'Fossil fuel' theory takes hit with NASA finding

worldnetdaily ^ | December 1, 2005

[Candor7]

This is good news. It means oil is a renewable resource.

I'll keep checking my back 40.

[Mount Athos]

maybe they will find aliens eating in taquerias on Titan, that would explain the methane

[GW and Twins Pawpaw]

So what will the greens whine about when they learn that we don't have to conserve petroleum? Will we drill in ANWR? Enquiring minds want to know!

[razorgirl]

"If petroleum and natural gas are abiotic as we maintain in 'Black Gold Stranglehold,'" Corsi commented, "then the 'peak oil' fear that we are going to run out of oil may have been based on a giant misconception."

Peak oil is based on what is actually getting pumped out of the ground. Whether it was from dead dinos, or crushed rocks, the sobering realities are that the current most productive oil fields are the ones discovered in the 50s or earlier. Oklahoma and Indonesia fields have already past their peak production.

[randog]

The University of New Hampshire has an interesting program in which they propose to grow oil-producing algae. They say it could provide up to 10% of the nation's oil needs:

http://www.unh.edu/p2/biodiesel/article_alge.html

Kinda puts a kink in the "oil-is-a-finite-resource" mantra.

[seastay]

well there is plenty on titan!

[razorgirl]

Kinda puts a kink in the "oil-is-a-finite-resource" mantra.

Only if you insist on it being produced the old-fashioned way... 50-year-old scotch and 50M-year-old oil.

However if you could grow it in your bathtub, that would be very cool... something I'm sure the oil companies will try to stop..

[razorgirl]

well there is plenty on titan!

All we have to do is burn up all the remaining oil getting it over here...

[justshutupandtakeit]

I thought it was long known that Titian had methane. Isn't it frozen?

[Alter Kaker]

This is good news. It means oil is a renewable resource.

No it doesn't. On the contrary, it indicates that oil isn't a renewable resource. No one has suggested a method for rapid oil formation --- without question we are burning it much faster than it is being created, if indeed it is being created.

[Army Air Corps]

Rockets don't use petroleum...

[WestVirginiaRebel]

We can't drill on Titan! It might have life forms that we might disrupt! Or beautiful methane seas that some movie star might want to build a mansion next to...or...

[doc30]

And how do methyl hydrates, which just sit on the bottom of the ocean, fit into this picture?

[gcruse]

We may be burning it faster than it is being created, but that does not rule out oil being renewable. That just means it is being replaced slower than we are using it. Renewable, yes. Inexhaustable, no.

[F.J. Mitchell]

Calling it fossil fuel always has sounded like a fairy tale fabricated by idiots.

[ClearCase_guy]

If oil is geological in nature rather than biological in nature, then perhaps oil can be found almost anywhere, providing a deep enough well is used.

I believe some fields that seemed to be "tapped out" have later been found to have "re-filled". Whether that means oil is a renewable resource may be debatable. But it seems to me that the supply of oil available to us on earth may be several orders of magnitude greater than we think.

[razorback-bert]

Well it isn't Gold's theory.

[demlosers]

studies showing abundant methane of a non-biologic nature

Yeah, this was suggested and pointed out during the Titan/Saturn threads when the probe was dropped.

[cpdiii]

There are indeed non biological sources of hydrocarbons. However, all the hydrocarbon traps in the earth are associated with sedimentary deposition. The oil we produce is from biological sources. When they start pumping oil from one of the Pacific volcanic islands call me, and bring a dead crow for me to eat.