Oil reserves... on Titan, Saturn's moon

Oil reserves... on Titan, Saturn's moon

www.jpl.nasa.gov
(visit the link for the full news article)


Related News Links:
www.astrobio.net

Thought this might be of interest to some of you out there.

(Hope this is the right place to put it, mods feel free to move if you need to.)

S

www.jpl.nasa.gov
(visit the link for the full news article)

Are there any organic chemists out there that can tell us how this accumulation of hydrocarbons could have developed without the presence of life? Where do petrochemicals come from geologically?

reply to post by Zelun

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I'm not an organic chemist, but I am an avowed google-ite.

Free Republic | 'Fossil fuel' theory takes hit with NASA finding

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Abiotic Oil | Reserves Replenished by Process in Earth's Mantle?

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A 2005 thread on the subject:

NASA discovers that Oil is not a fossil fuel. Peak Oil Confirmed Hoax

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More:

Geopolitics - Geoeconomics | F William Engdahl | Confessions of an “ex” Peak Oil Believer

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So we won't need to go to Titan to exploit it for energy, and "Peak Oil" is a lie to increase the profits of Big Oil.

Wow, thanks for posting this, Sunalei, I just learned some rather startling information.

Flagged and Starred!

reply to post by goosdawg

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oil is NOT methane , didnt google teach you that ?????????????

reply to post by ignorant_ape

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What's your point?

This is not a one line post...

reply to post by goosdawg

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i have made my point - why hasnt it sunk in yet - its pretty straight forward

reply to post by ignorant_ape

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Well, your hostility is certainly coming through loud and clear...

If your intent is be deliberately obtuse, then yes, your point has been made.

But what's that got to do with the common knowledge that methane is not oil?

Hmmmm what part of "organic" hasn't sunken in yet?
Methane is produced by cow farts and decaying organic matter.
It is a hydrocarbon. Hydrogen and carbon.
There are only two explanations for such material on a planet or moon.
Either there is or was life there, or life is not needed for the formation of hydrocarbons.
Either would be fine for me, I am just wondering which one they are most afraid to announce.

Its not the pigs or cows farting itself that creates methane, but the bacteria inside the digestive systems, a byproduct of them.

Methane is vented from volcanoes as well and can be created abiotically. We can find methane on the Moon.

We would need to test the methane to determine an abiogenic versus biogenic origin.

However, what is on Titan is NOT oil. I know that is what the headline says, but they do that. They had one today that said Astronauts build monster in space.

Besides. If it was oil, we would have declared war on Titan

Hmm, mining Titan. The Jupiter Mining Corperation?

Red Dwarf anyone?

Energy's energy. Unless we protect Titan from space miners people will undoubtedly harvest there. No time soon I don't think.

I was feeling lucky:


An abiotic origin for hydrocarbons in the Allan Hills 84001 martian meteorite through cooling of magmatic and impact-generated gases

This was about how there could be organic material in the meteorite they found in Antarctica and how it wasn't definite proof of life.

Here's a pdf from NASA that has some good illustrations about the methane cycle they propose operates on Titan, and a bit about cryo volcanism.

To me it seems like nature cranks out carbon polymers, and so it stands to reason that life might be built out of it.

I think the problem with using the oil and coal is that we're pulling this stuff out of the ground and putting it into the air. How does it get back into the ground if we burn away the trees too? It's barbaric. Especially considering we have a perfectly good star overhead half the time, not to mention all the gravity power in the ocean. Whether peak oil is a myth or not, we still need to get away from using that stuff.
[edit] forgot about peak oil for a second

[edit on 17-3-2008 by Zelun]

If there is actually some form of useful fuel on some moon or other plannet, then watch as humans become the aliens in Independence Day, moving from to plannet to plannet sucking all the resources dry. As our leaders try to get everyone to rationalize this view that we can take whatever we want without regard to any ecosystems or life forms we may be destroying.

We've done such a great job of that here, what's to prevent US from becoming the resource consuming intergalatic locusts we worry will come to our plannet?

Living organisms are NOT required to produce hydrocarbons, specifically methane...and why would anyone be afraid to announce that?

And as Shadow_Lord pointed out, that article says NOTHING about there being oil and coal on Titan. All it says is that there are more methane lakes and carbon dunes on Titan than there is oil and coal on Earth.

Wow...and people think gas is expensive now. Wait till they start pumping it in from Titan.

And that scene from Independence Day sounds about right. But, hypothetically of course, if it was an uninhabited planet or moon, what's the harm?