I'm sure more than a few vortex readers, perhaps everyone except Frank Z, must think that anyone who suggests that LENR fusion could extend all the way to the "impossible" reaction He+He+He --> C must be, well... a little "touched"... as my dear grandmother used to say to politely indicate a pathology far more more severe.
Indeed. But here is some further controversial "evidence" which one might like to throw into the blender before making any assessment. Even now, with oil pushing $3/gallon, not everyone believes in the Hubbert's peak oil theory. Actually I do believe most of it, but for statistical reasons only because I also subscribe to a lesser version of the Gold theory, which might now be extended (Gold would NOT buy this "enhancement" most likely and I am not attributing any of it to him) The present enhancement includes the idea of He+He+He --> C resulting in methane genesis deep within the Earth's mantle where there was even little carbon initially. Dr. Thomas Gold, an astrophysicist at Cornell University, proposed a theory more controversial than Hubbert's was once considered to be. Unlike most geologists, Gold does not believe that oil comes from decomposed biomass, i.e., dead dinosaurs and the like. Instead, he has an "abiogenic theory" of oil, believing that oil in mostly primordial and comes from far deeper in the earth than we recognize, was NEVER plant material, and that thus there is (or could be) a lot more of it than we can currently predict. There is a middle ground however, which recognizes that some oil is based on ancient biomass and some is not. IOW both Gold and Hubbert can be partially correct. And there is more. While certainly a minority opinion, the discovery of bacteria at far greater depths than previously known and the claim that some oil fields are actually "refilling themselves" lends some credence to Gold's theory, and not the other way around. "Hubbert's peak is an arbitrary invention," Gold says. Gold's own book on the subject, "The Deep, Hot Biosphere," explains his theory that oil comes from the very same "stuff" from which our planet was formed billions of years ago. We're sitting on a world full of black gold and won't ever run out. OK. That last statement (if viewed alone) is sounding more and more like a crock, but it doesn't mean that the whole Gold theory is too crazy to be believed. In fact, we can extend Gold to "astronomical" lengths by adding that even the primordial carbon (which is seldom seen in first generation H+He stars anyway) is itself unnecessary. There are some good reasons why some of the oil we have been pumping is abiogenic. There are some reason to even go a step further and suggest that some of the methane which we pump did not arrive as primordial methane from a supernova, but instead arrived here on earth from *first generation* primordial gas with ZERO carbon, IOW it arrive here just as just a mixture of hydrogen and helium and the carbon itself comes from the LENR mechanism: He+He+He --> C Whoa, cowboy... now that is some serious nonsense, right? Well, I'm not sure that I am ready to try to extend Gold's theory that far yet, but consider this geographical oddity, which exists around what is today Amarillo, Texas. If that connection seems to be 'not even' a near-sequiter, here are some further items to consider. About 90% of the world's helium is extracted from methane wells from within a "small area" around what is a singularity "The Helium Capital of the World" - Amarillo, Texas. Amarillo is also home to Pantax, not too far from Crawford, and probably has more hidden wealth than any place on earth. George Jr is probably smarter (well shrewder, shall we say) than anyone on the left-coast gives him credit for being... or the luckiest guy in America. How did all that Helium get to Amarillo and no place else? That part is easier to explain. Perhaps over 4 billion years ago, when our own sun was a youngster, a Jupiter sized H+He primordial gaseous object, supercold and very dense, came close enough to earth to dump a small fraction of its load in a tight zone several hundred to a thousand miles under Crawford/Amarillo, which was then a molten mostly iron surface, before glancing off and continuing on towards our sun. Maybe over the next few billion years, because of the enormous pressure, most of the lighter hydrogen outgassed but some of the immobilized H+He began working its way back up, and some of the helium fused to form C before getting to a now cooled surface, and eventually that carbon combined with the H2 to form methane (a lot of the H would have fused also). There could have been some primordial carbon down there too, but it is rare at great depth. Maybe that is why we have this amazing singularity in west Texas extending into N. Mexico. Not only a helium anomaly but also may natural gas wells AND almost as unusual as the helium is the number of CO2 wells. All in one fairly tight geologic area. An anyone who has ever driven through there knows that on the surface, at least, the area can best be described as rat-lands. Maybe papa George found out about this anomaly from his years as head of the CIA... Why else would anyone with money want to live in Crawford? You just cannot plant enough trees and irrigation lines to prettify that place... or maybe junior was smart enough to figure it all out on his own? At least everything but the part about He+He+He --> C More later, Jones BTW, Fred Sparber, former head of the New Mexico BBB ;-) tells me that Clayton (New Mexico) not far from Amarillo, is looking to capitalize on its one major natural resource - the largest carbon dioxide gas field in the world. http://www.bizjournals.com/albuquerque/stories/2002/12/30/story4.html Now get this. Two incredible singularities in one place - massive helium and massive CO2 and plenty of natural gas to pay for having to live there ... but of course, every mainstream scientist will tell you that it is "just a coincidence"... but not that other great New Mexican, Joe Leaphorn - "there are no coincidences"
