*Below are a couple of articles on abiotic oil, which I dug up after I
began reading Steve Berry's new book, The Emperor's Tomb. To learn about
these vast reserves was a bonus, since I was only expecting to learn
more about Chinese history as I quickly turned the pages of another
engaging mystery book. (Keith, you might enjoy this one.)The suggestion
of repeated suppression/destruction of each previous dynasty's cultural
base is framed as overarching ideological stagnation and cultural
amnesia that resulted in continual national underachievement and sadly
despotism as a way of life (hopefully soon to change.) This, despite the
fact that in the past, people from all over the world flocked to China
because of its innovation. We've heard of the printing press first
originating in China, agriculture, the clock, glazed pottery, rotary
mills, stirrups, sails, and the compass. They even drilled for oil 2500
years ago. Not only crude, but also natural gas, and used it in their
daily lives. Today, they are dependent primarily upon imports, and have
reserves that would last no more than 10 days. Trick is, if just two
straits, Hormuz or Malacca, were ever to be blockaded, China would be
brought to a halt. And I guess that's one reason why the US isn't so
worried about their biggest debt holder holding them out to dry.
Where Bro Jon has written about vast crude reserves actually making
Russia the world's leading producer, even back at the time of
Khrushchev, it appears that today the real reason for its leading world
producer status has more to do with their knowledge around abiotic
reserves, having discovered a few major ones.
Take note from below: *The 2003 arrest of Russian Mikhail Khodorkovsky,
of Yukos Oil, took place just before he could sell a dominant stake in
Yukos to ExxonMobil after a private meeting with Dick Cheney. Had Exxon
got the stake they would have control of the world's largest resource of
geologists and engineers trained in the a-biotic techniques of deep
drilling.
*And also note:* Hydrocarbons have been proven to exist elsewhere in the
solar system. Titan moon
<http://www.green-planet-solar-energy.com/titan-moon.html>, which orbits
Saturn, is saturated with them. Its atmosphere, surface liquid and and
even sand dunes are made from hydrocarbons. While the moon is
considerably smaller than Earth it is estimated to possess many
thousands of times the oil reserves of Earth on the surface alone. NASA
has found no evidence of past or present life on this moon so it can
only be assumed that these hydrocarbons were generated by a means other
than the fossilization of organic remains.
*Natalia*
*
Confessions of an "ex" Peak Oil Believer
*By F William Engdahl, September 14, 2007
The good news is that panic scenarios about the world running out of oil
anytime soon are wrong. The bad news is that the price of oil is going
to continue to rise. Peak Oil is not our problem. Politics is. Big Oil
wants to sustain high oil prices. Dick Cheney and friends are all too
willing to assist.
On a personal note, I've researched questions of petroleum, since the
first oil shocks of the 1970's. I was intrigued in 2003 with something
called Peak Oil theory. It seemed to explain the otherwise inexplicable
decision by Washington to risk all in a military move on Iraq.
Peak Oil advocates, led by former BP geologist Colin Campbell, and Texas
banker Matt Simmons, argued that the world faced a new crisis, an end to
cheap oil, or Absolute Peak Oil, perhaps by 2012, perhaps by 2007. Oil
was supposedly on its last drops. They pointed to our soaring gasoline
and oil prices, to the declines in output of North Sea and Alaska and
other fields as proof they were right.
According to Campbell, the fact that no new North Sea-size fields had
been discovered since the North Sea in the late 1960's was proof. He
reportedly managed to convince the International Energy Agency and the
Swedish government. That, however, does not prove him correct.
*Intellectual fossils?*
The Peak Oil school rests its theory on conventional Western geology
textbooks, most by American or British geologists, which claim oil is a
'fossil fuel,' a biological residue or detritus of either fossilized
dinosaur remains or perhaps algae, hence a product in finite supply.
Biological origin is central to Peak Oil theory, used to explain why oil
is only found in certain parts of the world where it was geologically
trapped millions of years ago. That would mean that, say, dead dinosaur
remains became compressed and over tens of millions of years fossilized
and trapped in underground reservoirs perhaps 4-6,000 feet below the
surface of the earth. In rare cases, so goes the theory, huge amounts of
biological matter should have been trapped in rock formations in the
shallower ocean offshore as in the Gulf of Mexico or North Sea or Gulf
of Guinea. Geology should be only about figuring out where these pockets
in the layers of the earth , called reservoirs, lie within certain
sedimentary basins.
An entirely alternative theory of oil formation has existed since the
early 1950's in Russia, almost unknown to the West. It claims
conventional American biological origins theory is an unscientific
absurdity that is un-provable. They point to the fact that western
geologists have repeatedly predicted finite oil over the past century,
only to then find more, lots more.
Not only has this alternative explanation of the origins of oil and gas
existed in theory. The emergence of Russia and prior of the USSR as the
world's largest oil producer and natural gas producer has been based on
the application of the theory in practice. This has geopolitical
consequences of staggering magnitude.
*Necessity: the mother of invention *
In the 1950's the Soviet Union faced 'Iron Curtain' isolation from the
West. The Cold War was in high gear. Russia had little oil to fuel its
economy. Finding sufficient oil indigenously was a national security
priority of the highest order.
Scientists at the Institute of the Physics of the Earth of the Russian
Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Geological Sciences of the
Ukraine Academy of Sciences began a fundamental inquiry in the late
1940's: where does oil come from?
In 1956, Prof. Vladimir Porfir'yev announced their conclusions: 'Crude
oil and natural petroleum gas have no intrinsic connection with
biological matter originating near the surface of the earth. They are
primordial materials which have been erupted from great depths.' The
Soviet geologists had turned Western orthodox geology on its head. They
called their theory of oil origin the 'a-biotic'
theory---non-biological---to distinguish from the Western biological
theory of origins.
If they were right, oil supply on earth would be limited only by the
amount of hydrocarbon constituents present deep in the earth at the time
of the earth's formation. Availability of oil would depend only on
technology to drill ultra-deep wells and explore into the earth's inner
regions. They also realized old fields could be revived to continue
producing, so called self-replentishing fields. They argued that oil is
formed deep in the earth, formed in conditions of very high temperature
and very high pressure, like that required for diamonds to form. 'Oil is
a primordial material of deep origin which is transported at high
pressure via 'cold' eruptive processes into the crust of the earth,'
Porfir'yev stated. His team dismissed the idea that oil is was
biological residue of plant and animal fossil remains as a hoax designed
to perpetuate the myth of limited supply.
*Defying conventional geology*
That radically different Russian and Ukrainian scientific approach to
the discovery of oil allowed the USSR to develop huge gas and oil
discoveries in regions previously judged unsuitable, according to
Western geological exploration theories, for presence of oil. The new
petroleum theory was used in the early 1990's, well after the
dissolution of the USSR, to drill for oil and gas in a region believed
for more than forty-five years, to be geologically barren---the
Dnieper-Donets Basin in the region between Russia and Ukraine.
Following their a-biotic or non-fossil theory of the deep origins of
petroleum, the Russian and Ukrainian petroleum geophysicists and
chemists began with a detailed analysis of the tectonic history and
geological structure of the crystalline basement of the Dnieper-Donets
Basin. After a tectonic and deep structural analysis of the area, they
made geophysical and geochemical investigations.
A total of sixty one wells were drilled, of which thirty seven were
commercially productive, an extremely impressive exploration success
rate of almost sixty percent. The size of the field discovered compared
with the North Slope of Alaska. By contrast, US wildcat drilling was
considered successful with a ten percent success rate. Nine of ten wells
are typically "dry holes."
That Russian geophysics experience in finding oil and gas was tightly
wrapped in the usual Soviet veil of state security during the Cold War
era, and went largely unknown to Western geophysicists, who continued to
teach fossil origins and, hence, the severe physical limits of
petroleum. Slowly it began to dawn on some strategists in and around the
Pentagon well after the 2003 Iraq war, that the Russian geophysicists
might be on to something of profound strategic importance.
If Russia had the scientific know-how and Western geology not, Russia
possessed a strategic trump card of staggering geopolitical import. It
was not surprising that Washington would go about erecting a "wall of
steel"---a network of military bases and ballistic anti-missile shields
around Russia, to cut her pipeline and port links to western Europe,
China and the rest of Eurasia. Halford Mackinder's worst nightmare--a
cooperative convergence of mutual interests of the major states of
Eurasia, born of necessity and need for oil to fuel economic growth--was
emerging. Ironically, it was the blatant US grab for the vast oil riches
of Iraq and, potentially, of Iran, that catalyzed closer cooperation
between traditional Eurasian foes, China and Russia , and a growing
realization in western Europe that their options too were narrowing.
*The Peak King*
Peak Oil theory is based on a 1956 paper done by the late Marion King
Hubbert, a Texas geologist working for Shell Oil. He argued that oil
wells produced in a bell curve manner, and once their "peak" was hit,
inevitable decline followed. He predicted the United States oil
production would peak in 1970. A modest man, he named the production
curve he invented, Hubbert's Curve, and the peak as Hubbert's Peak. When
US oil output began to decline in around 1970 Hubbert gained a certain fame.
The only problem was, it peaked not because of resource depletion in the
US fields. It "peaked" because Shell, Mobil, Texaco and the other
partners of Saudi Aramco were flooding the US market with dirt cheap
Middle East imports, tariff free, at prices so low California and many
Texas domestic producers could not compete and were forced to shut their
wells in.
*Vietnam success*
While the American oil multinationals were busy controlling the easily
accessible large fields of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iran and other areas of
cheap, abundant oil during the 1960's, the Russians were busy testing
their alternative theory. They began drilling in a supposedly barren
region of Siberia. There they developed eleven major oil fields and one
Giant field based on their deep 'a-biotic' geological estimates. They
drilled into crystalline basement rock and hit black gold of a scale
comparable to the Alaska North Slope.
They then went to Vietnam in the 1980s and offered to finance drilling
costs to show their new geological theory worked. The Russian company
Petrosov drilled in Vietnam's White Tiger oilfield offshore into basalt
rock some 17,000 feet down and extracted 6,000 barrels a day of oil to
feed the energy-starved Vietnam economy. In the USSR, a-biotic-trained
Russian geologists perfected their knowledge and the USSR emerged as the
world's largest oil producer by the mid-1980's. Few in the West
understood why, or bothered to ask.
Dr. J. F. Kenney is one of the only few Western geophysicists who has
taught and worked in Russia, studying under Vladilen Krayushkin, who
developed the huge Dnieper-Donets Basin. Kenney told me in a recent
interview that "alone to have produced the amount of oil to date that
(Saudi Arabia's) Ghawar field has produced would have required a cube of
fossilized dinosaur detritus, assuming 100% conversion efficiency,
measuring 19 miles deep, wide and high." In short, an absurdity.
Western geologists do not bother to offer hard scientific proof of
fossil origins. They merely assert as a holy truth. The Russians have
produced volumes of scientific papers, most in Russian. The dominant
Western journals have no interest in publishing such a revolutionary
view. Careers, entire academic professions are at stake after all.
*Closing the door*
The 2003 arrest of Russian Mikhail Khodorkovsky, of Yukos Oil, took
place just before he could sell a dominant stake in Yukos to ExxonMobil
after a private meeting with Dick Cheney. Had Exxon got the stake they
would have control of the world's largest resource of geologists and
engineers trained in the a-biotic techniques of deep drilling.
Since 2003 Russian scientific sharing of their knowledge has markedly
lessened. Offers in the early 1990's to share their knowledge with US
and other oil geophysicists were met with cold rejection according to
American geophysicists involved.
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.
According to Kenney the Russian geophysicists used the theories of the
brilliant German scientist Alfred Wegener fully 30 years before the
Western geologists "discovered" Wegener in the 1960's. In 1915 Wegener
published the seminal text, The Origin of Continents and Oceans, which
suggested an original unified landmass or "pangaea" more than 200
million years ago which separated into present Continents by what he
called Continental Drift.
Up to the 1960's supposed US scientists such as Dr Frank Press, White
House science advisor referred to Wegener as "lunatic." Geologists at
the end of the 1960's were forced to eat their words as Wegener offered
the only interpretation that allowed them to discover the vast oil
resources of the North Sea. Perhaps in some decades Western geologists
will rethink their mythology of fossil origins and realize what the
Russians have known since the 1950's. In the meantime Moscow holds a
massive energy trump card.
http://oilgeopolitics.net/Geopolitics___Eurasia/Peak_Oil___Russia/peak_oil___russia.html
The Abiotic Oil Formation Theory
The abiotic oil formation theory suggests that crude oil is the result
of naturally occurring and possibly ongoing geological processes. This
theory was developed in the Soviet Union during the Cold War, as the
Union needed to be self sufficient in terms of producing its own energy.
The science behind the theory is sound and is based on experimental
evidence in both the laboratory and in the field. This theory has helped
to identify and therefore develop large numbers of gas and oil deposits.
Examples of such fields are the South Khylchuyu field and the
controversial Sakhalin II field.
In its simplest form, the theory is that carbon present in the magma
beneath the crust reacts with hydrogen to form methane as well as a raft
of other mainly alkane
<http://www.green-planet-solar-energy.com/alkane.html> hydrocarbons. The
reactions are more complicated than this, with several intermediate
stages. Particular mineral rocks such as granite and other silicon
<http://www.green-planet-solar-energy.com/silicon-element-facts.html>
based rocks act as *catalysts*, which speed up the reaction without
actually becoming involved or consumed in the process.
Experiments have shown that under extreme conditions of heat and
pressure it is possible to convert iron oxide, calcium carbonate and
water into methane, with hydrocarbons containing up to 10 carbon
<http://www.green-planet-solar-energy.com/the-element-carbon.html> atoms
being produced by Russian scientists last century and confirmed in
recent US experiments. The absence of large quantities of free gaseous
oxygen in the magma prevents the hydrocarbons from burning and therefore
forming the lower energy state molecule carbon dioxide
<http://www.green-planet-solar-energy.com/carbon-dioxide-properties.html>.
The conditions present in the Earth's mantle would easily be sufficient
for these small hydrocarbon chains to polymerise into the longer chain
molecules found in crude oil.
The abiotic oil hydrocarbons formed are under incredible pressure.
They then will move toward lower pressure areas if possible. This is
generally toward the surface through cracks, or fissures, in the
basement granite of the crust. Such breaks in the crust are thought to
result from meteor impacts. They build up in areas where the layer of
rock above them is non porous, in the same manner proposed for fossil
fuel formation of oil
<http://www.green-planet-solar-energy.com/fossil-fuel-formation.html>.
Russian test drilling in areas of known impact sites has been very
productive. Application of the abiotic oil theory has helped Russia to
not only meet its own energy needs but also become one of the world's
largest exporters of petroleum.
*Self Replenishing Oil Wells*
If correct, the abiotic oil theory means that petroleum sources are
probably not as limited as currently thought and may indeed be in
plentiful supply. It is also likely that since removing the oil in
reservoirs reduces the pressure in that area, further seepage of oil
from the mantle to that part of the crust is more likely. The
equilibrium law of chemical reactions also predicts that this removal of
petroleum from close to the mantle will encourage further production.
While is is not known what speed this oil production is occurring at in
the mantle of the planet, it is possible that the rate is high which
could account for some oil wells refilling to some degree several years
after being capped and abandoned.
One outstanding example of this is the underwater drilling site called
Eugene Island in the Gulf of Mexico. Production from this site dropped
off from 3200 tonnes per day in 1989 to 2400 tonnes per day in 1992 as
predicted by standard models, but then in 1996 the amount of oil being
recovered from the deposit surged to 4800 tonnes per day, instigating a
reassessment of the size of this oil body. Since that time production
has again slowly diminished.
*Life In The Crust Of The Earth*
One major point that detractors of this theory make is that oil contains
bio-markers, which are the remains of dead organisms such as bacteria
and diatoms. Thermophilic, or heat loving, bacteria have been found
living in rocks far down in the Earth's crust, close to the molten
mantle. It is not difficult to envisage these bacteria living
anaerobically on a ready supply of high energy hydrocarbons seeping
continually upward from hot rock below. This could certainly result in
organic material being present in oil that formed abiotically, though
this is speculation.
*Hydrocarbons In Space*
Hydrocarbons have been proven to exist elsewhere in the solar system.
Titan moon <http://www.green-planet-solar-energy.com/titan-moon.html>,
which orbits Saturn, is saturated with them. Its atmosphere, surface
liquid and and even sand dunes are made from hydrocarbons. While the
moon is considerably smaller than Earth it is estimated to possess many
thousands of times the oil reserves of Earth on the surface alone. NASA
has found no evidence of past or present life on this moon so it can
only be assumed that these hydrocarbons were generated by a means other
than the fossilization of organic remains.
*A New Theory Is Needed*
There are detractors for both the biotic oil theory and the fossil
theory, and both make valid arguments. It is most likely that oil is
produced by both mechanisms and also possibly as a waste product of deep
living bacteria. However, no one theory can account for all the
phenomena associated with oil finds. There are deposits of oil that seem
to support both the abiotic oil and the fossil oil theories.
*Energy Use, Oil and Plastics*
Regardless of whether oil is a renewable resource or not, we still need
to be very careful about how we use it. The economic implications of oil
being a renewable resource are massive and generally provide a more
positive outlook for the world in the short term.
This does not change the facts that our current excessive production of
Carbon Dioxide
<http://www.green-planet-solar-energy.com/carbon-dioxide-properties.html> needs
to be addressed. Clearly there is still a pressing need for the large
scale implementation and ongoing development of clean energy such as
solar power and wind power.
If the abiotic oil theory holds true then only the immediate energy
crisis is resolved. The need for serious immediate action on greenhouse
emissions still stands as the greatest challenge of the 21st century.
http://www.green-planet-solar-energy.com/abiotic-oil.html
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