[Candor7]

This is good news. It means oil is a renewable resource.

I'll keep checking my back 40.

[Alter Kaker]

This is good news. It means oil is a renewable resource.

No it doesn't. On the contrary, it indicates that oil isn't a renewable resource. No one has suggested a method for rapid oil formation --- without question we are burning it much faster than it is being created, if indeed it is being created.

[demlosers]

studies showing abundant methane of a non-biologic nature

Yeah, this was suggested and pointed out during the Titan/Saturn threads when the probe was dropped.

[beaver fever]

"This is good news. It means oil is a renewable resource.

I'll keep checking my back 40."

It doesn't matter dick how methane is produced on Titan.

It does matter how that it is produced on Earth and we are just beginning to understand that process.

Even at that, methane may not be capable of being economically extracted in offshore underwater environments on the Earth.

Mining methane on Titan is science fiction and economically laughable.

[Ursus arctos horribilis]

The abiotic theory has been around for decades. When I worked in the oil patch before retiring over a decade ago. it was heresy to even breach the subject.

[Cvengr]

When I worked in the gas industry, methane was still CH4. I really don't quite get how one would positively assert CH4 from a biological process is discernible from other sources when collected and sampled from large reservoirs.

[PeoplesRepublicOfWashington]

This is good news. It means oil is a renewable resource.

How so?

[muir_redwoods]

"This is good news. It means oil is a renewable resource. "

No more renewable than our supply of any mineral but naturally occuring and, most importantly, accessible anywhere one is willing to drill deep enough. The advanage Saudi Arabia has is the oil is relatively accessible there. If it is a naturally occuring mineral there is a good chance that the "oil stratum" might be available from any starting point.