I think Gold’s ideas have merit. I have his first edition book and only recently purchased the 2nd edition. I’ll be curious to see if he’s amended any of his ideas. In his first edition he claimed his ideas also applied to coal. That I can’t see! Coal has fossils in it, maybe anthracite but that’s just a maybe. Also technically his theories aren’t really abiotic (Abiotic without biology.). His hypothesis is petroleum formation comes from geological processes which work on thermphile microbial colonies that live in between rock grains, in fissures, & in volcanic vents etc. (They’re also heavy metal tolerant! Normally toxic to other life!) Similar colonies live in deep ocean volcanic vents, they can even withstand water temperatures well above boiling. Drillers almost always complain about bacterial contamination in their bore holes. That was another pice of evidence he cited. All in all if you look at his arguments for petroleum origin is not that different from the standard explanation. (No dinosaurs!) Just ancient microbes, algae, krill, etc. turned into petroleum by geological processes. His key difference it’s on-going and much much faster than the older explanation. The Russians give considerable weight to his ideas. The US not so much. Anyway he’s dead and I don’t know of anyone in the US that has picked his ball up.
There’s a video which claims to prove coal can be made from wood easily and quickly. There was a mountainside lined with timber which was dumped into a lake through a huge mudslide. A couple of years later divers examined the wood in the lake as it was calcifying (or something similar) and resembling coal. They did lab experiments and made rudimentary coal from wood in them. It’s on YouTube so it has to be true.