Hydrocarbons in the deep earth - (Renewable? Maybe..National Academy of Science weights in)

National Academy of Science ^ | April 11, 2011 | Leonardo Spanua, Davide Donadioa, Detlef Hohlc, Eric Schweglerd, and Giulia Gallia

[dila813]

A new computational study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reveals how hydrocarbons may be formed from methane in deep Earth at extreme pressures and temperatures.

The thermodynamic and kinetic properties of hydrocarbons at high pressures and temperatures are important for understanding carbon reservoirs and fluxes in Earth.

The work provides a basis for understanding experiments that demonstrated polymerization of methane to form high hydrocarbons and earlier methane forming reactions under pressure.

Hydrocarbons (molecules composed of the elements hydrogen and carbon) are the main building block of crude oil and natural gas. Hydrocarbons contribute to the global carbon cycle (one of the most important cycles of the Earth that allows for carbon to be recycled and reused throughout the biosphere and all of its organisms).

[Carry_Okie]

A new computational study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reveals how hydrocarbons may be formed from methane in deep Earth at extreme pressures and temperatures.

LOL! This has been known for over a DECADE. The "fossil fuels" model was dropped by the Russians in favor of "abiotic oil" long ago. See The Deep Hot Biosphere (1998).

[Madam Theophilus]

Russian scientists have believed this for a long time, haven’t they?

[aruanan]

I've always wondered aobut oil being a "fossil" fuel as defined by being the residue of earlier biological activity.

Petroleum rotates light to the left, supposedly indicative of biogenic origin. However, the degree to which it rotates the light is much less than it should be and is indicative of contamination by biological agents, such as bacteria that can live at extreme heat and pressure. There are many other problems with petroleum being of biogenic origin. It contains many elements and compounds that it should not if biogenic. It does not contain other elements and compounds that it should if biogenic.

[chuckles]

Here's the problem with what you are saying......As long as an evolutionist has the ability to keep moving the age bar of the earth, all they have to do is make the age of the Earth older and older. They can keep moving the bar to make billions of more years available to have plankton and plants die and pile up to make oil. If you go mow your grass or just cut a tree down, how long does it take to get covered with miles of dirt? Oil is being found in such numbers now that the numbers just don't add up. Oil can be just another resource just like many other non element products. Obviously, gold, iron, copper are elements and can't be created, but combine some elements a certain way and maybe we get more oil.

I have felt that maybe the whole "fossil fuel" theory was wrong since the '70's. If an armadillo dies in the highway, how long does it take to become oil? It never will because in a month it's gone. What type of event would cover the bottom of the ocean with miles deep of dead plankton? If there were such an event, what would cover them up with miles of sediment before they were dispersed in the ocean's food chain?

This cannot even be discussed because you may have to consider a young earth and worldwide flood possibility. Kick it to the curb and start another line of thinking. These are the types of "anomalies" That ID's want to discuss, but aren't able to without being called heretics. If oil is indeed a "fossil fuel", then the worldwide flood scenario is almost a slam dunk. If that is possible, then a young earth is possible. If it was formed this way, then IMHO, peak oil would be a reality and we would be running out already. We are finding more oil every day and more oil in depleted wells. Go figure.

If science is truly unbiased, all theories should see the light of day, including ID. If we can manufacture oil, we will never figure out how to do it if we are stuck on billions and billions of years and dead plankton. Remember, diamonds are carbon that is heated under pressure for millions of years. Today, they are made in milliseconds in labs. Iron hammers have been found in coal seams miles down and supposedly millions of years old.

If oil is truly dead plants, then we should be able to manufacture it with crop residue and grass clippings in a controlled setting. We already can manufacture liquid fuels from nat gas, methane, or coal. Hitler did, why can't we?

[Owen]

If you guys think this wacko stuff is true, then get out your checkbooks and buy the lease property in Oklahoma that has been pumped out and has all the full drilling permits in place and see if it all filled up again.

Or go drill in Japan. They’ll permit you in a second if you ante up money.

None of you will, of course. Until you put your money where your mouth is, you don’t really believe in infinite oil.

[treetopsandroofs]

Interesting, thanks.

[enduserindy]

Yes.

[blueunicorn6]

I still don’t understand why there is so much lava. This dirt thermos we call earth must have some tremendous insulation qualities to keep that rock liquid for billions of years. My coffee cools off in the thermos in a few hours.

[thackney]

would explain oil reservoirs under miles sedimentary of rock

Do you understand how sedimentary rock is formed?

[rustbucket]

If oil is truly dead plants, then we should be able to manufacture it with crop residue and grass clippings in a controlled setting.

I imagine you could, but it wouldn't be economic. I used to head some research by petroleum geochemists who would take rock samples containing algae remnants, cook them at elevated temperatures, and oil would form. The raised temperature caused the chemical reactions that form oil from marine algae or land plant remnants to occur in a reasonable time rather than in geologic time. The key to those experiments is the Arrhenius equation: Arrhenius

Those sorts of tests are run to see whether a given rock formation, usually a shale bed, has the potential to form enough oil to be commercially viable. The oil that forms in such a shale bed would, if present in high enough concentrations, migrate from the shale into more permeable sandstone layers and accumulate in geologic traps below or against impermeable layers.

Certain types of kerogen (organic matter in rocks) are more prone to form oil than others. See: Kerogen There are vast amounts of kerogen. Kerogen is the largest or most abundant form of organic carbon on earth.

Oil contains a lot of molecular indications of its biogenic origin. There are molecular remnants of chlorophyll, cell walls, remnants from flowering plants, etc., contained in the oil.

[1010RD]

No, it's even better.

The hydrocarbon economy is SUSTAINABLE!

[DB]

Gravity (extreme compression) and radio activity.

[pie_eater]

I’ve always wondered how it’s possible for oil to be the residue of dinosaurs if it’s a few miles under the earth’s surface. If life on earth dates back only a billion or so years, that’s not enough time to have enough sedimentary rock laid down on top of the dead organic matter to pile up several miles deep. And all oil would need to be found in sedimentary rock for that to be true.

And every time we found a deposit of fossils there should be a layer of oil.

I think coal is mainly the remains of dead organic matter, but not oil.

[chuckles]

There is several reasons we have lava. The pressures remain great deep in the earth. Go to the pressure/temp scales in the refrigeration industry for more info on the relationship of temp to pressure. The other is movement. The earths core is still molten and moving. Movement causes heat. As the crust moves as it just did in Japan, we will have more heat buildup. not less. If the earths core ever turns solid, we will freeze very quickly.

If you drill down a few hundred feet, you most likely could run a water cooled coil down there to cool your home geothermically. Just as a root cellar stays cool you could extract the cooler temps and bring them in your house. Same thing with a deep pond on your property with a coil at the bottom of the pond.

Now drill down deeper and you will at some point start to get hotter as the geothermic heat will become more evident. Remember the Peruvian copper miners trapped underground a mile. They were hot even in winter.

[wastedyears]

Methane I hear...

[PapaBear3625]

It doesn't matter if oil is renewable.

What matters is the rate of renewal versus the rate of consumption. If the rate of renewal is much less than the rate of consumption, then we will very soon need to cut back sharply on our usage.

We can be very sure that the rate of production over the last few hundred million years is much less than the rate of consumption over the last 100 years -- otherwise we would have had oceans of oil to deal with.

[iceskater]

bump for later

[djf]

These guys are obviously wrong.

I buried a carp in my back yard.

Any day now, I should be able to top off my tank...

;-)

[Colinsky]

This dirt thermos we call earth must have some tremendous insulation qualities to keep that rock liquid for billions of years. My coffee cools off in the thermos in a few hours.

The Earth's core has trillions of tons of radioactive elements that generate heat as they decay.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks dila813 (self-ping for later).

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2706552/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/2705958/posts
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