Energy: Are Oil And Natural Gas Renewable?

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Unbeknownst to Westerners, there have actually been for quite some time now two competing theories concerning the origins of petroleum. One theory claims that oil is an organic 'fossil fuel' deposited in finite quantities near the planet's surface. The other theory claims that oil is continuously generated by natural processes in the Earth's magma.

One of the world's leading advocates for the theory that hydrocarbons are renewable is Dr. Thomas Gold who contends that oil is not a limited resource, and that oil, natural gas and coal, are not so-called 'fossil fuels.'

See: If hydrocarbons are renewable- then is "Peak Oil" a fraud?

Two further commentaries on the matter of oil exploration and discovered but capped oil reserves follow here, as forwarded and commented by Michael Robb:

From: "Michael Robb"
Subject: Oil wells, or oil wars - King George III or his epigone george II
Date: Mon, 5 Sep 2005

The first of these two short commentaries is a publication notice of another oil paper; it seems promising, though skirting the surface of the primordial abiotic theory of oil origin; the one which is being used by certain deep drillers; and is observable in wells off the US Gulf Coast.

The second report describes the oil well capping practice of new finds by the drillers in US. Lindsey Williams wrote an interesting expose of this practice concerning the great finds in the Prudhoe Bay in Alaska. He was there and worked in daily contact with the men on the job and many of the executives, and the capping practice is well corroborated.

The two articles prove there is no shortage of oil, only a business strategy of investing in inventory.

If one wishes to complain about this as being unfair, immoral, unjust, or ill-mannered, he may need to find something illegal about it first: fertile fields for finding grounds and standing of some consequence may exist in the political entrepreneurership expected to pay off for the firms practicing this inventory speculation.

What does this mean? It means one could make the case that firms will not make large investments in drilling exploration and discovery for mere inventory speculation UNLESS they have good reason to believe the political contributions they make will pay off in definite rewards. What rewards are these?

First of all would be emphasis on disruptive foreign and military policies and widespread warmongering that will be certain to cause fear and panic in the oil markets driving prices upward in spite of plentiful supply.

And, if scare talk is not enough to satisfy certain price expectations (that one would expect to be made known as a performance guarantee measurement in return for the political contribution) full force mobilization will be enacted by executive order to put additional pressure on prices due to its radical effect on normal supply lines.

If that is still not enough, there is always the option to announce by another executive order the increase in the petroleum reserve, and/or the advisability of starting another war (Iran).

Will there ever be another election that is about doing something good for the country, instead of merely instituting oil industry cartel devices and dirty work. There is no evidence for it. Not when people are comfortable with a political regime based entirely on magnitudes of lies, distortions, half-truths; coupled with thorough hierarchical corruption, matched in decadence only by the profound historical ignorance of the populace.

This is why more and more people have come to the realization that gov't causes more harm than good, and is more trouble than it's worth. And the sooner we get back to our traditional principles of law and liberty, the better off all will be. This day of "The Big Dog gets the Meat" must end at once.

We will be much better off going back to the original configuration of rights and responsibilities that held high the principles of life, liberty, property and justice; it was a time when gov't was expected to obey the law as well as the populace, and it did. That was a prescription for peace and prosperity whereupon remarkable achievements were made.

We have an example to return to; or we have an example to learn from in moving ahead. We could simply disband and abandon the national gov't entirely, since it has clearly become an obstacle to peace and prosperity, not only here at home, but at the empire level to the far abroad.

Self government means allowing whatever governing and policing functions that choose to arise privately.

When you think about it, what is there that anybody would ever want or need that couldn't be found in the Yellow Pages (expanded now by the worldwide web)?

That would include high quality professional legal, judicial, dispute resolution and jurisdictional services, private police patrol and protection, and territorial security protection services; offered, most likely, by firms more interested in the protection and even insuring of life and property (than by the current gang of pretenders who are clearly only interested in the destruction of life and property; you hear them bragging incessantly about practicing it always, and everywhere).

The oil wars of the 20 year bush-clinton Mercantile Cartel can mark the time to defeat the tyrannical empire of mis-management and non-representation, -- the same way the antics of King George III and his Mercantile controlled Parliament marked the time and cause for defeat of the great power of the world in our ancestor's day.

Two hundred and thirty years is an appropriate time to realign with our senses, don't you think so?

Interestingly, two hundred and thirty three (2008) is a prime number in the famous psychological-sociological natural number sequence (each number is equal to the sum of the two previous numbers in the sequence) seen so often and everywhere in beginning numbers, the larger numbers can only apply to consequences of a more momentous dimension and consequence. The sequence is often seen in application to events of very great significance and importance.

Petroleum geology
Raining hydrocarbons in the Gulf

Below the Gulf of Mexico, hydrocarbons flow upward through an intricate network of conduits and reservoirs. They start in thin layers of source rock and, from there, buoyantly rise to the surface. On their way up, the hydrocarbons collect in little rivulets, and create temporary pockets like rain filling a pond. Eventually most escape to the ocean. And, this is all happening now, not millions and millions of years ago, says Larry Cathles, a chemical geologist at Cornell University.

"We're dealing with this giant flow-through system where the hydrocarbons are generating now, moving through the overlying strata now, building the reservoirs now and spilling out into the ocean now," Cathles says.

He's bringing this new view of an active hydrocarbon cycle to industry, hoping it will lead to larger oil and gas discoveries. By matching the chemical signatures of the oil and gas with geologic models for the structures below the seafloor, petroleum geologists could tap into reserves larger than the North Sea, says Cathles, who presented his findings at the meeting of the American Chemical Society in New Orleans on March 27.

This canvas image of the study area shows the top of salt surface (salt domes are spikes) in the Gas Research Institute study area and four areas of detailed study (stratigraphic layers). The oil fields seen here are Tiger Shoals, South Marsh Island 9 (SMI 9), the South Eugene Island Block 330 area (SEI 330), and Green Canyon 184 area (Jolliet reservoirs). In this area, 125 kilometers by 200 kilometers, Larry Cathles of Cornell University and his team estimate hydrocarbon reserves larger than those of the North Sea. Image by Larry Cathles.

Cathles and his team estimate that in a study area of about 9,600 square miles off the coast of Louisiana, source rocks a dozen kilometers down have generated as much as 184 billion tons of oil and gas ˜ about 1,000 billion barrels of oil and gas equivalent. "That's 30 percent more than we humans have consumed over the entire petroleum era," Cathles says. "And that's just this one little postage stamp area; if this is going on worldwide, then there's a lot of hydrocarbons venting out."

According to a 2000 assessment from the Minerals Management Service (MMS), the mean undiscovered, conventionally recoverable resources in the Gulf of Mexico offshore continental shelf are 71 billion barrels of oil equivalent. But, says Richie Baud of MMS, not all those resources are economically recoverable and they cannot be directly compared to Cathles' numbers, because "our assessment only includes those hydrocarbon resources that are conventionally recoverable whereas their study includes unconventionally recoverable resources." Future MMS assessments, Baud says, may include unconventionally recoverable resources, such as gas hydrates.

Of that huge resource of naturally generated hydrocarbons, Cathles says, more than 70 percent have made their way upward through the vast network of streams and ponds, venting into the ocean, at a rate of about 0.1 ton per year. The escaped hydrocarbons then become food for bacteria, helping to fuel the oceanic food web. Another 10 percent of the Gulf's total hydrocarbons are hidden in the subsurface, representing about 60 billion barrels of oil and 374 trillion cubic feet of gas that could be extracted. The remaining hydrocarbons, about 20 percent, stay trapped in the source strata.

Driving the venting process is the replacement of deep, carbonate-sourced Jurassic hydrocarbons by shale-sourced, Eocene hydrocarbons. Determining the ratio between the younger and older hydrocarbons, based on their chemical signatures, is key to understanding the migration paths of the oil and gas and the potential volume waiting to be tapped. "If the Eocene source matures and its chemical signature is going to be seen near the surface, it's got to displace all that earlier generated hydrocarbon ˜ that's the secret of getting a handle on this number," Cathles says.

Another important key to understanding hydrocarbon migration is "gas washing," Cathles adds. A relatively new process his research team discovered in the Gulf work, gas washing refers to the regular interaction of oil with large amounts of natural gas. In the northern area of Cathles' study area, he estimates that gas carries off 90 percent of the oil.

Ed Colling, senior staff geologist at ChevronTexaco, says that identifying the depth at which gas washing occurs could be extremely useful in locating deeper oil reserves. "If you make a discovery, by back tracking the chemistry and seeing where the gas washing occurred, you have the opportunity to find deeper oil," he says.

Using such information in combination with the active hydrocarbon flow model Cathles' team produced and already existing 3-D seismic analyses could substantially improve accuracy in drilling for oil and gas, Colling says. ChevronTexaco, which fund