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.
Peak oil theory is now officially and scientifically dead -the liberal tree huggers can drag the green corpse around attempting to mimic it alive BUT who cares...
When I worked in the gas industry, methane was still CH4. I really don't quite get how one would positively assert CH4 from a biological process is discernible from other sources when collected and sampled from large reservoirs.
Really? Oil may have fallen from space? That's hilarious! What other theories do you have?
BTTT...
>> I think trees fell from space, because I see them everywhere!
Good point. Not good enough to sway me from my fondly held notion however.
What is your basis for that assumption?
"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:"
Damn. what next, process via pyrolysis over a trillion bbls of oil from the oils shale in UT, WY and CO?
When keosene was first processed, it was from oil shale, the kero comes from kerogen, formed by the plants, bateria & algae found in oil shale.
http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9045164
http://www.answers.com/topic/1853
"Abraham Gesner [b. Cornwallis, Nova Scotia, May 2, 1797, d. Halifax, Nova Scotia, April 29, 1864], who first made a flammable liquid (that he named kerosene) from oil shale in 1846 and later from coal, begins to manufacture kerosene from coal in New York State. Kerosene quickly replaces whale oil as the most popular illuminating liquid, but when kerosene is extracted from petroleum by Samuel Kier [b. Livermore, Pennsylvania, 1813, d. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, October 6, 1874], also starting in this year, Gesner's coal-based process loses out to the new form of kerosene."
Some do use a very high grade of kerosene. The Saturn rockets of the Apollo program used it. A new company called SpaceX will use it for their rockets.
See my post 44
As to this article, methane is not the same as oil. Nobody disputes that methane can come from sources that aren't biological. Show me a moon on Saturn that is covered in lakes of oil and then we can talk about whether oil comes from biological sources.
I don't know where to begin with your theory that oil fell from the sky, so I won't even try.
Most rockets in general use do not (Delta, Proton, etc). Yes, the Saturn series did and some of the private groups are returning to it.
When the next ice age comes and sea level drops 300 meters, they will boil off and warm the planet up again. Don't mess with them or we'll all live on an iceball...(8^D)
Google IODP , Gas Methane.
I just wrote an article for Resource World and interviewed the scientists who are investigating gas methane deposits who are part of an international research program involving geologists and engineers from Japan, Korea, the US, Canada and Norway.
Author Terry Pratchett probably thinks that oil is the urine of the Great Turtle which carries the disk world on its back through deep space.Definitely a renewable resource. (LOL)
Oil, it could be being made in vast quantities far below the earth's surface between the magma zone and the earths crust, in a geological process little known or understood.
If it were true, so many wackers would be soooo put out!
The voice of reason from an oil man.
Thank you.
Sigh. We'll, I guess you're another hopeless case.
I mean, doesn't it embarass you to pontificate on subjects you don't know anything about? Did it ever occur to you to look up or read a scientific paper on what the ACTUAL biogenic theory of petroleum formation is, and the immense amounts of evidence suggesting it's correct?
You'll notice that every single person on FR who posts on these threads that has actually WORKED in the oil industry finds much of the claimed abiogenic oil evidence to be complete nonsense. That doesn't bother you in the slightest or cause you any doubt?
As I've pointed out to blinded eyes again and again, the accepted theory of oil formation is that it formed in oceans and large lakes from dead microscopic plankton falling to the bottom and then being buried. No swamps, no dinosaurs, etc.
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