Abiotic Oil Why Isn't This Part of the Debate?

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Buffalo Roam

Registered Senior Member
It seems that there is a major debate as to how oil is made by mother earth, and it is not being discussed by the Running Out of Oil crowd, as it destroys their premise, that oil is a finite resource,


Abiotic Oil Debate
Dave McGowan argues for the abiotic theory, which holds that oil is generated by natural processes in the earth's magma, and he also argues pointedly that ...
http://www.questionsquestions.net/docs04/peakoil1.html


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenic_petroleum_origin

The hypothesis of abiogenic petroleum origin posits that most petroleum was formed from deep carbon deposits, perhaps deposits dating to the accretion of the Earth. The ubiquity of hydrocarbons in the solar system[citation needed] is taken as evidence that there may be a great deal more petroleum on Earth than commonly thought, and that petroleum may originate from carbon-bearing fluids which migrate upward from the mantle.
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My question about this theory is why then are we finding oil at deeper and deeper levels in the earths crust?

Conventional theories
Most petroleum geologists prefer theories of oil formation which hold that oil originated in shallow seas as vast quantities of marine plankton or plant materials which died and sank into the mud at the bottom under anaerobic conditions that prevented biodegradation. Under these conditions, anaerobic bacteria converted the lipids (fats, oils and waxes) into a waxy substance called kerogen.

As the source rock was buried deeper, overburden pressure raised temperatures into the oil window, between 60 and 120 °C, in which thermal depolymerization broke up the kerogen molecules into the straight-chain hydrocarbons that make up most of petroleum. This setting is called generation kitchen. Once crude oil formed, it became very fluid, and migrated upward through the rock strata. This setting is called oil expulsion. Eventually it was either trapped in an oil reservoir or oil escaped to the surface and was biodegraded by soil bacteria.

Any oil buried deeper entered the gas window of 120 °C to 220 °C and was converted into natural gas by thermal cracking. Thus, below a certain depth, the theory predicts that no oil will be found, only unassociated gas. If it went even deeper, even natural gas would be destroyed by high temperatures.
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Biotic (microbial) hydrocarbons
The deep biotic petroleum theory, similar to the abiogenic petroleum origin hypothesis, holds that not all petroleum deposits within the Earth's rocks can be explained purely according to the orthodox view of petroleum geology. Thomas Gold used the term the deep hot biosphere to describe the microbes which live underground.[1][20][21]

This theory is different from biogenic oil in that the role of deep-dwelling microbes is a biological source for oil which is not of a sedimentary origin and is not sourced from surface carbon.

Deep biotic oil is considered to be formed as a byproduct of the life cycle of deep microbes. Shallow biotic oil is considered to be formed as a byproduct of the life cycles of shallow microbes.
 
There are some arguments for a biotic origin of oil, but none that cannot be refuted. Gold tested his theory with deep well in Sweden. Spot was chosen as it was believed to be location where large meteor had hit and fractured the deeper layers of granite so the oil would have flowed to the near subsurface via all the shock induced cracks in this deep granite. (They also tended to break off the drill bit etc often and finally at considerable depth with still no evidence of this "deep a biotic oil"* the financial backers said: "OK that's it." when a new difficult to get around piece of the bit end of the drill sting broke off.
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*There were some very small "shows of oil" but most believe they came from the drill sting itself.

Second main reasons is that it unavoidably clear that carbon in huge quantities came for life forms that some how avoided oxidation. We call it coal :D and very commonly in the seams (which by themselves tend to indicate a deposition, not a seeping from below process.) you find the imprints of large ferns etc. If heat and pressure can make oil from carbon originally in the gas the cloud that formed Earth (the a-biotic theory) then surely heat and pressure can also convert some of the "coal-type" carbon deposits into oil as well.

A-biotic oil supporter tend to stress that oil is often found where there are or have been geologic faults*, so I will address just this one supporting argument: This faults often also indicate locations where tectonic plates were separating like the red sea, the Persian Gulf etc. -Perhaps very large movements (huge earthquakes) did occur, with much of the sediment (carbon containing a only slowing oxidizing as it is at 4 degrees C on deep ocean floor) is suddenly deeply buried in some under sea land slide. Eons later, these same regions that once were separating may be converging even putting evidence of sea life fossils high in the Alps etc - I.e. no problem in understanding why oil is often deep below land surface of today.
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*a vertical slip fault, often does form a nice trap and both sides agree oil can flow - so natural it is often found in salt domes, slip fault traps etc.
 
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spidergoat

It's not part of the debate because it's a fringe theory without much supporting evidence.
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anaerobic bacteria, is nothing but a theory that is in popular use today because it support the forgone conclusion that the world is running out of oil, the fact is that no one knows how oils is formed, but the abiogenic petroleum origin theory seem to be born out by empirical evidence, the wells are going deeper and deeper and finding oil, and new finds seem to be happening weekly, is there a monetary reason to encourage the idea of a oil shortage? to use it for controlling the common man? to keep the common man from rising above his station in life?
 
You have it backwards, as usual. The oil industry reaps greater profits than any other endeavor in human history. Advocates of abiotic oil can almost unfailingly be traced to the oil industry.
 
Its all a vast conspiracy. I think MattMarr mentioned it somewhere.

If Abiotic Oil is real, is it being produced at a fast enough rate? Is it being created as fast as we are using it?
 
Nickelodeon, we don't seem to have a problem finding new reserves, it you pay attention to the news, it seem that barely a week goes by without a new announcement of a new oil reserve being found. How do you explain this fact?
 
Buffalo Roam said:
Nickelodeon, we don't seem to have a problem finding new reserves, it you pay attention to the news, it seem that barely a week goes by without a new announcement of a new oil reserve being found. How do you explain this fact?
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So you explain the discovery of oil resevres on Abiotic Oil. Is this "new" oil? Is it being created as fast as we are using it?
 
None of the new oil we find is in any significant quantity, and must be extracted with more expensive methods. These smaller reserves also get used up very quickly. They are in environmentally sensitive areas.

If oil were abiotic in origin, it would still be finite, and it would be the worst thing imaginable for the Earth. We would have no incentive to stop using it, and the runaway global warming would make concerns about energy moot.
 
spidergoat, That is not what I read in the reports, the one off Brazil will rival the middle east, and they haven't mapped the full size of the Vietnam finds in the South China Sea, and what about the reports of the old field having refilled? and it is still a politically correct dogma that we are running out of oil, nobody has proven it yet, just theory, and speculation, hell we don't even know what produces the crude, so how can we claim to know that we will run out?
 
The major trend on the oil scene the past 12 months is the apparent inability of the world to lift total production above 85 million barrels a day -- with demand now rising above that line. It is unclear how much more demand destruction will come out of the Third World before bidding intensifies between the developed nations. One commentator in particular, Dallas geologist Jeffrey Brown --a frequent contributor on the web's best oil debate site, TheOilDrum.com -- is advancing the idea that we are entering an oil export crisis that will presage a more general permanent world-wide oil emergency. Brown holds that the major oil exporting nations are using so much of their own product, because of rising populations, that their net exports are falling at an alarming rate, perhaps as much as 9 percent annually. This trend combines with general depletion rates now said to be around 3 percent a year.
The question of total oil reserves around the world remains somewhat murky, but Brown, Kenneth Deffeyes of Princeton, and others using a straightforward mathematical model, have stated that the world is roughly at the same point in all-time production as the Lower-48 United States was at in 1970, when America passed its all-time production peak. We know for certain that three of the four super giant oil fields (Daqing in China; Cantarell in Mexico; Burgan in Kuwait) are past peak and there is plenty of evidence that the greatest of them all, 50-year-old Ghawar in Saudi Arabia is not only past peak but perhaps "crashing" into a super-steep decline.
Discovery of new oil to replace the production from declining fields remains paltry. Chevron announced it's "Jack" discovery in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico with great fanfare this year, but neither conclusively demonstrated that all the wished-for oil was down there (between 3 and 15 billion barrels, Chevron said) or that they could get it out of there in a way that made sense economically, since the oil was extraordinarily deep and difficult to lift up.

http://www.kunstler.com/Mags_Forecast2007.html
 
spidergoat, and the reason is that we don't have the drilling rigs to exploit the finds of today, it take at least 10 years to start exploiting a new find, and there are many reserves that are off limit because of the environmentalist, how much oil in lock up just off the west coast of the U.S.?, the east coast?, areas of Alaska? The great Lakes?, How about Canada, the geology of their northern terror is pretty much the same as the Russian Tundra, and Russia is developing reserves that rival the middle east, they haven't even started to explore the Canadian Tundra.
 
Deep Earth organisms are fascinating, but I hope that this isn't the case now,
because we need to develop cleaner fuels, that don't turn our atmosphere into a disaster zone.

I too highly doubt that, even if such bacteria exist, they produce oil as fast as we use it.
 
Avatar, and just who is polluting the atmosphere? Do you mean the U.S.? or are you looking at the East Europeans, Russia, China, India, Africa, the pictures of the air quality in those countries tell the story, and if they would implement the air standards of the U.S. they would clean up most of the pollution and help global warming along.
 
Avatar, and were is humanity doing the most polluting? and who needs to do the most cleaning up? and if the standards of the U.S. were followed would we have a pollution problem?
 
That's a red herring. Of course it could be difficult to coordinate a worldwide solution to the problem, but they doesn't mean we should do nothing. The US is the world's largest consumer of energy.
 
I recognize the herring, but I shall reply:

It doesn't matter where the polluting is done, this is one planet and one common responsibility.
Borders are just lines on a map, neither the climate or the geology cares about that,
and neither do the consequences.
 
Buffalo Roam said:
Nickelodeon, we don't seem to have a problem finding new reserves, it you pay attention to the news, it seem that barely a week goes by without a new announcement of a new oil reserve being found. How do you explain this fact?
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But the new finds are invariably smaller than the old big finds from 50 years ago.
Moreover, its all very well saying "look, we found some oil 3 miles underwater inthe middle of a Hurricane infested piece of water, several hundred miles off shore", but the cost in terms of energy and suchlike to get it back to shore ot be used will be so huge that the oil will be very expensive.
 
Avatar, but what do we do about countries that don't meet the environmental standards of the U.S., we are using the latest technology, and doing our part, now how about the rest of the world, China builds coal powered plant just to sell the energy credits, and does nothing about their own carbon foot print, it is fashionable to blame the U.S. but now lets look at were the real problem lies, and it isn't the U.S.
 
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