Posted on 11/30/2009 10:29:59 AM PST by Halfmanhalfamazing
Saturn's orange moon Titan has hundreds of times more liquid hydrocarbons than all the known oil and natural gas reserves on Earth, according to new data from NASA's Cassini spacecraft. The hydrocarbons rain from the sky, collecting in vast deposits that form lakes and dunes.
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Cassini has mapped about 20 percent of Titan's surface with radar. Several hundred lakes and seas have been observed, with each of several dozen estimated to contain more hydrocarbon liquid than Earth's oil and gas reserves. The dark dunes that run along the equator contain a volume of organics several hundred times larger than Earth's coal reserves.
No drilling necessary!
Just ‘suck it up’!
:)
I heard the Arabs are blaming the Jews for trying to steal Titan’s oil from them.
T. Boone Pickens needs to dump his stock on windmills and invest in interplanetary oil freighters......
Earth First! (We’ll mine the other planets later).
Yeah, but again the democrats will outlaw sucking, unless you're practicing politics as a member of their party.
I knew Vince Young was good...but damn!
first, I put up a space station high above Texas, then I lower a hose down to the ground. The space tankers will bring the oil from titan to my space station and I will pour it down the hose. Near the bottom I will have the oil flow spin turbines to make electricity.
Gas will be cheap and big V-8’s will be king again.
The universe is an amazing place, and our own backyard has what we need to explore it.
And Titanian Mooselimbs are just waiting for us to come and rape their resources and corrupt their culture.
I heared that the tanker Nostromo was heading to Titan as we speak.I just hope the crew gets home safely.
Anyone know of a book explaining how, admittedly theoretically, the earths’ deposits of petroleum were developed from the remains of living plants and animals in such massive quantities, and how these deposits came to be concentrated in certain location deep within the earth?
Is this one of those “Just So” stories that we know “intuitively” to be a true explanation, and therefore do not question? I have recently begun to question it, but certainly do not have an alternative to offer.
Stem molecules?
He’ll figure out a way to tow Titan into low earth orbit, then a way to tap that oil.
“Any thinking person has to realize that the “oil is dead dinosaurs” theory is a fairy tale.”
Maybe because nobody (who knows what they’re talking about) has ever claimed that? The conventional thinking is that oil is formed from ancient deposits of algae, plankton, and other microscopic sea life. One of the main reasons for thinking this is due to the close relationship between some of the complex molecules typically found in oil and those found in algae, such as (IIRC) chlorophyll.
It’s possible, of course, that oil is of abiotic origin, but the conventional geological theories of oil’s origin seem to have been quite useful in finding oil and gas deposits.
The ratio of Hydrogen to Carbon in the Universe is about 10,000:1. Hydrocarbons are relatively rare.
If you want to exploit Titan's hydrocarbons you still need to carry all your own oxygen. If there was any oxygen around, it would have already reacted to with all those delicous hydrocarbons to make water and CO2.
Or Barney Frank.
90 percent of geologists believe oil is finite and made from decayed biomass and animals. However 10 percent think it is abiotic process, where oil is generated by the earth and not necessarily finite. You need to develop technologies to drill deeper into the earth to find this oil. The Soviets subscribe to this theory and many of their oil fields are deep drill wells. If oil is found on Titan then the biomass and dead animal theory needs to be revisited. It may also demonstrate that oil may be generated by the planet and not finite. Has implication on oil prices and oil company profits if this theory is true.
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