Bil Ryan , of Project Camelot/Avalon
Dr Bill Deagle.
I think Simmons and others have picked this up and incorporated it into their Doomsday script!
And here is another one:
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Listening to it....this has the casing blown out of the well as Simmons says....
HMMMMMMM
There are a few suspensions of disbelief needed to even make a good 'B' movie out of this. THis is presented in blue to prevent misquotes and mosconceptions:
One: You have to believe in abiotic oil. Something far from proven, never found, and in the instances people cite as 'proof' pretty easily explained as a rule. But once you get over the hurdle of believing in something there is no definitive evidence for, you can have the limitless supply of oil from the center of the Earth you need for step two...
Step two involves envisioning an oil reservoir like a magma chamber beneath a caldera.
This allows two plot lines: endless pressure from the center of the Earth blowing up a big balloon, or A big, open cavity full of oil or gas, which supports a roof, and once enough leaks out, the roof collapses. While that works with a caldera and magma, it isn't the case with oil and gas. The only big, open cavities full of oil or gas are caverns in salt hollowed out by solution mining for the purpose of storing that oil and gas for later use. The ordinary reservoir rock for oil and gas (to trot out one of my favorite examples) is just the space in between particles in rock composed of grains or shell fragments, and while sometimes enhanced by solution passsageways between the spaces and fractures in the rock, has more in common with a glass full of marbles than an open cavern.
There are rare exceptions where there is oil or gas found in what is known as a paleokarst, and I have worked in areas where this happens (think old cave systems full of oil, buried below a caprock), but the caverns would be there at depth with or without the oil--they are stable, if oversized pores in limestone.
By combining misconceptions with a theory which has only been used to pump investors (abiotic oil), the image of the yellowstone caldera can be combined with the blowout in the Gulf of Mexico to produce a horrorshow scenario worthy of late nights with that special someone at the Drive-in (the movie? what movie? (8^D))
The big question is one of why generate panic (or try to) when the problem appears to be under control?
For that, we have to dig a little deeper (maybe).
Speculation on creating panic may be as simple as getting website hits to continue a little longer so the ad rates can stay up. $$$$$ talks, and BS can bring that in, especially in a day and age where scientific (particularly Geological) education is often lacking and crackpot theories are a dime a dozen on the web.
Notoriety and name recognition sell books, speaking appearances (with juicy honoraria) and other wealth producing venues, so I'd say the bottom line is that panic sells, it is a distraction from the machinations of a government run amok, and people are hungry for something, anything to draw them away from their day-to-day troubles in a fouled up economy.
Not to be confused with The Avalon Project, Project Avalon actually has a decent treatment of the issue on their blog, Project Avalon (scroll down to the July 20 post where they actually refute Simmons), albeit as a matter of setting some things straight.
Read there and decide.
Me, I"m sticking with what I know after years of formal geological education, 31 years of experience on wellsites in the Western US, and the examination of drilled samples and cores from well over a million feet of wellbore (more like 1.5 million). Out of all that, less than 50 feet was cave (paleokarst--no samples, needless to say), and no well drilled on the abiotic model has, to my knowledge, ever produced any oil from sources not later proven to be biogenic.
Laughable ass, this guy.