Titan's Surface Organics Surpass Oil Reserves on Earth

NASA ^ | February 13th, 2008

[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.

...

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.

[Jewbacca]

There are plenty of comets around with H20.

Sounds like the fuel source for getting the hell out of this solar system.

[GonzoGOP]

The universe is an amazing place, and our own backyard has what we need to explore it.

But the billion dollar question, if you could only go to one, which would it be?
(1) Dune buggies on the Moon?
(2) Climbing Olympus Mons?
(3) Ice Fishing on Europa?
(4) Methanesking on Titan?
(5) Ballooning on Jupiter?

Or we could just spend the money on another failed Obama stimulus program and be stuck in LEO forever :)

[MHGinTN]

You must have missed his last second pass which won the game this weekend ...

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

Since the mass of the earth is finite, the amount of hydrocarbons must be finite. We could say, that if the aboitic theory is correct, there is no practical limit on the amount of available hydrocarbons.

Hell, we have over 400 year known supply in the U.S. now, if the politicians would let us exploit them.

[aruanan]

Geez, I remember reading this back in junior high science fiction books decades ago.

[The Comedian]

Dinosaurs on Titan ping.

LOL. Beautiful.

This could go places...

Frowning takes 68 muscles.
Smiling takes 6.
Pulling this trigger takes 2.
I'm lazy.

[Red Badger]

Essentially, yes.............

[Red Badger]

Rest In Peace, old friend, your work is finished.....

If you want ON or OFF the DIESEL ”KnOcK” LIST just FReepmail me.....

This is a fairly HIGH VOLUME ping list on some days.....

[RinaseaofDs]

There is more talk about sending a mission to land on an asteroid, perhaps for this reason - looking for water perhaps.

[WOSG]

“organics” they call it - on a lifeless planet. hmmmmm.

From now on, I will tell my greenie friends that my car runs on “aged organic biofuels”.

[aruanan]

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.

That's because certain geological formations will capture and pool petroleum. It doesn't follow, though, that whatever caused these formations was contemporaneous with the formation of the petroleum. Also many of these formations are of such permeability that they could never have held the petroleum for as long as it was supposed to have been there under the pressure it exerts. In addition, the discovery that many supposedly depleted fields and formations have refilled and refilled at a rate fast enough to watch in real time indicate that the petroleum is formed elsewhere and is simply trapped by those formations.

In addition, petroleum lacks many chemical signatures that it should have if of biologic origin and contains many chemical signatures that it shouldn't have if of biologic origin.

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

You seem to be assuming that you can capture comets and recover water for free. In order to get oygen from H2O, you first have to supply energy. When you then use the oxygen to burn, you wind up with some CO2 and some H2O + enery.

H20 + energy => H (discard?) + 0

HnCm + O2 => H20 + C02 + energy (n,m = integers)

I don’t think you get any net energy out of this process, though I suppose you could use solar energy or atomic reactors to separate out the oxygen from the free water. I’m not too optimistic.

[Jewbacca]

Just nudge the right one a bit closer to the Sun with a nuke.

[aruanan]

For a review on the subject go to Abiogenic Origin of Hydrocarbons: An Historical Overview. Geoffrey P. GLASBY. RESOURCE GEOLOGY, vol. 56, no. 1, 85–98, 2006.

[Pistolshot]

I'd have to pick #3.

The possibility of landing some new type of sea bass appeals to me.

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

Do you mean nudge a comet closer to the sun? The H2O would just boil off and not be recoverable on Titan, would it? And you still need to separate out all that H and O.

[Jewbacca]

1. I am picturing removing hydrocarbons from Titan, say with a space elevator (much more practical out there where a broken cable would not be such a target for muslim savages).

2. Capture steam or (just recover liquid water) from asteroid, or perhaps cut to the chase with O2/O3 if found. I agree some sort of cracking of h20 would be needed if only water could be found, probably solar or heat generated electric -— the reaction between O2 and any given hydrocarbon being considerably more energetic than with hydrogen.

Specifically, at any pressure, hydrogen gas carries less energy per volumethan methane (typical natural gas). At 800 bar pressure gaseous hydrogen reaches the volumetric energy density of liquid hydrogen. But the volumetric energy density of methane at 800 bar is higher by factor 3.2. The common liquid energy carriers methanol, propane and octane (representing gasoline) surpass liquid hydrogen by factors 1.7 to 3.4, respectively.

But at 800 bar or in the liquid state hydrogen must be contained in some pretty fancy stuff.

In short, this is a lot of potential energy found out in space where it can be gotten.

[Turborules]

Amen to Dead things gone by by in time long long ago...the fact that Oil is generated by the earths magma core has been known longer than climate change.

My wonderful biology professor in High School, also a long time ago, stated from his studies, that peat and coal may all be from surface organic matter to include flora and fauna, but that the quantity of oil supply is so large as to make it impossible for the age of dinosaurs to have created it all the Oil...

...and today we find more gas and oil in hugh supply almost daily, it always takes a skeptic scientist with a clear mind, to see truth... to that peak oil has been in the interest of both sides of the argument, Oil Corp. want limited supply for higher profits, earthers for reduced growth...we need to real science to guide public policy...

[Turborules]

you are making very logical points about space exploration for raw materials, and fuel, if we are to believe the alarmist about all the shortages of materials and sources of power here on earth, yet time and time again the shortages are not realized... because, we have all the resources right here on earth in abundance...Water, we have all the water we will ever need, and with atomic power all the energy we need to clean the water, to pump the water and to recover all the minerals, as well as split the H20 into H & O...

Oil and coal can be used to make plastic and carbon products to replace steel, etc. etc. we really have no limit on our options to flourish, and grow, and populate this earth...our only limit to solve mans problems is self imposed by small, selfish greedy minds, that do not know God! and how he has made us in his image to be creative and to create!

No Limit on our possibilities!