The World Has Plenty of Oil

The Wall Street Journal ^ | March 4, 2008 | Nansen G. Saleri

[Cacique]

btt

[djf]

Your argument is ignoring something.

The entire crust of the Earth, as far and as deep as has ever been examined, is a relative hotbed of microorganisms.

Oil bearing rock or not.

So if sterile oil were to seep up from down below, then get mixed with the local native deep crust bacteria, etc, that in no way could be held out as proof the oil was biotic.

[slowhandluke]

When oil has been found in igneous rock it is not in sufficient quantities and can be traced to nearby sedimentary formations

My understanding is that there is no sedimentary rock under the Canadian Shield. But, I'm not a geologist. And 'sufficient' is an odd complaint? Sufficient for what? Any recoverable oil would seem to be a win. The point about sedimentary rock is that some of it is permeable. So, a permeable layer, covered by an impermeable layer, would trap anything moving up from below. Igneous rock just wouldn't have enough space to capture enough oil for our purposes, but any should be enough for proof of concept.

The concept is that the hydrocarbons come from deep down, below any sedimentary layers. The fact that some old, supposedly emptied oil fields have produced oil again after left alone suggests that they are being refilled from below.

Like I said, read the book. It's an interesting read by a more than competent scientist.

[mvpel]

As the author notes:

The overused observation that "the Stone Age did not end due to a lack of stones" may in fact find its match.

And likewise, the oil age will probably not end due to a lack of oil.

In the meantime, modern diesels can get double the miles per gallon of their gasoline counterparts. With an Acura i-DTEC or a Honda i-CTDI in my garage instead of my 2000 3.2TL, fuel could go to $5 a gallon and I might still be paying less than I am today.

[DungeonMaster]

There is only TWO reasons oil prices are as high as they are:

Our own governments taxation and regulations.

You couldn't be more wrong. The price of oil is what we pay just to get it to our shore which has nothing to do with our internal regs and taxes.

[JDinAustin]

Gasoline will never be 50 a gallon, for a number of reason chiefly that for $50 a barrel one can turn coal into diesel and light alkenes aka jet-fuel + gasoline, natural gas into methanol then to isooctane using Mobil’s MTG process over zeolites. Fisher Tropsch synthesis can be done with any source of syngas (CO+H2) be it coal gasification, biomass gasification, steam reformation of natural gas, plasma gasification of municipal solid wastes, supercritical water gasification of municipal sewage sludge the list of carbonaceous raw materials to gasify is almost endless. All economical above $3 a gallon retail. If that’s not green enough for you the brilliant people at our national labs of Los Alamos and Sandia have both come up with ways to take CO2 from the air and hydrogen from water and make liquid fuels. Currently the cost of retail fuel must be 4.60 a gallon for those process to be profitable but that represents the upper limit of what is technically feasible today. With the right political will 4.60 a gallon for carbon neutral fuel is possible from air and water not even the green fascists could argue about climate change when the fuel is made from CO2 extracted from air. All the other fuels I listed above are below the 4.60 a gallon point most in the 3 to 4 a gallon range. Its all about POLITICS and regulations. Then again we could just drill our deep water and EEZ, plus let refineries expand there operations and GASP maybe build a new refinery or TEN alas those are just pipe dreams since no administration is willing to stand up the hot air cult. I’m betting on CO2 plus solar hydrogen to fuel at 4.6 a gallon via the Los Alamos process as the upper limit of fuel cost going forward since its in line with the gia mother earth freaks. Then again its not about saving the planet its about control over the economy so all bets are off if Los Alamos goes commercial on Atmo-CO2 to fuels I’m sure that the green socialists will come up with some way that its bad and there for must be eliminated.

[mvpel]

And as for solar hydrogen - thin-film solar is poised to slash the cost of solar panels to 10% of the going rate.

[JDinAustin]

oh how I lust for a Honda i-CTDI

http://world.honda.com/news/2004/4040506.html

"Honda’s new Accord 2.2 i-CTDi Sport has this week set no fewer than 19 world speed records and achieved 3.07 litres / 100 km (92 mpg) fuel economy to boot."

"Amongst the speed records set, which were all achieved in Production Car Class B (2000 – 2500 cc), were 133.04 mph (1 mile flying start), 84.25 mph (1 mile standing start) and an average speed of 130.38 mph over a 24-hour endurance period. These records were all set at Papenburg high-speed oval test track in north-west Germany on 1 and 2 May, and are all subject to FIA ratification.

Two production cars, randomly selected by FIA officials, were used to undertake the speed records, and apart from the fitting of roll-cages, racing harnesses and radio equipment for track-to-pits communication, no other modifications were made to the cars.

Following the speed record attempts, the same two cars were then driven 419 miles from Papenburg test track to Wiesbaden, near Frankfurt in order to complete the fuel economy run. The route comprised of a mixture of motorway and non-motorway driving, during which one of the Accords achieved a staggering 92 mpg average."

So let me get this right, they added weight for roll cages and still got 92 mpg! Imperial gallons BTW but simply convert 1 Imp gal = 1.2 US gal. 92/1.2 = 76.2..2 Mpg impressive...and fast apparently.

[JDinAustin]

http://www.mpgomatic.com/honda_fr-v_diesel.html
Equipped with the 2.2 liter i-CTDi diesel engine, Honda's FR-V delivers 53.3 MPG combined (approximately 44 US MPG) Please please Honda for the love of God send use these cross overs with CDTi motors. My explorer will head to the scrap heap in a heart beat for one of these. These motors are Tier 2 bin 5 as in 50 state legal, now if we can just convince Honda USA to sell them.

[edcoil]

It is why we have to wait for it to come to our shores and are not energy independent and getting our own.

[DungeonMaster]

It is why we have to wait for it to come to our shores and are not energy independent and getting our own.

It's never been a national policy to be energy independent.

[mvpel]

I gather they’re coming in 2009.