Does this experiment prove that oil is abiotic in nature?

This article was posted to show what we could do with CO2.

Thanks ATS4dummies for the heads up on the experiment. Here is his thread-Next time someone says -Global Warming- you should say -Not Any More-.

But to me, it proves the origins of fuel here on Earth. Oil, natural gas, coal etc has always been said to be from plants and animals of ancient origins.

edit to add, I am not saying it is only Abiotic, I am saying it can come from the planet itself also.

Sun-powered device converts CO2 into fuel

Think about it, they were able to create methane, ethane, syngas (CO&H) and propane from just CO2 and having compounds like copper, platinum, titanium dioxide acting as catalysts.


Now what does that say people? Fuel or compounds of oil were created by simple chemical reactions.


Anyone getting my point yet?


Where does oil come from, how about natural gas, how about coal edit to cross out coal and insert oil shale.?

What I am getting at is this, since we were just little tykes were taught that oil and such comes from ancient deposits of animals(plankton mostly) and plants. Now, a few years back a Russian scientist posited that oil is abiogenic in nature or abiotic. Well it seems to me that this may prove this thesis.

Abiogenic Oil origon


Some big bull is being and has been posited by our scientists for quite some time. They say that because methane is on Mars, this proves that life must existed there at one time.

From this article-The “Abiotic Oil” Controversy
by Richard Heinberg

Now let me ask you this, if we have a theory that explains the methane, why would we not use it, instead of positing that it came from life?

Because someone either has blinders on OR that someone does not want us to know that fuel is created by the Earth and Planets themselves.

I wonder why that would be? Could you say, IT'S a CONSPIRACY?

All endisnighe. Seeing the truth behind the veil.

Now, I would like anyone to disprove this thesis.

[edit on 3/14/2010 by endisnighe]

I never did believe in that mumbo jumbo about oil forming from plankton and other fossils. I mean really? WTF?
Im no expert by ANY means, but this to me always smelled fishy(no pun intended).
I could be wrong, but I have yet to hear of anything better so I will stay open to the subject.
Your theory sounds more plausible personally. Much more scientific than the plankton and dead animal and plant theory.

reply to post by Common Good


Yeah, the first time I heard of the abiotic origon theory it made COMMON sense. Yes, I do still believe oil comes from the biological source, but I also believe it can be produced by the planets.

Like I said about Mars. We have determined that Mars has methane. Now the scientists that are closed minded about things would say what? That there must have been life there. It almost sounds like a joke.

Of course not, a true scientist would say that they must rethink the hypothesis to meet the facts. But no, they jump on the theory that there must have been life at one time.

What makes more sense in this. Life on Mars, or that the planet itself can create it?

[edit on 3/14/2010 by endisnighe]

Cool, huh?

Oil Fields Are Refilling

Naturally - Sometimes Rapidly There Are More Oil Seeps Than All The Tankers On Earth

Deep underwater, and deeper underground, scientists see surprising hints that gas and oil deposits can be replenished, filling up again, sometimes rapidly.
Although it sounds too good to be true, increasing evidence from the Gulf of Mexico suggests that some old oil fields are being refilled by petroleum surging up from deep below, scientists report. That may mean that current estimates of oil and gas abundance are far too low.
Recent measurements in a major oil field show "that the fluids were changing over time; that very light oil and gas were being injected from below, even as the producing [oil pumping] was going on," said chemical oceanographer Mahlon "Chuck" Kennicutt. "They are refilling as we speak. But whether this is a worldwide phenomenon, we don't know."

More:

Now, if it is found that gas and oil are coming up in significant amounts, and if the same is occurring in oil fields around the globe, then a lot more fuel than anyone expected could become available eventually. It hints that the world may not, in fact, be running out of petroleum.
"No one has been more astonished by the potential implications of our work than myself," said analytic chemist Jean Whelan, at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, in Massachusetts. "There already appears to be a large body of evidence consistent with ... oil and gas generation and migration on very short time scales in many areas globally," she wrote in the journal Sea Technology.

reply to post by Dogdish


Thanks Dogdish for the extra information. I was going to post more proof but I thought this new experiment kind of proves the thesis. If it can be done in the lab, it can happen.

Thanks again for the help.

isn't titan made up of oil and gas?

i remember thinking, wow, no smoking there!

reply to post by fooks


You mean the moon Titan? It's atmosphere is roughly 98% nitogen and 2% methane so you probably still shouldn't light a match!

reply to post by endisnighe

You should take the dubious origin of coal out of your argument. The fossile origin of coal is well proven, it still contains identifiable parts of fossilized plants.

This is not the only experiment which proves, that petroleum can be created without the help of organisms. Here a link to a paper were the scientists simulated upper-mantle conditions and were able to show, that hydrocarbons can form under these conditions (needs subscription!).
www.kth.se...
www.nature.com...

Many chemical compounds can be produced by various means. They can be produced with technical help, under natural geological conditions or with the help of organisms. So this is IMHO not enough to prove a mainly or exclusive abiotic origin of oil.

Although oil is used up, estimates about crude oil reserves increase from year to year. Partly, because technology allows us to use drill less accessible reservoirs and new reserves are found every year. But most comes from the fact, that the amount of oil in known reservoirs is constantly corrected upwards.
www.eia.doe.gov...

Many explanations have been given for these corrections.
news.bbc.co.uk...

Yet these strange numbers for well known oilfields are difficult to explain. Perhaps countries like Saudi Arabia were sugarcoating their rervoirs with the intention to reassure investors and the public. Past errors in the estimation are also a possibility. Also a horizontal inflow of oil is assumed (Such an inflow should be much less drastic).

But, perhaps this is the result of vertical inflow from deeper strata. An inflow from oil, newly created in the upper mantle. This would totally reshape our understandings, predictions and policies.

This is an area, where we musn't make an error. Suffering, famine and economic collapse could be the result.

If oil is biogenic in origin and we waste it, we act irresponsible. Future generations have to suffer.
If oil is mostly abiogenic we must determine how much we can drill on an annual basis.

reply to post by endisnighe


Yeah, lots of great info at that link. I wish I could just post the whole thing, but here's some more; regarding the amount of oil being "released" by natural processes, and the length of time that this must have been going on:

Analysis of the ancient oil that seems to be coming up from deep below in the Gulf of Mexico suggests that the flow of new oil "is coming from deeper, hotter formations" and is not simply a lateral inflow from the old deposits that surround existing oil fields, she said. The chemical composition of the migrating oil also indicates it is being driven upward and is being altered by highly pressurized gases squeezing up from below.

This upwelling phenomenon, Whelan noted, fits into a classic analysis of the world's oil and gas done years ago by geochemist-geologist John Hunt. He suggested that less than 1 percent of the oil that is generated at depth ever makes it into exploitable reservoirs. About 40 percent of the oil and gas remains hidden, spread out in the tiny pores and fissures of deep sedimentary rock formations.

And "the remaining 60 percent," Whelan said, "leaks upward and out of the sediment" via the numerous seeps that occur globally.

Also, the idea that dynamic migration of oil and gas is occurring implies that new supplies "are not only charging some reservoirs at the present time, but that a huge fraction of total oil and gas must be episodically or continuously bypassing reservoirs completely and seeping from surface sediments on a relatively large scale," Whelan explained.

So far, measurements involving biological and geological analysis, plus satellite images, "show widespread and pervasive leakage over the entire northern slope of the Gulf of Mexico," she added

It has long been known by geologists and oil industry workers that seeps exist. In Southern California, for example, there are seeps near Santa Barbara, at a geologic feature called Coal Oil Point. And, Roberts said, it's clear that "the Gulf of Mexico leaks like a sieve. You can't take a submarine dive without running into an oil or gas seep. And on a calm day, you can't take a boat ride without seeing gigantic oil slicks" on the sea surface.

Roberts added that natural seepage in places like the Gulf of Mexico "far exceeds anything that gets spilled" by oil tankers and other sources.

"The results of this have been a big surprise for me," said Whelan. "I never would have expected that the gas is moving up so quickly and what a huge effect it has on the whole system."

chemo-synthetic communities

The first sketchy evidence of this emerged in 1984, when Kennicutt and colleagues from Texas A&M University were in the Gulf of Mexico trying to understand a phenomenon called "seeps," areas on the seafloor where sometimes large amounts of oil and gas escape through natural fissures.

"Our first discovery was with trawls. We knew it was an area of massive seepage, and we expected that the oil seeps would poison everything around" the site. But they found just the opposite.

"On the first trawl, we brought up over two tons of stuff. We had a tough time getting the nets back on board because they were so full" of very odd-looking sea.floor creatures, Kennicutt said. "They were long strawlike things that turned out to be tube worms.

"The clams were the first thing I noticed," he added. "They were pretty big, like the size of your hand, and it was obvious they had red blood inside, which is unusual. And these long tubes -- 3, 4 and 5 feet long -- we didn't know what they were, but they started bleeding red fluid, too. We didn't know what to make of it."

The biologists they consulted did know what to make of it. "The experts immediately recognized them as chemo-synthetic communities," creatures that get their energy from hydrocarbons -- oil and gas -- rather than from ordinary foods. So these animals are very much like, but still different from, recently discovered creatures living near very hot seafloor vent sites in the Pacific, Atlantic and other oceans.

The difference, Kennicutt said, is that the animals living around cold seeps live on methane and oil, while the creatures growing near hot water vents exploit sulfur compounds in the hot water. The discovery of abundant life where scientists expected a deserted seafloor also suggested that the seeps are a long-duration phenomenon. Indeed, the clams are thought to be about 100 years old, and the tube worms may live as long as 600 years, or more, Kennicutt said.

The surprises kept pouring in as the researchers explored further and in more detail using research submarines. In some areas, the methane-metabolizing organisms even build up structures that resemble coral reefs.

So; it's replenishing itself, there's a lot of it, and it's been happening for a long time.

reply to post by Drunkenshrew


Excellent breakdown Drunkenshrew.

After I get a chance I will take a look through it all.

Thanks for the comment. As for the coal, I just mentioned it as a type of fuel source. I never really looked at the coal component. Maybe I should have said oilshale.

reply to post by Dogdish


Thanks for posting all of that. If I had not read that source, I read a source using that information.

I came across it when doing some research on oil spills. I think that may be one of the times I came across the abiotic theory of oil.

One theory about the biological supply of oil is the movement of the floor of oceans. The vast plankton life in the oceans die and float to the bottom being a carpet of dead life. With the movement of the floor coming to a plate line one side goes over the other and the other going under. This being one of the supplies of carbon for the manufacture of the oil. I came across that somewhere, I do not know where. So the carbon for the creation could be coming from that source plus naturally occurring sources of carbon to produce the varying types of hydrocarbon. Almost like Earth is a huge oil producer. But this still does not account for the existence of hydrocarbons on other planets.

I posted this thread because of the experiment that produced the hydrocarbons. Anything to prove this theory must be analysed because it helps to prove another one of the great conspiracies.

Peak oil, conspiracy or fact. I am leaning way toward conspiracy. Thanks again for more info.

reply to post by endisnighe


That link to wikipedia describes a hypothesis, not a theory. Also your "theory" that explains the methane doesn't have any real implications, as it isn't mutually exclusive with the theory that life produces methane. Methane, as your linked article says, is the simplest of hydrocarbons.

You've yet to demonstrate anything ground-breaking in your post

reply to post by davesidious


edit to add a link to a THEORY-Abiotic Oil Theory

Alright, since I am not a chemical engineer, I cannot put together a breakdown of the exact nature of all the components. I leave that to others. But I will still point out that they created a couple of the lighter hydrocarbons with simple chemical reactions.

You agree there right. Now the Russian scientist that came up with the theory seemed to know what he was talking about.

One article I read, posited that oil from a biological source could not exist below a certain depth due to it not being able to get there. Now we come to find that both the Russians and other Oil companies are striking oil at unbefore seen depths.

I am just hypothesizing that more and more evidence is starting to make it look like a very good theory.

You do have to admit that the Russian scientist that came up with it, is looking like he may have been right. I am having a hard time finding his name. If anyone finds it, please post it.

Also, what ever happened to peak oil? It always seems to be pushed further and further into the future.




[edit on 3/14/2010 by endisnighe]

Good thread! It answers a lot of questions I had for quite some time now.
I wonder if petroleum, then, is the natural lubricant for the machinery that the planet is?

Russian scientists have figured out this abiotic "theory" a long time ago. They were debating it en masse in the 50s and 60s, and by the end of the 60s the debate was pretty much done; oil was NOT produced by biomass from millions of years ago, but simply produced from the Earth.

Several times they offered the technology to the West, only to be rebuked by the Western scientists. Finally they gave up in disgust. Back in the 50s and 60s, it was generally accepted that Russia had pretty much NO oil to speak of.

According to the dinosaur juice theory, no biomass could possibly be present below 18,000 feet. Or else their entire sedimentary dating process could be totally wrong.

The Russians started succeeding many times drilling to 30 even 40 thousand feet and striking oil, back in the 60s. The debate was pretty much over once they started striking oil. In case you haven't noticed, Russia is now the world's largest producer of oil, more than Saudi Arabia or anyone else. Yet fifty years ago, the petrogeologists in their ultimate wisdom of what oil is and where it comes from, had decreed that Russia had virtually NO recoverable oil.

Lately, they have been finding most of the "dead" wells in the Gulf of Mexico have somehow magically been refilled. Scientists have even discovered that more oil simply seeps out of the sea bottom in the Gulf than all tanker spills put together, and has been doing it for some time. Long enough that they have discovered amazing new sea creatures down there that LIVE off the hydrocarbons, rather than oxygen and protein like everyone else.

The "Peak Oil" theory you have been hearing so much about lately is total bunk. There is plenty of oil in the Earth. The oil companies, which control the government, do not want anyone to know this, to keep the price high. There is plenty of oil. What do you think the Falklands war was about in the first place? That place is LOADED with oil, but they never mentioned that back in the 80s when they were fighting it out. It's all about keeping the sheeple in fear of running out, to keep the price high.

The fact that BURNING the oil to produce energy is completely idiotic, is another whole story....

Originally posted by CaptChaos
The fact that BURNING the oil to produce energy is completely idiotic, is another whole story....

Why not just tell us now?

reply to post by endisnighe


Do you happen to be aware of any information pretaining to the Creation of deposits of Petrolum deep within the Earth itself that are formed by chemical processes alone and not attributed to Plant or Bio material decomposition ? I am sure some Scientist somewhere has written a Paper or two about it .

[edit on 14-3-2010 by Zanti Misfit]

reply to post by Zanti Misfit


Here is a link you may find interesting. Guess who is in it. Dick Cheney.

Confessions of an “ex” Peak Oil Believer
By F William Engdahl, September 14, 2007

Here is a nice link on the Russian science behind the abiotic oil theory-Gas Resources Corporation

I offer a snippet from the front page of the link-

Modern petroleum science, - or what is called often the modern Russian-Ukrainian theory of deep, abiotic petroleum origins, - is an extensive body of knowledge which has been recorded in thousands of articles published in the mainstream, Russian-language scientific journals, and in many books and monographs. However, effectively nothing of modern petroleum science has been published in the U.S.A., and this body of knowledge remains largely unknown in the English-speaking world.

A snippet from this page-Gas Resources Corporation

“Every ten or fifteen years since the late 1800’s, ‘experts’ have predicted that oil reserves would last only ten more years. These experts have predicted nine out of the last zero oil-reserve exhaustions.” C. Maurice and C. Smithson, Doomsday Mythology: 10,000 Years of Economic Crisis, Hoover Institution Press, Stanford, 1984.

I am going to include several snippets here-

"The suggestion that petroleum might have arisen from some transformation of squashed fish or biological detritus is surely the silliest notion to have been entertained by substantial numbers of persons over an extended period of time." Fred Hoyle, 1982.

Milton (1996) continued with the history of the human powered flight. During the years, between 1903 to 1908, Wilbur and Orville Wright repeatedly demonstrated the flight capability of their invention, the airplane. Despite these demonstrations plus numerous independent affidavits and photographs from local enthusiasts as well, the Wrights' claims were not believed. Scientific American, the New York Herald, the US Army and most American scientists discredited the Wrights and proclaimed that their mechanism was a hoax. Noted experts from the US Navy and from Johns Hopkins University decried "powered human flight . . .absurd "(Milton,1996 p.11).

Sometime during the late 1970’s, a British-American, one-time astronomer named Thomas Gold discovered the modern Russian-Ukrainian theory of deep, abiotic petroleum origins. Such was not difficult to do, for there are many thousands of articles, monographs, and books published in the mainstream Russian scientific press on modern Russian petroleum science. Gold could read the Russian language fluently. In 1979, Gold began publishing the modern Russian-Ukrainian theory of petroleum origins, as if such were his own ideas and without giving credit to the Russian (then, Soviet) petroleum scientists from whom he had taken the material. Gold tried to alter the modern Russian-Ukrainian theory of deep, abiotic petroleum origins with notions of his own in order to conceal its provenance. He gave his “ideas” the (very misleading) name the “deep gas theory.”

Worse yet, Gold’s alterations of modern Russian petroleum science were utterly wrong. Specifically, Gold’s claims that there exist large quantities of natural gas (methane) in the Earth at depths of its mantle are completely wrong. Such claims are upside-down and backwards. At the pressures of the mantle, methane is unstable, and the hydrogen-carbon system there evolves the entire suite of heavier hydrocarbons found in natural petroleum, in the Planck-type distribution which characterizes natural petroleum. Methane at pressures of the mantle of the Earth will decompose to evolve octane, diesel oil, heavy lubricating oils, alkylbenzenes, and the compounds found in natural petroleum. [These properties of the hydrogen-carbon system have been described at greater length and rigor in a recent article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.1] Regrettably, Gold was as ignorant of statistical thermodynamics as he was of ethics.

A few moment’s thought should have been given to the reasonable probability that an astronomer, who had no previous knowledge of petroleum or geology, and no experience in those fields, might have independently thought up, all by himself, a formidably extensive body of knowledge which itself resulted from the directed work of many, many men and women of a large country with a splendid scientific tradition, working over several decades. Such notion compares with the myth of Apollo springing fully-armed from the forehead of Aphrodite. As the French say, “incroyable !”

So, Do Not read Gold's work, go to the source of his plagiarized work-The Russians! Especially since he got a lot of it WRONG.

In the first instance, the articles on this site are dedicated to the memory of Nikolai Alexandrovich Kudryavtsev, who first enunciated in 1951 what has become the modern Russian-Ukrainian theory of deep, abiotic petroleum origins. After Kudryavtsev, all the rest followed. Secondly, these articles are dedicated generally to the many geologists, geochemists, geophysicists, and petroleum engineers of the former U.S.S.R. who, during the past half century, developed modern petroleum science. By doing so, they raised their country from being, in 1946, a relatively petroleum-poor one, to the greatest petroleum producing and exporting nation in the world today.

SO, to end, Nikolai Alexandrovich Kudryavtsev was the TRUE developer of this theory. And it seems just now, even the UN the US government and everyone else believes this to be FACT.

They just do not want you to know it. Oil is plentiful, not rare!

Wow , looks like some great reading material there . Thanks Man .........


" Why then the high-risk war to control Iraq? For a century US and allied Western oil giants have controlled world oil via control of Saudi Arabia or Kuwait or Nigeria. Today, as many giant fields are declining, the companies see the state-controlled oilfields of Iraq and Iran as the largest remaining base of cheap, easy oil. With the huge demand for oil from China and now India, it becomes a geopolitical imperative for the United States to take direct, military control of those Middle East reserves as fast as possible. Vice President Dick Cheney, came to the job from Halliburton Corp., the world’s largest oil geophysical services company. The only potential threat to that US control of oil just happens to lie inside Russia and with the now-state-controlled Russian energy giants. Hmmmm. "


A Motive worth following here.........

[edit on 15-3-2010 by Zanti Misfit]