Posted on 11/06/2015 4:46:41 AM PST by expat_panama
Ever since M. King Hubbert in the 1950s convinced a lot of people with his "peak oil" theory that production would collapse and we'd eventually exhaust our crude supplies, the clock has been running. And running. And it will continue to run for some time, as technology and new discoveries show that there's still an ocean of oil under our feet.
[snip]
A BP official told the magazine that "energy resources are plentiful. Concerns over running out of oil and gas have disappeared."
Things are so good, in fact, that Engineering and Technology says "with the use of the innovative technologies, available fossil fuel resources could increase from the current 2.9 trillion barrels of oil equivalent to 4.8 trillion by 2050, which is almost twice as much as the projected global demand." That number could even reach 7.5 trillion barrels if technology and exploration techniques advance even faster.
This information backs up the idea that Earth is actually an oil-producing machine. We call energy sources such as crude oil and natural gas fossil fuels based on the assumption that they are the products of decaying organisms, maybe even dinosaurs themselves. But the label is a misnomer. Research from the last decade found that hydrocarbons are synthesized abiotically.
In other words, as Science magazine has reported...
[snip]
But for now, enjoy our cheap, abundant and efficient "fossil" fuels.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.investors.com ...
Ping!
I was fortunate to have participated on the edges of the Siljan ring well that tested Thomas Gold’s theory of the abiogenic origins of hydrocarbons. The Russian’s Kola Peninsula well was also to test the theory.
Some traces of mobile hydrocarbons were found in the Siljan ring well but not much.
Gold published a very good article in “The Atlantic” in the early 80s as I recall.
Come to find out, a decade or two later, the on-shore underground oil reservoirs were filling up again. It was Soviet scientists who developed the (then radical) hypothesis that the earth's crust was itself generating new oil, independent of any supposed deposits of Jurassic vegetation.
Comment? My own knowledge is sketchy -- and that's overstating it.
Since non-sedimentary layers are mostly impervious; basalt, granite, marble, etc. and sedimentary are porous; would not oil vapors coming up from the core settle in the pervious layers?
How do you equate that process with multiple layers in the same area having drastically different qualities and each layer topped by a impervious layer that holds the oil/gas in place, creating the petroleum trap that we produce from?
Oh blargh.
I remember hearing something like that, don’t recall where.
Not all refinery processes break hydrocarbons into smaller chains. Some refinery processes involve cracking, but others at lower temperatures are simple distillation.
It is not heavier due to compression. It is heavier due to the molecular weight of long chain hydrocarbons.
Wax, a mixture of relatively longer hydrocarbon chains, in comparison to gasoline, floats on water. Some hydrocarbons float on water, but not others.
Oil is not a single molecular structure. It is dozens and sometimes hundreds of different molecules. It is not simply the same string made longer, but completely different structures such as the before mentioned asphaltenes, paraffins, naphthenes, and aromatics.
The proof is in the results. It seems that the Joint Institute of the Physics of the Earth, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow; Gas Resources Corporation, Houston has it figured out.
Yes, but that really isn't related to the discussion of the formation of hydrocarbon molecules in crude oil.
There are lots of other processes as well, desalting, hydrotreating to remove sulfur, reforming to gain octane values, etc.
Some hydrocarbons float on water, but not others.
That was my point. You thought oil formed below and floated up through water. Some of those oil would be sinking not floating. It negates the idea that they were formed below and floated up. In crude oil, this is measured by the API gravity scale. Higher numbers are lighter. 10 is equal to water, lower sinks in water, higher floats.
The proof is in the results.
I agree, exploration on the basis of the biotic formation of oil has produces all the oil we use today. The theory of abiotic oil has produced papers and occasionally cash from the gullible, sometimes that included governments.
Today, there is not commercial oil production not sourced to sedimentary deposits.
from the thread blocked for duplication
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3357096/posts?page=13#13
the carbon that settles into the ground or sea bed or ponds etc...is constant piled onto year after year and is forced to the mantle/core
- - - -
Sedimentary basins, where we find and produce oil/gas, have a bottom. They don’t continue down to the mantle. Beneath them is igneous rock, referred to as basement rock in petroleum geology. It is an impervious granite layer. It can have fractures, but it is not porous.
Plate movement and granite build up from beneath. We are dealing with maybe four billion years of formation.
There have been instances of fields refilling over time in Oklahoma and the Gulf of Mexico. I would guess that these are places where it is possible for upward migration.
Then, if a pervious layer is full and the migration route is semi-porous, the layer would not take on new oil until drilled and it could take a great deal of time to refill.
I don’t know that we will know the truth until we drill nearly through the crust. Or find a field that is porous to the mantle. We may never find the second because of granite formation from beneath.
I'm only talking of layers above the granite.
There have been instances of fields refilling over time in Oklahoma and the Gulf of Mexico.
Myths not reality. Enhanced oil recovery that uses additional methods is not the same as refilling.
, if a pervious layer is full and the migration route is semi-porous
I'm asking about the impervious layer on top, that then has additional oil layer above has of a drastic different quality, viscosity, ratios of heavies to lights, etc.
I don’t know that we will know the truth
I don't know that some will every recognize what is before them.
Methane hydrate litters the ocean floor. Plate induction would carry some (most?) of it under the adjoining plate. The methane hydrate would cook off quickly and rise to the bottom of the plate above. You now have a simple hydrocarbon in the presence of oxygen and under great heat and pressure. The basalt would cook off more slowly and rise as granite next.
There is your oil layer and impervious layer and a source of micro-fossils.
If this is correct the entire hydrocarbon system is naturally recycling itself over geologic time.
Induction zones are a small fraction of the ocean floor.
The methane hydrate would cook off quickly and rise to the bottom of the plate above.
Okay, to the bottom of the impervious granite...
You now have a simple hydrocarbon in the presence of oxygen and under great heat and pressure.
What oxygen source?
Heat and pressure beak down carbon bonds, not form them.
There is your oil layer and impervious layer and a source of micro-fossils.
No oil, and below the plate with impervious layer of granite separating it from the sedimentary layers where we produce oil from.
If this is correct
Lots of flaws here...
Also note lots of oil found thousands of miles from subduction zones.
And still doesn’t explain how in the sedimentary layer, different types of oil found under different layers of sealing rock.
Go look at continental drift maps over the three to four billion years the earth has been around. Best guess is when north America first formed, the west coast and current Rockies did not exist. The was another mountain range east of the Rockies that is completely gone, worn away.
Induction of the Pacific Plate under the West Coast has built up everything from the plains to the west coast since after the north American Continent formed.
Just because the subduction zone has moved doesn’t mean there was never one there.
If my hypothesis is true you would find older oil at shallower depths and newer oil deeper. Depending on the seal layers density/porousness, you could have ligher oils where the light ends could not be bleed off and heavier oil where light ends could migrate out. Oil could also vary from what got subducted with it. Had there been a recent meteorite or volcanic event close by?
The other hypothesis is that oil is also forming from carbon and hydrogen trapped in the earth’s core since it was formed. It could be a combination.
I’m simply not sure we have enough data at present to rule out any of it, including the possibility that all three are occurring.
I think everyone is missing the main jist of the article - engineering technology is advancing and allowing us to get to the oil that is (and has been) there. Of course the price needs to be right!
How is it moving through the impermeable igneous rocks?
If my hypothesis is true you would find older oil at shallower depths and newer oil deeper.
Oil is too old for any carbon dating technique.
Depending on the seal layers density/porousness, you could have ligher oils where the light ends could not be bleed off and heavier oil where light ends could migrate out.
I"m talking about fields like Ugnu on the Alaskan North slope where the heaviest oil is on the shallowest layer. They are not small bowls on top forming a sealing layer with oil at the edges and underneath, but rather with the sealing layers far larger than the different layers of oil.
Does that mean the macro-fossils in the La Brea Tar Pits formed the Tar Pits?
No.
We are talking about deep underground. What was in the sediment when it was laid down.
Not after faults and uprising pushed it back up to surface.
Re-read what you just said....
Rather than a refutation of abiotic oil, your claim of a layer of oil 6 miles deep is so. It's just 6 miles (and much more...) UNDER ground, not above ground as your example assumes.
AV- Seimographic exploration ship capt. Alaska, S. America E & W coasts, US West coast, Gulf of Mexico, Bahamas & Caribbean. Oil structures were everywhere we looked.
The Earth indeed does not have a layer of oil 6 miles thick- it's thicker!
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