Posted on 12/02/2005 7:00:55 PM PST by seastay
New study shows methane on Saturn's moon Titan not biological NASA scientists are about to publish conclusive studies showing abundant methane of a non-biologic nature is found on Saturn's giant moon Titan, a finding that validates a new book's contention that oil is not a fossil fuel.
"We have determined that Titan's methane is not of biologic origin," reports Hasso Niemann of the Goddard Space Flight Center, a principal NASA investigator responsible for the Gas Chromatograph Mass Spectrometer aboard the Cassini-Huygens probe that landed on Titan Jan. 14. Niemann concludes the methane "must be replenished by geologic processes on Titan, perhaps venting from a supply in the interior that could have been trapped there as the moon formed."
The studies announced by NASA yesterday will be reported in the Dec. 8 issue of the scientific journal Nature.
"This finding confirms one of the key arguments in 'Black Gold Stranglehold: The Myth of Scarcity and the Politics of Oil,'" claims co-author Jerome R. Corsi. "We argue that oil and natural gas are abiotic products, not 'fossil fuels' that are biologically created by the debris of dead dinosaurs and ancient forests."
Methane has been synthetically created in the laboratory, Corsi points out, "and now NASA confirms that abiotic methane is abundantly found on Titan."
The realization that hydrocarbons are produced inorganically throughout our solar system was a key insight that led Cornell University astronomer Thomas Gold to write his 1998 book, "The Deep Hot Biosphere: The Myth of Fossil Fuels." Gold wrote:
It would be surprising indeed if the earth had obtained its hydrocarbons only from a source that biology had taken from another carbon-bearing gas – carbon dioxide – which would have been collected from the atmosphere by photo-synthesizing organisms for manufacture into carbohydrates and then somehow reworked by geology into hydrocarbons. All this, while the planetary bodies bereft of surface life would have received their hydrocarbon gifts by purely abiogenic causes. Gold wryly noted that he was sure there had not been any "big stagnant swamps on Titan" to produce the biological debris that conventionally trained geologists think was required on Earth to produce oil and natural gas as a "fossil fuel."
"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."
Paradigms in science change slowly and with great resistance, he noted, "But NASA has given us today incontrovertible evidence that Titan has abundant inorganic methane."
"If the scientists have ruled out that biological processes created methane on Titan, why do petro-geologists still argue that natural gas on Earth is of biological origin?" Corsi asked.
"You mean...... you mean... the dinosaur's didn't have to give their lives to make oil for us?"
"Oh, the shame..... the humiliation!"
Peat, brown coal, soft coal, and anthracite are fairly clearly formed from vegetative layers. Some of that is very ancient and it is constantly being formed even now. The surface of the earth is constantly being buried by dust, including meteoric dust, maybe an inch a million years. Whatever vegetable matter is present on the surface will eventually be buried and will eventually go through the coal formation process. However, we can dig it up and burn it far faster than it forms naturally. 500-1000 years is about all we can expect from this energy source.
Damn, no turf fires in the 31st century, I'll freeze to death.....
Wood works well. So does corn. Corn stoves are gaining popularity. Don't know if we can replace our oil and coal usage with energy crops like that, not completely.
The visible universe is finite. That isn't saying a blessed thing.
"we are drilling the ones where we have not drilled before."
Duh. But in fact, we don't drill even in places where we know there are gobs of oil. Exhibit A, Alaska. Exhibit B, offshore restrictions. Exhibit C, half of Siberia, where capital market inefficiencies prevent sensible exploitation.
"that will continue until eventually, there will be no place left to drill"
Does not follow. It may continue indefinitely, we may drill in new and within old fields (to different depths, with different tech, etc) indefinitely, and we may find more oil in both, indefinitely. We don't know any such thing.
"that does not 'make' more oil, it just makes some available which would not have been otherwise."
A distinction without a difference. And as for making more oil, we have no idea how fast oil is being made, today. We know it is, because there is oil there and it did not pop into existence out of nothing. If it took millions of years to make it biotically, then it still might be being made faster than we are using it, because we do not know whether we are using more than a millioneth of it a year.
Geological processes continue. Biomatter subsides today, is compressed under rock today. There is a rate in as well as a rate out, and since we do not know the rate in, we do not know whether there is net depletion. If natural gas forms abiotically as well, the rate in might be far higher than anybody suspects, because the processes involved may take times much shorter than millions of years.
"oilfields we have come to take for granted since the '50s either have depleted or are beginning to decline."
Um, duh, but the conclusion does not follow. It is well know that individual wells produce the most oil as soon as they are drilled, and trail off thereafter. Every individual site is a declining stream, but it does not follow that their sum is a declining stream when the number of them is not fixed. And in fact, the overall stream has never declined. It has increased continually as long as oil has been used.
As for Saudi Arabia's capacity, they have the oil to swamp present demand and drive the price as low as they please. They might not have that many wells operating, but they could readily drill them. But they don't want to, and why would they? They produce oil at a cost of a few dollars a barrel. They can afford to build as many more wells as they like, with oil at $50. But instead they limit their additions of capacity to what they expect they will actually use to meet present and slightly higher near future demand. It is not in their interest to extract oil faster than the world wants it.
And there is at present no shortage of oil in the world. On the surface I mean, not under it. US and world stocks have built continually throughout the present price spike, which is security related not oil fundamentals related. At these prices, supply exceeds demand. Why would they add gobs more capacity, therefore? Everyone who wants oil at $50 has it.
They might want to discourage development elsewhere. And they have marginally increased production and added capacity for that reason. But as minor shifts at the margin. Fundamentally, they are perfectly happy to sell oil for $50 a barrel. The only concern they might have over it is that $50 oil might call forth so much capacity that is drives oil to $30, hardly a sign of inability to produce.
Meanwhile, all this has been focused narrowly on oil, which is certainly the most economic chemical fuel available. We have hundreds of years worth of coal, without even looking for more. We have gobs of less useful forms that become economical only at higher prices (tar sands, shale, etc). While coal is more economical for electricity generation now, it can also be synthetically converted to liquids - Germany ran WW II on the stuff. Beyond those, we can grow alcohols etc.
Energy simply is not scarce nor practically speaking limited (on scales humans use etc), and all the attempts to convince people it is are impositions on general scientific ignorance, with hardly more thought behind it than "it is finite" - as though anything isn't.
This would also mean that those scientists that told us that without a doubt oil was the "body liquor" of decomposing dinosaurs -- despite how convinced they were that they were correct -- had been mistaken.
Oh my.
Perhaps because those older fields were found to have been refilling after they have been drained, contrary to expectations. Their once believing that an oil field was a lake of dinosaur residue made them believe it was a confined area. Now that the fields are refilling, the common belief is that petroleum is a liquid strata of the earth's core.
The newer fields, though past their peak, may yet refill in the future and still prove viable.
What scientists were those?
Why does the methane have to be replenished?
Perhaps it's the same methane that's been in Titan's atmosphere for billions of years.
Heck, it's not as if the Titanians have been using it to heat their homes, cook their food, etc. etc.
I had forgotten about wood - even though I'm a chippy!!
I am tired, but let me point this out. Every individual site is not necessarily independant of those surrouding it. Often there is demonstrable communication within the reservoir, which follows relatively easily delineated geologic boundaries. This is how reserves can be estimated in the first place. You are welcome to harbor any delusions you wish.
Does not follow. It may continue indefinitely, we may drill in new and within old fields (to different depths, with different tech, etc) indefinitely, and we may find more oil in both, indefinitely. We don't know any such thing.
We who? I make my living finding new oil in old fields. There is a limit to it, believe me. Indefinitely is a long time. It does not change the fact that there is only so much porosity present in the rock column, and if it were ALL filled with oil, and it could ALL be extracted, that eventually it would be ALL gone. At some point, and I have drilled there, you run out of rock which can have oil in it, by virtue of the fact that the bottom hole temperatures are too high for oil to exist. This, too has been proven, but they did find a neat source of liquid sulfur.
I don't claim to know everything, but don't bother playing prep-school debate games with me.
As for Saudi Arabia's capacity, they have the oil to swamp present demand and drive the price as low as they please. They might not have that many wells operating, but they could readily drill them.
You had better learn a little about oil production. They can't do it without wrecking future production. Drilling more holes in depleted fields in the same reservoirs (isotropic flow) will yield more holes, and opportunites for enhanced recovery, but not that much more oil in the long run--nothing like an untapped reservoir. Without new, untapped reservoirs, they will not show a significant gain.
As for drilling in Siberia, ANWR, offshore California, etc., there are political constraints which are imposed. Despite those constraints, there is (again) only so much reservoir, which has a finite volume, which has only so much oil in it. Even if it could all be recovered, there is a limit.
There is no evidence that these reservoirs are "refilling" from some mystical source, although there are a couple of reservoirs in the world which are apparently connected to deeper reservoirs by faults and fracture sets. These are of Cretaceous age, and relatively young rock. No one has provided any such example from deeper strata which do not overlie either a known reservoir or older, undrilled sedimentary rocks with the potential to be reservoirs. Most of that is offshore, cratonic basins are getting pretty well explored.
As for bringing up solar, coal, nuclear, etc., nice change of topic, we were talking about peak oil as a concept.
Are you a frustrated PE or Chem-E, or just a delusional wannabe? You sound exactly like some of the "world is flat" PE's and such when I worked in the patch.
http://www.oralchelation.com/faq/wsj4.htm
Bacteria are feeding upon methane deep within the earth at tremendous pressure and heat. Life exists where some people have no idea it could.
http://www.answers.com/topic/abiogenic-petroleum-origin
"Conversion to petroleum and methane:"
"Biogenic: Catagenesis occurs as the depth of burial increases and the heat and pressure breaks down kerogens to form petroleum.
Abiogenic: When the material passes through temperatures at which extremophile microbes can survive some of it will be consumed and converted to heavier hydrocarbons...."
"Chemicals of biological origin have been found in many geologic hydrocarbon deposits. These biomarkers were believed to be from known surface sources. Due to the difficulty in culturing and sampling deep heat-loving bacteria, thermophiles, little was known of their chemistry. As more is learned of bacterial chemistry, more biomarkers seem likely to be due to bacterial action. Hopanoids, called the 'most abundant natural products on Earth', were believed to be indicators of oil derived from ferns and lichens but are now known to be created by many bacteria, including archaea. Sterane was thought to have come from processes involving surface deposits but is now known to be produced by several prokaryotes including methanotrophic proteobacteria...."
They are animals.
Yup, there is zooplankton and photoplankton, so plankton is both animals and vegetation.
Then there is the comment "there is only so much porosity present in the rock column, and if it were ALL filled with oil, and it could ALL be extracted, that eventually it would be ALL gone." This is just "its finite" repeated in three phrases rather than one.
Suppose the entire earth's crust were filled with oil to porosity capacity to maximum oil-existence depth. There would be vastly more oil than in fact there is. But the statement above would still be true, because finite doesn't say anything. But oil at human rates of use would last essentially forever if that were the case. Suppose the last slup of oil were coming out of the ground this second, after which there were no more. Then the above statement would be true as stated, and peak oil would be long past. The statement does not distinguish among them. It therefore doesn't manage to say anything about oil running out.
Moreover, on new oil formation, we simply do not know how much is forming or where, but reason tells us some is. There is no reason to suppose it would appear at the base of existing fields. There is every reason to believe it is formed, because the existing stuff got there. What rate is biotic material subsiding from ocean floors, buried by sediment? Nobody knows, except that the answer is "some". In a million years (or less) that will be oil, right? On the biotic hypothesis. Somewhere the stuff that hasn't been there that long is cooking. Pretending the rate in is zero is just flat wrong and known to be wrong. The biotic finite theorists think it is small, but they don't know. If you are looking for fully formed oil you aren't searching for its precursors.
On sands shale coal etc, not only are they alternates but they may figure in oil production by geological processes. Grind such a deposit along a fault, say, or leach additional ingrediants into a natural gas deposit under pressure. Can you tell me no oil forms from such deposits over time? No, because there is no measure of the rate of oil formation. What you don't know or understand, you pretend is zero, that is all.
I'm not yet convinced about the abiotic oil model but it is now being seriously considered.
There was a recent conference about it in Calgary and the Alberta Oil patch is not known for jumping on board junk science.
Your right methane does occur as part of abiotic catalyic processes. But so far the theory is that methane hydrates have a biological source.
We have hardly begun to think of using wood for primary energy in our modern industrial society. Over in Finland they farm wood for plywood, very specialized. Other places farm wood for other structural uses. Not much is being done in farming wood for firewood.
It is not definitive, but it is well established that plants use a higher percentage of Carbon 12 than Carbon 13 than is available in the atmosphere when performing photosynthesis. Commercial natural gas bears the marker of high Carbon12 to Carbon 13 ratios characteristic of plant origins. [I am not an expert, and there are other possible explanations but the observed ratio is not in dispute. Try a Google search for more details.]
If oil and gas production is an abiogenic process, that does not make it renewable. After all, the amount of carbon is finite and, presumably, the process of transforming inorganic carbon to the desired organic form is slow.
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