Supplies of oil may be inexhaustible

Detroit News ^ | 5/29/2002 | Bruce Bartlett

[jimkress]

On April 16, Newsday, the Long Island newspaper, published a startling report that old oil fields in the Gulf of Mexico were somehow being refilled. That is, new oil was being discovered in fields where it previously had not existed.

[Dukie]

Thank you for the detailed elaboration on this interesting topic. 12 tons of hydrocarbons from the well is quite remarkable. It appears that the oil field equivalent of warfarin or heparin is required.

On the subject of the interesting Thomas Gold, I recall reading of his early concerns that the lunar surface might consist of electrostatically charged dust lcking sufficient strength to support the landings of spacecraft. It was his only hypothesis to have later been conclusively disproven.

[aruanan]

On the subject of the interesting Thomas Gold, I recall reading of his early concerns that the lunar surface might consist of electrostatically charged dust lcking sufficient strength to support the landings of spacecraft. It was his only hypothesis to have later been conclusively disproven.

See this link for a recent article on Gold's idea about lunar and asteroid dust. His idea was that the dust accumulated and spread out in the craters by electrostatic charges, not by sifting down from space like snow and piling up.

[maestro]

UR#62)......My editing,.....'You confuse distribution and resource. The mom and pops have gone out of business because they could not change to meet the demands of the __________ and they were not big enough to make the ___________ adapt to them. It has nothing to do with the amount of oil in the world of which there is actually quite a bit. Of oil I mean.'

"INTERNATIONAL-BANKERS"

m

[maestro]

READ# 37 again!

Supplies of oil may be inexhaustible

REALLY???????.....

Ask the small, "mom & pop" INDEPENDENT dealership 'owners', of the 1950's, 60's, 70's, 80's,.........
and,...."NONE" in the 90's!!!!!!!!

Follow the (their) $$$$...MONEY...$$$$

[Robert A Cook PE]

The difference is the sheer number of very shallow, very extensive (thousands of thousands of coal beds across many states - most available econimically (!) at less than 200 under the topsoil. Even "deep" underground mines seldom go past 1000 feet to get to the coal seams. Oil, in very, very limited at "surface pools - though they are present (as a La Brea Tar Pits in LA, and the surface "seeps" you mentioned in PA. But oil ISN'T/HASN'T ever been typically discovered at 100 foot levels, nor even at 1000 foot levels.

So: How did the "oil-productive" plants get 10,000 to 15,000 feet deep? How did they get under the sea beds in such wide areas - when many of these regions are on "stable" continental shelves; not getting shalloer or deeper since the Cambrian days.

If the coal beds came from the earliest Cambrian era swamps (and of course fossiles and plant matter in the coal prove dates very accurately).... where/when did the "plants/microbes/methane (?) that formed the oil fields come from ..... how did it get so deep?

[Robert A Cook PE]

Yes - Coal was converted to oil in Germany: Process is to take the coal hydrocarbons, and heat them (under controlled conditions of temperatures and pressure) so the coal (individual carbon atoms) breaks down in the presence of free hydrogen and recombines into hydrocarbon strings .... these become the "oil" molecules you mentioned.

So - If coal (under natural conditions) is to mimic this process: Then there must be a continuos, massive source of free hydrogen molecules passing through over and around the coal .... not just a little bit either: but enough to so that at least two H atoms (not as gassous H2 either!) are present for each C atom.

Result, of course, is going to depnd on what liquids and what light gasses form: methane, ethane, ethanols, etc. would all result from different numbers of free H atoms available to react. But if free H atoms are present ... why atay near the coal bed? Wouldn't you expect them to float away?

Perhaps the surface "pre-coal" swamps DID have the hydrogen float away ... and ONLY the extremely deep deposits were "captured" under enough rock to trap enough hydrogen to react with the pro-coal molecules under enough pressure. ?

[rustbucket]

TAMU does have a top flight pet. eng. department. i hope this guy's right!!

I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for oil to magically reappear in most oil reservoirs.

While organic matter in shales may be currently undergoing diagenisis to form oil, most reservoirs I am familiar with have not exhibited any sort of rapid fillup after depletion. There may be isolated examples where a reservoir is receiving spilloff from another oil reservoir below or maybe even a few cases where enough oil is migrating from huge nearby shale beds to replenish a small reservoir in a few years or decades.

Oil contains the remnants of biological compounds from the source matter from whence it came. If I remember correctly, chlorophyll remnants are there as porphyrins; remants of flowering plants show up as oleanane, etc., etc. Despite Sinclair's old ads, dinosaurs are not major sources of oil; most of it comes from remains of marine and terrigenous (land) organisms found in shale and some carbonates.

I don't put too much stock in Gold's ideas.

Coal beds are often deposited in lagoons near the ocean and are often found near the shales that produce the oil. Organic matter was deposited in a much more concentrated form in the coals than it was in the shales. Both coal and shale can generate oil with burial, but US coals are generally thought to primarily be gas generators.

In general, the deeper one goes, the hotter it gets and the more pressure in situ fluids come under. Over geologic time, the deposited organic matter (lignins, cell wall material, etc.) breaks down into oil. With additional burial, i.e., hotter temperatures, the oil eventually breaks down into gas. Both can migrate to shallower formations and be trapped there.

[Bob J]

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[another cricket]

Your argument makes no sense. Did you even read the article?

a.cricket

[tamu]

thanks for the well thought out and articulate reply. i am so ignorant
of things in this area, i did think that oil came primarily
from dinosaurs *wince*. i'll have to continue reading up!!

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

I have noticed that rocks spontaneously regenerate in my yard, so why not oil?

You must live in New England. (Psst, topsoil is washing off uncovering rocks. Sorry to disillusion you.)

[maestro]

"The 'well-oiled', Control the 'flow',........of propaganda too.

:-)

[Dukie]

Good article aruanan. I am under the impression that Gold, though very highly accomplished, does not hold the standard credential of academia, the PhD. Could ths be why he has often been tagged with the adjective "contoversial" ?

[aruanan]

I guess as a scientist he had his doctorate in science and not of philosophy:

T. Gold Vita

Thomas Gold

Thomas Gold
Biographical Information

Professor Emeritus of Astronomy at Cornell University;
founder and for 20 years director of Cornell Center for Radiophysics and Space Research.

Fellow, Royal Society (London)
Member, National Academy of Sciences (US)
Member, American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Member, American Philosophical Society
Fellow, American Geophysical Union
Honorary Fellow, Trinity College, Cambridge
Gold Medal, Royal Astronomical Society (UK)
Doctor of Science, Cambridge University
Honorary M.A. Harvard University

Previous employment:
John L. Wetherill Professor of Astronomy, Cornell University; Chairman, Department of Astronomy
Assistant Vice President for Research, Cornell University
Robert Wheeler Willson Professor of Applied Astronomy, Harvard University
Chief Assistant to British Astronomer Royal
Lecturer in advanced physics, Cambridge University
Radar development work, British Admiralty during World War II

280 publications in various fields of science, including cosmology, mechanism of mammalian hearing, nature of pulsars as rotating neutron stars, aspects of solar system research, origin of planetary hydrocarbons. For 7 years a member of the President's Space Science Panel (US).

Invited Lectureships:

Vanuxem Lecture, Princeton University
Welch Lecture, University of Toronto
Milne Lecture, Oxford University
George Darwin Lecture, Royal Astronomical Society, London
Lindsay Lecture, National Aeronautics and Space Administration