Posted on 03/18/2012 12:46:10 PM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
I've seen estimates of from 1 million to 5 million barrels of oil seeps from the Gulf of Mexico yearly.
I agree and firmly believe that the life cycles in the oceans, including plankton and higher life forms, involves everything falling to the sea bottom when it dies, and being processed by microbes, heat, and pressure into the black ooze.
I'm not so sure it takes hundreds of millions of years however. The pressure at the bottom of the ocean could very likely be able to force the oil to other locations including caverns or porous layers under dry land. This especially makes sense if our pumping oil creates a fluid imbalance and "new" oil seeps in to replace it.
Only to the intellectual elite, and we don't like them much around here.
= )
No it doesn’t take hundreds of millions of year, just saying it’s been going on that long. To be more accurate I should have said billion’s. For reasons I can’t explain it seems to be layered and example would be right on our ranch. We’re hitting 5 different levels of oil bearing sands from 2800 ft to 8500 ft, my only explanation would be dramatic changes in sea levels over billions of years.
Hate to burst your bubble, but the price of gasoline has nothing to do with how much or where oil is in the ground.
I've never considered myself intellectually elite but I do consider myself well schooled in the oil business, with over 40 years as a petroleum engineer. I also agree with the poster it does make us look uneducated in the field.
I’m sure that I’m not the only one who’s troubled that intellectual has somehow been spun into a pejorative. Once upon time, it was actually considered a positive trait to be smart in conservative circles.
I believe our oceans are a giant oil-making machine. Just think of the untapped resources out there in the way-deep.
How long before we have unmanned underwater exploration craft, like spacecraft, that will be able to scan and map the deep-sea topography and locate likely drilling sites?
The Deepwater Horizon blowout revealed some pretty incredible drilling technology as we watched at home on our computer monitors as the submarine robots capped the well.
Most of the people commenting on this thread need to put away the crack pipe and actually do some research about the occurrence and generation of hydrocarbons. Some of them sound like they failed junior high earth science. Oil and gas are being generated but at a rate that is too slow to be relevant to us. Not to mention that it takes millennium for it to migrate into a trap and be “concentrated” enough for us to produce. Oil, based on the human time scale, is a finite resource.
Abiogenic Oil is forever and the EnvironMentalists, even the GovernMental EnvironMentalists are deliberately trying to fool the American Consumer!!!
I never thought I'd see the day that the good people of this country would so systematically be led astray starting in K-12 government schools of indoctrination!!!
Even on this thread I see some who are unwilling to check beyond "CONventional Wisdom" and just accept rigid doctrines based on inadequate scientific proof!!!
“I would be something if it were discovered that below the moon’s surface were oil deposits created when the moon had enough oxygen to support these organisms below the surface.”
Careful, next you’ll be saying we should incentivize private companies exploring the moon and setting up a moon station. :)
We already know that there are enormous amounts of platinum on the moon, but some here on FR believe we should just let the Chinese and the Russians have all the moon’s resources.
The USSR was taken down. The Russian state was resurrected. US and Japanese oil field experts were hired to FIX the fields. That was done and now the Russians are back in business.
“and use it before we “bet the farm” that nature will replace at the rate we use...”
Even if we believe that it’s dead dinosaur pools,, or like some nervous nellies, that it is made far too slow to be “sustainable”,, so what?
If it is finite,, then that means the world isn’t fair, and we were lucky enough to live in the petroleum era. In 35 years, 100 years,, 250 years,, whatever, they will have to find a way to power their world.
I wish them luck, but i fail to see why it is my job to decide how they will cope 100 years hence,, or why we shouldnt use every drop we can find.
As it is truly exhauted, the market will make it 1000 bucks a barrel, and alternatives will become feasable with every price increase.
What Obama and the left is doing is trying to PRETEND that we have run out, and are now at “peak oil”. If it were true, it would manifest itself no matter how much we drilled. There would be no need to shut down drilling everywhere. They could sit back and laugh as oil companies always failed to bring in the oil.
I say we use every drop we can without a single thought for generations 150 years from now. Totally serious.
There’s tons more plant matter than animal matter, and it’s been decomposing for millions of years.
Of course, we’d have to calculate the replacement rate, so it’s not unlimited per se. But I’d guess there’s plenty.
Thank you, but I’ve driven myself around Texas numerous times. If there is a pump-jack in place, it’s a working well. It may not operate full time, but it is a working well. Non working wells are plugged. To think that oil and gas have ceased to be produced is silly.
Refusing to drill and use every drop we can, because there may not be enough to last 1000 years,,would be like having a bag of doritos on a road trip. And insisting nobody eat them because the bag will not provide doritos forever.
When the doritos are gone, then we will either starve, or find something else to eat. What am i missing??
Cause he`s “Brilliant”!
Yes. Just look at the price at your local gas station.
That doesn’t back up your statement at all.
ping
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