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To: The Comedian
The darkest secret of hidden science: Oil is like geothermal heat: As long as the Earth is tectonically active, we'll have it.

It's free. And effectively eternal."

Maybe on an eternal time scale. To have an oilfield you need a source [you can assume aboitic oil if you wish -- I wouldn't but it doesn't spoil the logic] and you need a suitable trap [porous, permiable, and with a good seal] at a depth no greater than 15 to 17,000 feet below the ground / seabed as that is about the limits of commercial oil. Natural gas exists much deeper, and has been produced commercially from much deeper. Not so oil.

In any event, most of the great easily accessible traps have been drilled. Some contained oil. Some contained natural gas. Some contained both. And others were "dry" -- a funny term to apply to water wet. If oilfields recharge, they do not do so quickly. It is possible redrill old field and produce some oil but typically not a lot and usually not enough to be economic.

All oil wells, oilfields, and countries will peak and decline. Texas still produces a lot of oil, but has been in a steady and largely uninterupted decline for almost forty years despite the best efforts of thousands of very smart people, using the best technology, and largely unimpeded by Government.

41 posted on 12/20/2009 6:06:07 PM PST by R W Reactionairy ("Everyone is entitled to their own opinion ... but not to their own facts" Daniel Patrick Moynihan)
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To: R W Reactionairy
Agreed on all points. Abiotic production, like most geologic phenomena, probably takes ages (literally). But it doesn't take 65 million years, nor does it only take place in reptile cemeteries.


Frowning takes 68 muscles.
Smiling takes 6.
Pulling this trigger takes 2.
I'm lazy.

53 posted on 12/21/2009 7:22:37 AM PST by The Comedian (Evil can only succeed if good men don't point at it and laugh.)
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