Oil not a fossil fuel???

One major question:

All living things on Earth are carbon-based life forms. Thus, fossils are carbon-based as well. Doesn't this make oil a carbon-based substance?

If that's the case, then maybe oil simply depends on pressure (since the Earth's crust is full of carbon), and not the placement of fossils. This would mean that oil is not a "fossil" fuel in the strictest sense, but a carbon-based fuel.

And if that's the case, perhaps there are great deposits of oil deeper in the Earth's crust. Also, empty oil wells would repressurize over time, refilling them again. (But who knows how long that would take?)

After all, diamonds are another form of condensed carbon, but you don't need fossils to make diamonds.

What I just said made perfect sense to me. So what am I missing?



[edit on 10/20/2004 by ThunderCloud]

Originally posted by ThunderCloud
One major question:

All living things on Earth are carbon-based life forms. Thus, fossils are carbon-based as well. Doesn't this make oil a carbon-based substance?

Thundercloud: Thanks for your post. I am not sure what you are getting at in this statement. Fossils are the mineralized remains of things that were once, but are no longer carbon. Oil, as described in the 'fossil fuel' definition, results from incomplete degradation of organics.

After all, diamonds are another form of condensed carbon, but you don't need fossils to make diamonds.

What I just said made perfect sense to me. So what am I missing?

Thundercloud: You are correct about diamonds being made of carbon. You may already know this, but diamonds are pure carbon. Diamond results from the sp3 hybridization of Carbon-carbon bonds. While it is carbon based, I don't think anyone would call it organic. However, your point is well taken. Obviously there is carbon chemistry occuring deep within earth. Maybe there's some geologist on board who can reconcile diamond formation with the formation of reduced hydrocarbon compounds.


[edit on 10/20/2004 by ThunderCloud]

Originally posted by mattison0922

What sort of research do you do? You said above you are a scientist, what field is it? I am merely asking.

Undergraduate in Biochemistry, Ph.D. in Molecular and Cellular Biology... currently I am involved with the design of handheld device for the detection of bioterrorist agents. However the particular technology also has potential in the disease diagnostics category. The device is to be utilized by US special forces in the field. A further device is also being developed that will sample air in both airports and cities, also monitoring for bioterrorist agents. I have also performed research on Nutritional Supplementation, several DNA sequencing projects, Human HLA typing for bone marrow and organ transplantee, as well as the structure/function relationships with respect to protein stability and enzyme mechanisms.

What fine credentials and I would like to say hello and thank you for your work that is bolded by me. I for one appreciate it.

This is truly a fascinating subject and this is the best thread yet! I em learning and I also think that we might not know the whole truth.

My father was a pipeline engineer and he always told me that there will always be a cry about limited oil supplies, he said not to worry as it was the $$$ that was the controlling factor. he also told me that during the OPEC embargo that we had the ability to get ALL the oil we needed but that for political purposes it was not done. Now I wonder just what he knew..

Originally posted by edsinger
My father was a pipeline engineer and he always told me that there will always be a cry about limited oil supplies, he said not to worry as it was the $$$ that was the controlling factor. he also told me that during the OPEC embargo that we had the ability to get ALL the oil we needed but that for political purposes it was not done. Now I wonder just what he knew..

I've been told that there is plenty of oil in the US left, it's just more expensive to extract (not all of it though). Instead of depleting the US entirely of oil before going to foreign markets some "good old boys" decided that we could use all of the foreign oil until there was none left and then rake in the profits with full control of the world supply.

Of course, the guy that told me that was ripe with conspiracy theories. There are a lot of big wells around here that couldn't have been emptied in the time that they were producing though.

Rule Number 1 - David Icke is for entertainment purposes only. Like psychics and phone sex hotlines.

Rule Number 2 - Inorganic material (such as rocks) containing "inorganic" atoms (stuff that isn't a mix of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen) does not become organic material (stuff that IS a mix of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen).

The only way that you can turn one type of atom into another is through nuclear reactions - fission and fusion. A scientist would be publicly whipped, quartered, hanged, burned, chopped into little bits, and then made into cocoa mix if he were ever to say that long-chain hydrocarbons (fossil fuels) came from nuclear chemistry reactions of molten rocks.

All living things on Earth are carbon-based life forms. Thus, fossils are carbon-based as well. Doesn't this make oil a carbon-based substance?

If that's the case, then maybe oil simply depends on pressure (since the Earth's crust is full of carbon), and not the placement of fossils. This would mean that oil is not a "fossil" fuel in the strictest sense, but a carbon-based fuel.

And if that's the case, perhaps there are great deposits of oil deeper in the Earth's crust. Also, empty oil wells would repressurize over time, refilling them again. (But who knows how long that would take?)

After all, diamonds are another form of condensed carbon, but you don't need fossils to make diamonds.

What I just said made perfect sense to me. So what am I missing?

You're missing hydrogen. Fossil fuels are saturated alkanes, which means they are chains of carbon atoms with hydrogen atoms filling up their unused electron orbitals.

Diamonds, which are PURE carbon, come from graphite, which is also PURE carbon. Graphite is the kinetically favored structure of pure carbon, while diamonds are the thermodynamically favored structure of pure carbon. This means that graphite forms more often because it does not require a lot of heat to get it to form, and it is stable enough to hold itself together. It also means that diamonds require additional heat in order to take on their form. It is much more stable than graphite, but harder to get it that way.

[edit on 2-9-2005 by trinitrotoluene]

Wish i knew where to start sharing what i have read on this topic! I see so mention of this site so i guess that would be the best place if everyone is not allready familiar with it.

Stellar

I would further suggest that the crackpots you are addressing read about thermal depolymerizaion and explain how, mysteriously, oil can be created artificially exactly like the geologists say it is created in the earth.

Originally posted by shbaz
I would further suggest that the crackpots you are addressing read about thermal depolymerizaion and explain how, mysteriously, oil can be created artificially exactly like the geologists say it is created in the earth.

EXCELLENT link. BEAUTIFUL. I love organic chemistry, and that little blurb at the top really hits home.

originally posted by: Goldbaron357
Magma is molten rock and minerals. Unless what you are trying to get is mineral oil, and even that is highly unlikely, you are barking up the wrong oil derrick. Petroleum is a Hydrocarbon... organic material got buried over years and years under layers of rock and dirt, the pressure and heat forming either coal seams or oil reservoirs. It is organic. It may not be biodegradeable, but it is organic. Oil has been known to seep back into wells thought dry. But the reason they stop pumping wells that they call dry, and there is oil left in them, is because after a while, they cannot maintain pumping pressure. Under the laws of physics, no pump, no matter how strong, cannot pull a column of fluid higher than 32 feet or so. If the liquid is under pressure, then they can bring it to the surface. When it gets nearly impossible to bring any more oil to the surface, they quit, and cap the wells. For example, the arabs are pumping sea water into their wells to keep the pumping pressure high enough to recover their oil. Otherwise, with all that oil there, they might have "dry wells". Oil comes from organic matter. No one can convince me otherwise.

This is no joke

I did policy debate in college from around 2003 to 2008

One year the topic was “peak oil”

In policy debate everything is evidence driven

Books, scientific journals and many other pieces of literature are “cut” into cards that make up the framework for the arguments in debate

A tag line would be given before reading the evidence that would include the author and date

Something like “Global warming will destroy us by 2025, smith research analyst for scientific America, 2003”

My team cut this very ats post to argue against the claim of “abiotic oil”

We still laugh about it to this day

We were talking today and my old debate partner found this old thread

No one ever questioned the author and they accepted the evidence as they would out of any journal

So just wanted to say thank you goldbaron357 for helping me win some debate rounds nearly 20 years ago

a reply to: mattison0922

Stalin And Abiotic Oil

(Or How Ruppert's 'Peak Oil' Pile is Gaining Tonnage)






"It appears that, unbeknownst to Westerners, there have actually been, for quite some time now, two competing theories concerning the origins of petroleum. One theory claims that oil is an organic 'fossil fuel' deposited in finite quantities near the planet's surface. The other theory claims that oil is continuously generated by natural processes in the Earth's magma. One theory is backed by a massive body of research representing fifty years of intense scientific inquiry. The other theory is an unproven relic of the eighteenth century. One theory anticipates deep oil reserves, refillable oil fields, migratory oil systems, deep sources of generation, and the spontaneous venting of gas and oil. The other theory has a difficult time explaining any such documented phenomena.

So which theory have we in the West, in our infinite wisdom, chosen to embrace? Why, the fundamentally absurd 'Fossil Fuel' theory, of course -- the same theory that the 'Peak Oil' doomsday warnings are based on.

I am sorry to report here, by the way, that in doing my homework, I never did come across any of that "hard science" documenting 'Peak Oil' that Mr. Strahl referred to. All the 'Peak Oil' literature that I found, on Ruppert's site and elsewhere, took for granted that petroleum is a non-renewable 'fossil fuel.' That theory is never questioned, nor is any effort made to validate it. It is simply taken to be an established scientific fact, which it quite obviously is not.

So what do Ruppert and his resident experts have to say about all of this? Dale Allen Pfeiffer, identified as the "FTW Contributing Editor for Energy," has written:

"There is some speculation that oil is abiotic in origin -- generally asserting that oil is formed from magma instead of an organic origin. These ideas are really groundless."

www.fromthewilderness.com...

Here is a question that I have for both Mr. Ruppert and Mr. Pfeiffer: Do you consider it honest, responsible journalism to dismiss a fifty year body of multi-disciplinary scientific research, conducted by hundreds of the world's most gifted scientists, as "some speculation"?

Another of FTW's prognosticators, Colin Campbell, is described by Ruppert as "perhaps the world's foremost expert on oil." He was asked by Ruppert, in an interview,

"what would you say to the people who insist that oil is created from magma ...?"

Before we get to Campbell's answer, we should first take note of the tone of Ruppert's question. It is not really meant as a question at all, but rather as a statement, as in 'there is really nothing you can say that will satisfy these nutcases who insist on bringing up these loony theories.'

www.fromthewilderness.com...

Campbell's response to the question was an interesting one:

"No one in the industry gives the slightest credence to these theories."

Why, one wonders, did Mr. Campbell choose to answer the question on behalf of the petroleum industry? And does it come as a surprise to anyone that the petroleum industry doesn't want to acknowledge abiotic theories of petroleum origins? Should we have instead expected something along these lines?: "



www.educate-yourself.org...


Are they Implying Russian Science is Flawed Concerning this Topic ?

originally posted by: trinitrotoluene
You're missing hydrogen. Fossil fuels are saturated alkanes, which means they are chains of carbon atoms with hydrogen atoms filling up their unused electron orbitals.

The hydrogen atoms are certainly there, and was probably formed before earth became a planet.

Dr Luke Daly, from the University of Glasgow and the study's lead author, said: "The solar winds are streams of mostly hydrogen and helium ions which flow constantly from the Sun out into space."

"When those hydrogen ions hit an airless surface like an asteroid or a space-borne dust particle, they penetrate a few tens of nanometres below the surface, where they can affect the chemical composition of the rock.

"Over time, the 'space weathering' effect of the hydrogen ions can eject enough oxygen atoms from materials in the rock to create H2O - water - trapped within minerals on the asteroid.

I am no geologist, but I can see how Earth was a huge dust cloud completely exposed to the hydrogen ion shower from the sun making a huge amount of hydrated mineral.

I'm also thinking about hydrothermal vents and the amount of life that is able to flourish around such structures in such extreme pressures and temperatures. Why couldn't similar ecosystems exist deeper into the crust?

Based on the ITOKAWA asteroid research, I ascertain that numerous different processes can produce crude oil.

a reply to: DirtWasher

Well, Titian has lakes consisting of pure methane, a hydrocarbon.

a reply to: graysquirrel

Ahh yes, we forgot about the other orbiters. lol

You reminded me I should have said "hydrocarbons" instead of "crude oil."

Lot's of new geological research is coming out that is greatly enhancing our understanding of the physical universe. I would like to reach out to these institutions and find out what's in the works at the moment, or at least what to keep an eye out for in natural sciences. My kid's minds were blown by the Itokawa asteroid research findings.

I'm personally turned off by the mention of Ike, but alternative origins of hydrocarbons are by no means original to Ike.