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ranxer ranxer is offline
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Old Mar 16th, 2004, 10:22 AM        is peak oil a hoax?
http://www.davesweb.cnchost.com/nwsltr52.html
loong read

this article raises a lot of questions..
excerpt from something like page 6:

The notion that oil is a 'fossil fuel' was first proposed by Russian scholar Mikhailo Lomonosov in 1757. Lomonosov's rudimentary hypothesis, based on the limited base of scientific knowledge that existed at the time, and on his own simple observations, was that "Rock oil originates as tiny bodies of animals buried in the sediments which, under the influence of increased temperature and pressure acting during an unimaginably long period of time, transform into rock oil."

Two and a half centuries later, Lomonosov's theory remains as it was in 1757 -- an unproved, and almost entirely speculative, hypothesis. Returning once again to the Wall Street Journal, we find that, "Although the world has been drilling for oil for generations, little is known about the nature of the resource or the underground activities that led to its creation." A paragraph in the Encyclopedia Britannica concerning the origins of oil ends thusly: "In spite of the great amount of scientific research ... there remain many unresolved questions regarding its origins."

Does that not seem a little odd? We are talking here, after all, about a resource that, by all accounts, plays a crucial role in a vast array of human endeavors (by one published account, petroleum is a raw ingredient in some 70,000 manufactured products, including medicines, synthetic fabrics, fertilizers, paints and varnishes, acrylics, plastics, and cosmetics). By many accounts, the very survival of the human race is entirely dependent on the availability of petroleum. And yet we know almost nothing about this most life-sustaining of the earth's resources. And even though, by some shrill accounts, the well is about to run dry, no one seems to be overly concerned with understanding the nature and origins of so-called 'fossil fuels.' We are, rather, content with continuing to embrace an unproved 18th century theory that, if subjected to any sort of logical analysis, seems ludicrous.

On September 26, 1995, the New York Times ran an article headlined "Geochemist Says Oil Fields May Be Refilled Naturally." Penned by Malcolm W. Browne, the piece appeared on page C1.

Could it be that many of the world's oil fields are refilling themselves at nearly the same rate they are being drained by an energy hungry world? A geochemist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts ... Dr. Jean K. Whelan ... infers that oil is moving in quite rapid spurts from great depths to reservoirs closer to the surface. Skeptics of Dr. Whelan's hypothesis ... say her explanation remains to be proved ...
Discovered in 1972, an oil reservoir some 6,000 feet beneath Eugene Island 330 [not actually an island, but a patch of sea floor in the Gulf of Mexico] is one of the world's most productive oil sources ... Eugene Island 330 is remarkable for another reason: it's estimated reserves have declined much less than experts had predicted on the basis of its production rate.
"It could be," Dr. Whelan said, "that at some sites, particularly where there is a lot of faulting in the rock, a reservoir from which oil is being pumped might be a steady-state system -- one that is replenished by deeper reserves as fast as oil is pumped out" ...
The discovery that oil seepage is continuous and extensive from many ocean vents lying above fault zones has convinced many scientists that oil is making its way up through the faults from much deeper deposits ...
A recent report from the Department of Energy Task Force on Strategic Energy Research and Development concluded from the Woods Hole project that "there new data and interpretations strongly suggest that the oil and gas in the Eugene Island field could be treated as a steady-state rather than a fixed resource."
The report added, "Preliminary analysis also suggest that similar phenomena may be taking place in other producing areas, including the deep-water Gulf of Mexico and the Alaskan North Slope" ...
There is much evidence that deep reserves of hydrocarbon fuels remain to be tapped.

This compelling article raised a number of questions, including: how did all those piles of dinosaur carcasses end up thousands of feet beneath the earth's surface? How do finite reservoirs of dinosaur goo become "steady-state" resources? And how does the fossil fuel theory explain the continuous, spontaneous venting of gas and oil?

The Eugene Island story was revisited by the media three-and-a-half years later, by the Wall Street Journal (Christopher Cooper "Odd Reservoir Off Louisiana Prods Oil Experts to Seek a Deeper Meaning," Wall Street Journal, April 16, 1999).
(http://www.oralchelation.com/faq/wsj4.htm)

Something mysterious is going on at Eugene Island 330.
Production at the oil field, deep in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Louisiana, was supposed to have declined years ago. And for a while. it behaved like any normal field: Following its 1973 discovery, Eugene Island 330's output peaked at about 15,000 barrels a day. By 1989, production had slowed to about 4,000 barrels a day.
Then suddenly -- some say almost inexplicably -- Eugene Island's fortunes reversed. The field, operated by PennzEnergy Co., is now producing 13,000 barrels a day, and probable reserves have rocketed to more than 400 million barrels from 60 million. Stranger still, scientists studying the field say the crude coming out of the pipe is of a geological age quite different from the oil that gushed 10 years ago.
All of which has led some scientists to a radical theory: Eugene Island is rapidly refilling itself, perhaps from some continuous source miles below the Earth's surface. That, they say, raises the tantalizing possibility that oil may not be the limited resource it is assumed to be.
... Jean Whelan, a geochemist and senior researcher from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts ... says, "I believe there is a huge system of oil just migrating" deep underground.
... About 80 miles off the Louisiana coast, the underwater landscape surrounding Eugene Island is otherworldly, cut with deep fissures and faults that spontaneously belch gas and oil.

So now we are talking about a huge system of migrating dinosaur goo that is miles beneath the Earth's surface! Those dinosaurs were rather crafty, weren't they? Exactly three years later (to the day), the media once again paid a visit to the Gulf of Mexico. This time, it was Newsday that filed the report (Robert Cooke "Oil Field's Free Refill," Newsday, April 19, 2002).
(http://csf.colorado.edu/forums/pkt/2002II/msg00071.html)

and more..
http://www.davesweb.cnchost.com/nwsltr52.html
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davinxtk davinxtk is offline
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Old Mar 16th, 2004, 01:14 PM       
I didn't finish reading the article, but I think the best analogy I've heard about oil is as follows:

Imagine a room with a lifetime supply of pistachio nuts. You're trapped in the room, and all you have to eat for the rest of your life is said nuts. There's plenty of them. You couldn't possibly eat this many pistachios ever.

However, you will eventually starve to death. Why? Because eventually there will be enough pistachio shells in the way that you simply cannot find the nuts.




I swear I will read the article eventually.
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Old Mar 17th, 2004, 11:54 PM       
Wow, that article is pretty damned convincing.

I never thought about the origins of oil in that way though, and I have to say that being involved in the biological/chemical sciences myself the idea of abiotic oil production makes much more logical sense than rotting dinosaur goo.

And as the article states, the Russians have been aware of this for almost 50 years, yet in the west the very idea of questioning the accepted theory is scoffed at.

It's very suspicious that our scientific community ignores any information about something as important as oil, dont you think?

As far as the impact on peak oil, this helps a bit. The problem is that even if oil continues to be available in some semi-renewable form for an indefinite period, it may still be difficult and expensive to extract, causing a similar effect as that of the peak oil theory.

Also, though a few oilfields may display this property of refilling themselves, I suspect that it is not a very common event. It probably also varies drastically with regards to the speed of replenishment, based on the regional geology of areas. Sure this oilfield in the gulf of mexico looks good, but that doesnt mean that other oilfields such as those in the middle east do the same. Thus as cool as this is, it will probably not be the total salvation from peak oil that this article claims it is.

BTW, though I agree with most of the idea of peak oil, I think a lot of people have hijacked the concept to turn it into the new doomsday panic.

If anything the oil companies will make shitloads of money by jacking up prices and the world economy will suffer. The idea that this will lead to the destruction of the human race is rediculous.
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Old Mar 17th, 2004, 11:56 PM       
Quote:
Originally Posted by davinxtk
I didn't finish reading the article, but I think the best analogy I've heard about oil is as follows:

Imagine a room with a lifetime supply of pistachio nuts. You're trapped in the room, and all you have to eat for the rest of your life is said nuts. There's plenty of them. You couldn't possibly eat this many pistachios ever.

However, you will eventually starve to death. Why? Because eventually there will be enough pistachio shells in the way that you simply cannot find the nuts.




I swear I will read the article eventually.
what if you open the shell and there is no nut? a "dud" if you will.
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