Abiologic oil/gas

[Dr Mordrid]

So these "fossil fuels" quite possibly aren't.

Shocked...SHOCKED I AM.....not.

So much for "peak oil"

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/09/090910084259.htm

Fossils From Animals And Plants Are Not Necessary For Crude Oil And Natural Gas, Swedish Researchers Find

ScienceDaily (Sep. 12, 2009) — Researchers at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Stockholm have managed to prove that fossils from animals and plants are not necessary for crude oil and natural gas to be generated. The findings are revolutionary since this means, on the one hand, that it will be much easier to find these sources of energy and, on the other hand, that they can be found all over the globe.

“Using our research we can even say where oil could be found in Sweden,” says Vladimir Kutcherov, a professor at the Division of Energy Technology at KTH.

Together with two research colleagues, Vladimir Kutcherov has simulated the process involving pressure and heat that occurs naturally in the inner layers of the earth, the process that generates hydrocarbon, the primary component in oil and natural gas.

According to Vladimir Kutcherov, the findings are a clear indication that the oil supply is not about to end, which researchers and experts in the field have long feared.

He adds that there is no way that fossil oil, with the help of gravity or other forces, could have seeped down to a depth of 10.5 kilometers in the state of Texas, for example, which is rich in oil deposits. As Vladimir Kutcherov sees it, this is further proof, alongside his own research findings, of the genesis of these energy sources – that they can be created in other ways than via fossils. This has long been a matter of lively discussion among scientists.

“There is no doubt that our research proves that crude oil and natural gas are generated without the involvement of fossils. All types of bedrock can serve as reservoirs of oil,” says Vladimir Kutcherov, who adds that this is true of land areas that have not yet been prospected for these energy sources.

But the discovery has more benefits. The degree of accuracy in finding oil is enhanced dramatically – from 20 to 70 percent. Since drilling for oil and natural gas is a very expensive process, the cost picture will be radically altered for petroleum companies, and in the end probably for consumers as well.

“The savings will be in the many billions,” says Vladimir Kutcherov.

To identify where it is worthwhile to drill for natural gas and oil, Vladimir Kutcherov has used his research to arrive at a new method. It involves dividing the globe into a finely meshed grid. The grid corresponds to fissures, so-called ‘migration channels,’ through underlying layers under the surface of the earth. Wherever these fissures meet, it is suitable to drill.

According to Vladimir Kutcherov, these research findings are extremely important, not least as 61 percent of the world’s energy consumption derives from crude oil and natural gas.
The next step in this research work will involve more experiments, but above all refining the method will make it easier to find places where it is suitable to drill for oil and natural gas.
Vladimir Kutcherov, Anton Kolesnikov, and Alexander Goncharov’s research work was recently published in the scientific journal Nature Geoscience.

[Brian Ellis]

Yeah, sure, these crazy guys have been saying this for years. I suppose coal is not derived from vegetation, either.

[Evildead666]

Surely we should be looking elsewhere than where to get even more plentiful supplies of our own poison....?

How about a new poison, or one that is not poisonous ?

[Brian Ellis]

From another forum:

Quote:
But this time, a paper on the subject has made it into Nature Geoscience. Nature is one of the most respectable science publications anywhere. That a paper theorizing abiogenic oil has made it into Nature seems significant to me, particularly when the authors make specific recommendations as to minimizing dry holes and maximizing production.


Well first off, Nature Geoscience is pretty much bottom of the totem pole for publishing geoscience work that you want to be taken seriously. If the authors were truly certain of their claims they could have tried several journals that specialize in this sort of research (eg. Geochimica Cosmochimica Acta, Oganic Geochemistry, Marine and Petroleum Geology, Petroleum Geoscience). And if they were really wanting to get it in front of the appropriate audience then AAPG bulletin should have been the target. Knowing the review process at these journals it would likely never have seen the light of day or would be subject to almost immediate discussion papers.
Secondly I have a background in organic geochemistry and having spent the last 30+ years in the petroleum game I can state with pretty good assurance that there is no oil out there that we have not been able to properly match through fingerprints to it's most likely source. We can create hydrocarbons from C1 through C7 in the lab from heating source rocks (a method called pyrolyisis which is regularily used by various service companies), we can match oils to source rocks through their carbon chromatographic fingerprints, we can model the formation of hydrocarbon from source rock using well established equations and those models are ground truthed by existing accumulations. In essence this is a theory with no holes as far as I am aware. Every accumulation that Russian scientists who hold the abiotic theory to be true have claimed were formed by abiotic origins can be typed to adjacent source rocks which have generated oil biotically. The lab experiments they have conducted are successful at creating C1 and some C2 but nothing higher as far as I am aware and they require long range vertical migration and disequilibria to explain the existence of liquids. My question is if you can explain all of the worlds liquid hydrocarbon accumulations through a biotic orgin then why do we need an abiotic one? What indeed is the proof for abiotic orgins......indeed there is none.

[Technoid]

uhm, so some unamed source (who you dont even link) is suposed to be more accurate than a named linked source?

Besides there are some theorys that say that the only reason oil seems to be biological is that there are bacteria feeding on it, living in it etc.

Personally I have always thought the division of "inorganic" and "organic" chemistry a bit weird.

[Brian Ellis]

Personally I have always thought the division of "inorganic" and "organic" chemistry a bit weird.

Why? For me, organic chemistry is essentially where you have carbon compounds with covalent bonds to other atoms, whereas inorganic is where the bonds are essentially ionic (even the carbon bonds). I agree that there are exceptions to this simplistic rule, in both directions, but they are easily recognised.

As for the main point of this thread, my contention is that carbon is a rare element in the earth's crust, with the exception of where there are sedimentary rocks, where there are hefty concentrations formed mostly either by the shells of marine creatures or from lush marshland vegetation. The fact that these rocks happen to be very porous and that oil and gas are nearly always found in them, to the exclusion of igneous rocks, is significant. I'm aware that abiotic organics are a possibility: life, indeed, must have started abiotically in some primeval soup, but it is the proliferation of life that has concentrated the carbon from a dispersed element in rocks to be oxidised to the high concentration of CO2 that allowed the marine creatures to form their shells and the bodies they protected. We know a lot of it stayed as fossil CaCO3, forming the bulk of the sediments, but if the living part of the creatures did not form the oil and gas, where did all that organic material go?

Oh, and there are plenty of forums where this subject is treated more scientifically than anyone here can offer. I happened to make a quotation from one to illustrate that this is a very complex subject. None of us are geoscientists, that I'm aware of, so anyone replying here, myself included, just offers opinion that is little more than 'sounding off' on something they cannot hope to understand.