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What If Oil and Natural Gas Are Renewable Resources?
The American Thinker ^ | March 18, 2012 | Greg Lewis

Posted on 03/18/2012 12:46:10 PM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife

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To: Pontiac
“Oil is bubbling to the surface off our coast as we speak.”

I've seen estimates of from 1 million to 5 million barrels of oil seeps from the Gulf of Mexico yearly.

81 posted on 03/18/2012 3:01:48 PM PDT by Dusty Road
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To: Pontiac; Brilliant
Personally, I am in favor of drilling deeper, but the idea that oil is just bubbling up all around us fast enough to feed our needs is contradicted by reality.

Not too brilliant a comment, a comment which is contradicted by reality. There's plenty of oil for a market that is larger than ever and in constant dollars it's been about the same for a long, long time. The perturbations of price have largely been from government manipulation or from attempted control by cartels or futures speculation about how governments are going to mess with exploration, production, and refining, or other things governments are doing to put the supply at risk. The amount of petroleum out there is mind-bogglingly large. Petroleum is formed at least 40 to 70 km deep in the mantle and percolates to the surface, collecting in geological formations that trap it. Those formations refill over time.
82 posted on 03/18/2012 3:03:48 PM PDT by aruanan
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To: Dusty Road
all of this take place on ocean floors over hundreds of millions of years.

I agree and firmly believe that the life cycles in the oceans, including plankton and higher life forms, involves everything falling to the sea bottom when it dies, and being processed by microbes, heat, and pressure into the black ooze.

I'm not so sure it takes hundreds of millions of years however. The pressure at the bottom of the ocean could very likely be able to force the oil to other locations including caverns or porous layers under dry land. This especially makes sense if our pumping oil creates a fluid imbalance and "new" oil seeps in to replace it.

83 posted on 03/18/2012 3:05:38 PM PDT by ROCKLOBSTER ( Celebrate Republicans Freed the Slaves Month.)
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To: Moonman62
All this abiogenic oil nonsense makes conservatives look ignorant.

Only to the intellectual elite, and we don't like them much around here.

= )

84 posted on 03/18/2012 3:05:38 PM PDT by Hoplite
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To: ROCKLOBSTER

No it doesn’t take hundreds of millions of year, just saying it’s been going on that long. To be more accurate I should have said billion’s. For reasons I can’t explain it seems to be layered and example would be right on our ranch. We’re hitting 5 different levels of oil bearing sands from 2800 ft to 8500 ft, my only explanation would be dramatic changes in sea levels over billions of years.


85 posted on 03/18/2012 3:11:00 PM PDT by Dusty Road
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To: Brilliant

Hate to burst your bubble, but the price of gasoline has nothing to do with how much or where oil is in the ground.


86 posted on 03/18/2012 3:17:03 PM PDT by X-spurt (Its time for ON YOUR FEET or on your knees)
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To: Hoplite
“Only to the intellectual elite, and we don't like them much around here.”

I've never considered myself intellectually elite but I do consider myself well schooled in the oil business, with over 40 years as a petroleum engineer. I also agree with the poster it does make us look uneducated in the field.

87 posted on 03/18/2012 3:19:25 PM PDT by Dusty Road
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To: Hoplite

I’m sure that I’m not the only one who’s troubled that intellectual has somehow been spun into a pejorative. Once upon time, it was actually considered a positive trait to be smart in conservative circles.


88 posted on 03/18/2012 3:20:18 PM PDT by Melas (u)
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To: Dusty Road

I believe our oceans are a giant oil-making machine. Just think of the untapped resources out there in the way-deep.

How long before we have unmanned underwater exploration craft, like spacecraft, that will be able to scan and map the deep-sea topography and locate likely drilling sites?

The Deepwater Horizon blowout revealed some pretty incredible drilling technology as we watched at home on our computer monitors as the submarine robots capped the well.


89 posted on 03/18/2012 3:22:09 PM PDT by ROCKLOBSTER ( Celebrate Republicans Freed the Slaves Month.)
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To: Cincinatus' Wife

Most of the people commenting on this thread need to put away the crack pipe and actually do some research about the occurrence and generation of hydrocarbons. Some of them sound like they failed junior high earth science. Oil and gas are being generated but at a rate that is too slow to be relevant to us. Not to mention that it takes millennium for it to migrate into a trap and be “concentrated” enough for us to produce. Oil, based on the human time scale, is a finite resource.


90 posted on 03/18/2012 3:28:49 PM PDT by crusty old prospector
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To: Cincinatus' Wife
Cutting edge post!

Abiogenic Oil is forever and the EnvironMentalists, even the GovernMental EnvironMentalists are deliberately trying to fool the American Consumer!!!

I never thought I'd see the day that the good people of this country would so systematically be led astray starting in K-12 government schools of indoctrination!!!

Even on this thread I see some who are unwilling to check beyond "CONventional Wisdom" and just accept rigid doctrines based on inadequate scientific proof!!!

91 posted on 03/18/2012 3:33:30 PM PDT by SierraWasp (I'm done being disappointed by "He/She is the only one who can win" and being embarrassed later!!!)
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To: jonrick46

“I would be something if it were discovered that below the moon’s surface were oil deposits created when the moon had enough oxygen to support these organisms below the surface.”

Careful, next you’ll be saying we should incentivize private companies exploring the moon and setting up a moon station. :)

We already know that there are enormous amounts of platinum on the moon, but some here on FR believe we should just let the Chinese and the Russians have all the moon’s resources.


92 posted on 03/18/2012 3:59:51 PM PDT by conservativejoy ("Where there is no vision, the people perish." Proverbs 29:18)
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To: Cincinatus' Wife
Whether renewable or not the explanation for the Russian oil industry revival is WRONG.

The USSR was taken down. The Russian state was resurrected. US and Japanese oil field experts were hired to FIX the fields. That was done and now the Russians are back in business.

93 posted on 03/18/2012 4:08:29 PM PDT by muawiyah
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To: tophat9000

“and use it before we “bet the farm” that nature will replace at the rate we use...”

Even if we believe that it’s dead dinosaur pools,, or like some nervous nellies, that it is made far too slow to be “sustainable”,, so what?
If it is finite,, then that means the world isn’t fair, and we were lucky enough to live in the petroleum era. In 35 years, 100 years,, 250 years,, whatever, they will have to find a way to power their world.

I wish them luck, but i fail to see why it is my job to decide how they will cope 100 years hence,, or why we shouldnt use every drop we can find.
As it is truly exhauted, the market will make it 1000 bucks a barrel, and alternatives will become feasable with every price increase.
What Obama and the left is doing is trying to PRETEND that we have run out, and are now at “peak oil”. If it were true, it would manifest itself no matter how much we drilled. There would be no need to shut down drilling everywhere. They could sit back and laugh as oil companies always failed to bring in the oil.

I say we use every drop we can without a single thought for generations 150 years from now. Totally serious.


94 posted on 03/18/2012 4:15:12 PM PDT by DesertRhino (I was standing with a rifle, waiting for soviet paratroopers, but communists just ran for office)
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To: Cincinatus' Wife

There’s tons more plant matter than animal matter, and it’s been decomposing for millions of years.

Of course, we’d have to calculate the replacement rate, so it’s not unlimited per se. But I’d guess there’s plenty.


95 posted on 03/18/2012 4:17:59 PM PDT by P.O.E. (Pray for America)
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To: Melas

Thank you, but I’ve driven myself around Texas numerous times. If there is a pump-jack in place, it’s a working well. It may not operate full time, but it is a working well. Non working wells are plugged. To think that oil and gas have ceased to be produced is silly.


96 posted on 03/18/2012 4:18:17 PM PDT by Figment
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To: Melas

Refusing to drill and use every drop we can, because there may not be enough to last 1000 years,,would be like having a bag of doritos on a road trip. And insisting nobody eat them because the bag will not provide doritos forever.

When the doritos are gone, then we will either starve, or find something else to eat. What am i missing??


97 posted on 03/18/2012 4:19:13 PM PDT by DesertRhino (I was standing with a rifle, waiting for soviet paratroopers, but communists just ran for office)
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To: C. Edmund Wright

Cause he`s “Brilliant”!


98 posted on 03/18/2012 4:19:39 PM PDT by nomad
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To: Brilliant

Yes. Just look at the price at your local gas station.

That doesn’t back up your statement at all.


99 posted on 03/18/2012 4:19:58 PM PDT by Figment
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To: GunsareOK

ping


100 posted on 03/18/2012 4:20:56 PM PDT by BufordP ("Drink me if you can't take a joke." --Kool-Aid)
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