Titan, a finding that validates a new book's contention that oil is not a fossil fuel.
The Peak Oil Deception: Squeezing Energy for Profit
Vdeo: The Energy Non CrisisThis is one of a series of 8 videos about Peak Oil - interesting ...
You can find links to the rest on the YouTube page that has this video.
Natural gas inhabited by unusual specialists
The hydrocarbons ethane, propane and butane – as well as the main component, methane – are the major constituents of natural gas. Biological processes may lead to the degradation of these hydrocarbons in underground petroleum reservoirs and other geological habitats. The investigations showed that the bacteria employ an unprecedented biochemical mechanism for transforming what are essentially unreactive hydrocarbons into reactive metabolites which may then be further oxidised to carbon dioxide.
Evolution of Gas, Oil and Coal
This article by Alexander Alan Scarborough which was published in ALTERNATIVE ENERGY SOURCES VI Volume 3 Wind/Ocean/Nuclear/Hydrogen, has some detail on the theory that there is an ongoing, constant renewal of hydrocarbons inside the earth. According to Scarborough, "the new energy fuels theory (EFT) explains the formation of fuels (and all matter) by the logical progression of the transformation of energy particles into atoms, into gaseous molecules, then into liquids and solids via molecular chain-building processes."
Fossils From Animals And Plants Are Not Necessary For Crude Oil And Natural Gas, Swedish Researchers Find
Researchers at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Stockholm have managed to prove that fossils from animals and plants are not necessary for crude oil and natural gas to be generated. The findings are revolutionary since this means, on the one hand, that it will be much easier to find these sources of energy and, on the other hand, that they can be found all over the globe."Using our research we can even say where oil could be found in Sweden," says Vladimir Kutcherov, a professor at the Division of Energy Technology at KTH.
posted by Sepp Hasslberger on Friday September 2 2005
updated on Thursday October 29 2009URL of this article:
http://www.newmediaexplorer.org/sepp/2005/09/02/energy_are_oil_and_natural_gas_renewable.htm
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