Posted on 11/06/2015 4:46:41 AM PST by expat_panama
Ever since M. King Hubbert in the 1950s convinced a lot of people with his "peak oil" theory that production would collapse and we'd eventually exhaust our crude supplies, the clock has been running. And running. And it will continue to run for some time, as technology and new discoveries show that there's still an ocean of oil under our feet.
[snip]
A BP official told the magazine that "energy resources are plentiful. Concerns over running out of oil and gas have disappeared."
Things are so good, in fact, that Engineering and Technology says "with the use of the innovative technologies, available fossil fuel resources could increase from the current 2.9 trillion barrels of oil equivalent to 4.8 trillion by 2050, which is almost twice as much as the projected global demand." That number could even reach 7.5 trillion barrels if technology and exploration techniques advance even faster.
This information backs up the idea that Earth is actually an oil-producing machine. We call energy sources such as crude oil and natural gas fossil fuels based on the assumption that they are the products of decaying organisms, maybe even dinosaurs themselves. But the label is a misnomer. Research from the last decade found that hydrocarbons are synthesized abiotically.
In other words, as Science magazine has reported...
[snip]
But for now, enjoy our cheap, abundant and efficient "fossil" fuels.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.investors.com ...
Do you believe that much oil exists?
6 miles deep would be pure oil alone.
If it is only found in the small spaces between the grains of the rock, it is going to take a LOT more volume for the same amount of oil.
If that existed, there would be oil practically everywhere. We would have far more trouble drilling a dry hole, rather than spending millions per well trying to find it in producible quantities.
Here is a quick example of the math.
Average porosity in all types of sedimentary rock layers = ~10%
Average depth of sedimentary rock around the world ~1 mile.
So for our 6 miles deep volume, 10% of 1/6 in the sedimentary rock, leaving 5 5/6 miles deep of oil needed to find space.
Now below the sedimentary rock we have igneous and metamorphic. Perhaps an average porosity of 1%. So now we need another 583 miles of oil saturated rock.
And that is only assuming oil is every where. No water in any underground spaces in the rock. No natural gas, or natural gas liquids, I’m only measure crude oil for this point.
If half the those places don’t have oil, now we need 1,168 miles deep of oil. If oil is in 50% of the upper miles of earth, I don’t think we would have any trouble finding it.
Of course now that we are going so deep, miles of thickness become more relevant to measuring volume of the sphere. We’ve gone deep enough to need more depth to compensate for the surface area. If 50% of the upper layers are saturated with oil, we’ve gone over a quarter of the radius of the earth to equal our current production rate times 400 million years. So we need ~25% more depth or ~1,500 deep.
But if 50% of the upper quarter of the earth was saturated with oil, we would still have a darn hard time missing it when drilling. It is far lower. Of course now we gotten so deep that we exceed the temperatures and pressures that oil would exist at.
It just becomes silly to pretend the earth is making oil at the same rate we are using it. There isn’t enough volume for that to have existed.
“As you understand the basement (granite) rock to be impervious, how do imagine vapors are passing through it? “
Easy. Fracturing.
Relook at what I sent you, Yemen fields produce in fractured granitics. That makes them permeable.
135 billion tons of oil have been extracted from earth up till 2012. That wouldn't fill Lake Tahoe (water volume 147 billion tons).
Even a glacial rate of abiotic oil replenishment is vast compared to our snail's pace of extraction, globally speaking.
But unless you think the earth went hundreds of millions of years doing nothing, then magically started spitting out oil at 90 millions barrels a day, then we are using it faster than it is being produced.
All the way through, in all locations?
“All the way through, in all locations?”
Of course not. Granite is very brittle, but might not be cracked everywhere.
Why think otherwise?
“But unless you think the earth went hundreds of millions of years doing nothing, then magically started spitting out oil at 90 millions barrels a day, then we are using it faster than it is being produced.”
What purpose is this post?
If the Earth produced trillions and trillions of barrels of oil over the years, so what if we now produce it faster than it is generated?
Sorta like if one drinks a gallon a day from a lake that has a billion gallons of water in it and is not being replenished.
It is drying up by your analogy, but so what, it still contains a bunch of water.
That may be true, but we are finding (able to unlock) new stores faster than we are consuming it. Thus, worldwide proven oil reserve volume continues to increase, despite consumption. And has been doing so, continuously, since subterranean oil was discovered in PA.
I should have said that as in all locations that have oil.
The point was in response to those claiming the earth is producing oil as fast as we are using it. It was the whole point of the math to show that false.
“hat may be true, but we are finding (able to unlock) new stores faster than we are consuming it. Thus, worldwide proven oil reserve volume continues to increase, despite consumption. And has been doing so, continuously, since subterranean oil was discovered in PA. “
I agree.
When I graduated in Petroleum Engineering in 1973, I was told why be a Petroleum Engineer as the world will be out of oil in 10 years and I will be out of a job.
Since then, the world has out-produced the amount of reserves estimated at that time, and now has the largest proved reserve ever.
And that is proved reserves. There are a multiple of reserves that are not considered proved existent.
Niagara Falls alone has a daily flow of over 300 million barrels. How many waterfalls, larger and smaller, than Niagara relentlessly produce these amounts and much more? Yes, water isn't oil but I use the example to illustrate that 90 million bbls is not at all a large amount, globally.
You need to remember the gargantuan scale of Earth.
We have no idea what is going on inside the planet. We pretend to but the rate at which we append our "knowledge" of what we can only guess at is the highest rate of all!
90 million bbls every day sure sounds big. Until you compare it to other colossal processes underway always. Once one looks around suddenly that 90 million number becomes peanuts.
Yes, earth is finite, it can be measured. But for our puny selves it may as well be infinite.
And then there's the Expanding Earth argument to consider...!
got it. was seeing a fragment response.
I agree with your assessments.
I know that climate change fanatics believe man is imposing a burden on our climate, but the simple fact that man cannot control one thunderstorm, or one earthquake, makes it simply improbably, likely impossible, that man can be the originator of climate change.
How can man who cannot control some measures of nature control globally nature?
stupid in the highest degree.
And it is the same for your assessments that the earth is simply too big, too powerful and too misunderstood for us to arrogantly say we can understand and control it.
The water going over the falls is not consumed.
It passes by, goes to an ocean evaporates, forms clouds, rains, and starts over, over and over.
If all that water was taken away after passing once, our world would be dry.
Again, the earth has been producing oil for a very long time, and we have only used it for a tiny fraction of time.
You believe the could be producing oil as fast as we are using it?
And how long do you think that has been happening? 400, 600 million years?
Try the math.
I do not know, but it is possible. It is not possible that the earth is regenerating oil at the same rate from those fields currently producing into those same fields, though. That would be a eternally perpetual energy supply.
At any given point in time, there are absolutely huge areas underground and under the sea that could be generating new oil, but are as yet untapped.
BTW, what difference does this make?
It is not possible. There isn’t room in the earth if that process has been ongoing at current production rates.
I see no rationale behind that argument you are saying. Perhaps you are making an assumption I did not catch.
Since there is no way in my estimation it could be proved, I consider it possible that, yes, the earth could be generating 90 millions of barrels of oil at this time somewhere in diverse locations across this planet.
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