Hydrocarbons in the deep earth - (Renewable? Maybe..National Academy of Science weights in)

National Academy of Science ^ | April 11, 2011 | Leonardo Spanua, Davide Donadioa, Detlef Hohlc, Eric Schweglerd, and Giulia Gallia

[dila813]

A new computational study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reveals how hydrocarbons may be formed from methane in deep Earth at extreme pressures and temperatures.

The thermodynamic and kinetic properties of hydrocarbons at high pressures and temperatures are important for understanding carbon reservoirs and fluxes in Earth.

The work provides a basis for understanding experiments that demonstrated polymerization of methane to form high hydrocarbons and earlier methane forming reactions under pressure.

Hydrocarbons (molecules composed of the elements hydrogen and carbon) are the main building block of crude oil and natural gas. Hydrocarbons contribute to the global carbon cycle (one of the most important cycles of the Earth that allows for carbon to be recycled and reused throughout the biosphere and all of its organisms).

[mewykwistmas]

So how fast is it renewed? Even if it’s renewed in hundreds of years (a nothing in grand scale) that doesn’t help us.

[Marine_Uncle]

In case you missed this one.

[dila813]

“rate of production” == that depends on man harvesting it ... doesn’t it?

What if we found out the quicker we harvest it, the more it produces?

The number one cause of peak oil theory is the EPA

[Smokin' Joe]

From the excerpt: We show that for T ≥ 2,000 K and P ≥ 4 GPa HCs higher than methane are energetically favored

I wonder how many people understand what 4 giga pascal is in terms of pressure, not to mention 2000 degrees Kelvin?

Needless to say, that's a wee bit more pressure than even an 'overpressured' oil reservoir, and just a tad hotter...

[Smokin' Joe]

Oil is being found in such numbers now that the numbers just don't add up

Let's clarify that a trifle. That 'found' oil is oil which is economical to extract. It has been where it is, we just lacked the technology to get it out of the ground and make money doing it. Even the USGS Bakken reserve estimates have been (significantly) revised upwards a couple of times, not because there is more oil there than there was 20 or 50 years ago, but because we can extract it, and in the process are learning how much was present in the first place.

Most "dry holes" have some oil or gas present, just not enough to pay for drilling and operating costs using the available technology. In light of technological changes and price increases, oil which was formerly not economical to produce has become so, especially if the wellbore already exists.

[Sun]

“OIL IS RENEWABLE!”

Of course it is!

Although I don’t know if it renews as fast as we use it, at least in some places.

[wolf78]

I’ve always wondered how it’s possible for oil to be the residue of dinosaurs if it’s a few miles under the earth’s surface.

The oil-dinosaur connection is either being used jokingly or as a strawman, no scientist actually believes that. Most oil is ancient zooplankton and algae - which is one of the reasons algae fuel is surprisingly similar to petroleum (which has any number of chemical compounds in it and not just long chains of hydrocarbons).

If life on earth dates back only a billion or so years, that’s not enough time to have enough sedimentary rock laid down on top of the dead organic matter to pile up several miles deep.

Any number of factors plays a role where the oil actually ends up, from plate tectonics to the type of rock. Still, on the grand scale the location of large oil fields correlates well with the location of ancient oceans.

I think coal is mainly the remains of dead organic matter, but not oil.

The formation of coal can almost be watched: moors turn into peat and peat slowly turns into lignite, then hard coal.

[MeganC]

I recall it was some Norwegian fellow who predicted a find of abiogenic oil in a place where traditional oil scientists said it would not be...and there it was. It’s not proof that oil is abiogenic, but it does indicate that oil can be found in more places than just where traditional experience expects it. Meaning we may have a lot more oil than was ever imagined.

[SunkenCiv]

Thomas Gold keyword:

• Hydrocarbons in the deep earth -- (Renewable? Maybe..National Academy of Science weights in)
• Hydrocarbons Deep Within Earth: New Computational Study Reveals How
• Hydrocarbons Could Form Deep In the Earth From Methane, Not Animal Remains
• Hydrocarbons in the deep earth (abiogenic)
• Bacteria devoured methane gas from gulf oil spill, scientists say
• Life is found in deepest layer of Earth's crust
• Study: Petroleum-eating microbes significantly reduced gulf oil plume ( Deepwater Horizon oilspill )
• New microbe discovered eating oil spill in Gulf
• Hydrocarbons In The Deep Earth?
• WHOI scientists find ancient asphalt domes off California coast (Maltenes?)
• Debunking the Myth of Peak Oil -- Why the Age of Cheap Oil is Far From Over
• Hidden Gas Source Could Speed Global Warming
• New research rejects 80-year theory of 'primordial soup' as the origin of life
• Much of the early methane rise can be attributed to the spreading of northern peatlands
• Abiotic Synthesis Of Methane: New Evidence Supports 19th-Century Idea On Formation Of Oil
• Scientists Find Black Gold Amidst Overlooked Data
• New evidence supports 19th century idea on formation of oil and gas
• Revolutionary discovery means world may not run out of crude
• Methane-derived hydrocarbons produced under upper-mantle conditions
• Fossil fuel: Now without the fossils-Just dig deeper, say boffins
• A Seismic Shift In Understanding How The Earth Got Its Gas
• Can Hydrocarbons Form in the Mantle Without Organic Matter?
• New research shows how oil gets stuck underground (Denmark)
• Methane-producing mineral discovered on Mars
• Half Of The Oil In The Ocean Bubbles Up Naturally From Seafloor
• Life found on Mars?
• BBC Audio: Dyson and Clarke (archive of BBC interviews with Freeman Dyson,Arthur C. Clarke & more!)
• Plumes of methane identified on Mars -- Finding could influence choice of landing site for Mars...
• One is the loneliest number for mine-dwelling bacterium
• At 2.8 km down, a 1-of-a-kind microorganism lives all alone [descende, Audax viator ...]
• Rare Microorganism That Produces Hydrogen May Be Key To Tomorrow's Hydrogen Economy
• Meet the Intraterrestrials
• Scientists Document Bustling Community Far Below Ocean Floor
• Dinosaur killer may have struck oil
• Titan Has More Oil Than Earth
• Titan Has More Oil Than Earth
• Titan Has More Oil Than Earth
• Titan's surface organics surpass oil reserves on Earth
• BLACK-GOLD BLUES Discovery backs theory oil not 'fossil fuel'
• Deep-ocean vents are a source of oil and gas (evidence of abiogenic hydrocarbons)
• Lost City pumps life-essential chemicals at rates unseen at typical black smokers
• Shedding light on deep-sea thermal vents
• Oil-eating bacteria make light work of heavy fuel
• Massive deep-water oil find in Brazil challenges technology
• Rebel with a Cause: The Optimistic Scientist
• The Origins of Peak Oil Doomerism
• If hydrocarbons are renewable- then is "Peak Oil" a fraud?
• CNBC Live: Earth Oil Supplies 3x Previous Estimates
• Prospecting for Oil? Look In an Asteroid Crater
• Plenty of Oil -- Just Drill Deeper
• Peak oil theorists don't know Jack ( It Could Increase U.S. Reserves by 50% )
• Marine Methane Heats Things Up
• Time Before Time [speculative cosmology]
• Gas escaping from ocean floor may drive global warming
• Oil Is Well: The Shortage Is A Myth, And Not A New One
• Does Deep Earth Host Untapped Fuel?
• UC Riverside Researchers Identify Clay as Major Contributor to Oxygen that Enabled Early Animal Life
• Perspective: India's next big business? (Oil)
• 'Fossil fuel' theory takes hit with NASA finding
• At 30,000 feet down, where were the dinosaurs?
• Shaped from clay [origin of life]
• Methane on Mars: the plot thickens
• LINK LISTING -- Space Propulsion Techniques and Technologies
• Hydrogen Production Method Could Bolster Fuel Supplies
• Fossil Fuels Made without Fossils
• About Coal: America's most abundant energy resource
• Abiotic Theory of Oil Formation
• Anything into Oil(solution to dependence on foregn oil?)
• Oil Without End?
• Early Water on Earth
• Research Finds Life 1000 Feet Beneath Ocean Floor
• Supplies of oil may be inexhaustible
• Oil Fields' Free Refill -- More oil than we thought (maybe)
• The world has more oil not less
• Scientist stirs the cauldron: oil, he says, is renewable
• Oil Czar and ally

[RayChuang88]

If that is true, then the entire concept of peak oil is officially DEAD.

Indeed, thanks to gas injection (steam or CO2), special liquid detergent injection and the new rock craking methods used in places like the Bakken formation, we're discovering that the amount of recoverable crude oil is VASTLY larger than anyone anticipated. In short, modern oil extraction technology has WAY out-ran the naysayers who said we'll run out of oil soon. And that's not including research into oil-laden algae to make diesel fuel, heating oil, gasoline and kerosene, which could make these motor fuels effectively available forever.

[de.rm]

It's always been dead, a dead lie, and they know it, but it's trotted out with every dog & pony show along with any 2 x 4 they can use to prop up the price.

It's working less & less though as more people become educated beyond the propaganda.

[Pikachu_Dad]

The earth also has tidal forces that generate a lot of heat.

[FreedomPoster]

Wow, that’s quite a list.

[SunkenCiv]

Yup, FR is the place. :”)

[DuncanWaring]

4 GPa - a little over a half-million PSI.

[rustbucket]

I recall it was some Norwegian fellow who predicted a find of abiogenic oil in a place where traditional oil scientists said it would not be...and there it was. It’s not proof that oil is abiogenic, but it does indicate that oil can be found in more places than just where traditional experience expects it. Meaning we may have a lot more oil than was ever imagined.

If I remember correctly, there was a very small amount of petroleum substance found at or near the bottom that well. The concentrations of some key identifier compounds in that substance used to be posted on the web along of the concentrations of the same compounds from the kerogen in shallower conventional possible source beds in the area (i.e., probably samples from surface outcrops of thermally immature shales, i.e., potential source beds not heated long enough to have formed oil).

Conventional identifier, or fingerprint, compounds in the petroleum material found by the well correlated with the shallow surface rock samples suggesting that the oil might have come from those potential source beds. How can that be, you ask? How did material from those shallow beds end up at the bottom of the well?

Well, it turns out that the well was drilled into an ancient meteor crater in Sweden, a site selected because the underlying basement granite would have been cracked and fractured enough by the meteor to allow deep abiotic oil to seep from the mantle. The meteor would have also fractured the overlying shallow source beds and probably driven some of it or possibly vaporized kerogen from those shallow beds deep in the earth where it subsequently recondensed. If some of that shallow source rock material was driven below where the temperature was high enough to generate oil over geologic time, it could explain why the "oil" found in the well correlated with the shallow, thermally immature surface samples.

In any event, the dab of oil found in Thomas Gold's well wasn't enough to justify any commercial development, whatever the source of the oil. Sweden did not follow up with further drilling in what was theoretically a great place to find abiotic oil welling up from below.

I looked at those identifier compounds from the well and surrounding overlying beds long, long ago. They could have indicated that the bottom oil was consistent with having come from a marine algae source bed, but it was so long ago I do not remember for sure. Sorry.

[zeestephen]

“.....oil eventually makes it to the surface if it is not trapped.”

---

Yes - The La Brea tar pits, the oil sands in Canada, and oil shale in Utah are all examples.

Off the top of my head, I recall that an astounding percentage - like 80% - of the earth's permeable oil has already reached the surface.

Most of it has dissolved, evaporated, or been consumed by micro organisms.

[SFC Chromey]

The Russians have been saying this for a while, we are just starting to catch on:

http://www.gasresources.net/index.htm

[Rumplemeyer]

save

[crusty old prospector]

The oil shale in Utah and Colorado (Green River Formation) is a little different in that it is the remains of a fresh water lake. Something similar to the Great Salt Lake but larger. The organic matter was laid down in yearly cycles like a tree ring such that you can count the layers and determine that it took about six million years to fill in. It is famous for its fossils and I have several fish in my office from there.