It could mean that carbon from oil is new to the atmosphere and is not making a round trip..

I have no idea if major oil reserves were formed in this process, but I remember seeing references to this:

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

As an man-made industrial process, this looks impractical due to the energy you need to get the temperatures and pressures needed. Could a natural geologic process work like this? Maybe.

An article from Discover Magazine on the man-made process.

http://discovermagazine.com/2006/apr/anything-oil/

one might want to ask what its worth after the Siljan ring fiasco or the Larry Ryckman closer to home PreCambrian test where pipe dope was the biggest discovery next to the stock promote dope.(which was not a new discovery at all)

no doubt there are hydrocarbons formed way down there. but the main ones are definitively fossil.

I agree with cal2 on this one. Even when you take into account that diamonds (pure carbon) are formed at depth in or near magmatic intrusions, that doesn't account for a whole lot of carbon.

But what about the carbon that has been around since "day one"? Conservation of Matter tells us that every thing we have we always have had - the carbon that is here has always been here. But there was a LONG period of earth's history without life - so where did that carbon come from? Did that carbon form some of the fossil fuels that we have used?

Probably not, since we can geologically date the deposits of coal and oil from stratigraphy.

But it's fun to think about.

Russian scientists have some pretty interesting theories on abiotic (abiogenic) oil, and have been using them to discover new oil sources. If true, it means oil might possibly be a renewable energy source.

So much for the Peak Oil theory, eh?

It occurs to me that if this is true, you could make hydrocarbons in a pot with pressure, heat, water and some rocks. That could be done pretty cheap, with sufficiently fancy engineering and the right catalysts.

For those Lefties I can hear sneeeeering at me, a question: If hydrocarbons only come from biological sources (squished dinosaurs), why are there seas of methane on some of the colder planets around here?

Boneheads.

carbon is formed in this fusion cycle, we are stardust.

http://aether.lbl.gov/www/tour/elements/stellar/stellar_a.html

for our purposes we got what we got , there is no carbon trading or suzuki cycle or even bicycle that will matter one rats buhoki to change it.

forests live and absorb carbon, die and release carbon. the largest scale carbon cycles are subducting carbonate rocks aka around italy where volcanoes may give off up to 50% of ALL carbon emmissions. the largest carbon absorbers are the oceans where the average 2 miles of depth is much greater than anything a planer earth surface can provide.

here are some good stats , 90% of all the hydrocarbons in the world are in the northern hemisphere.most oil reserves are post paleozoic, neither of these stats would point to abiogenic source . believing in abiogenic is like believing in AGW.

right is right
and left is gauche.

This is nothing new. Methane gas (personal observation) and even (I've been told) traces of heavier hydrocarbons, have been showing up in hard-rock mines for decades. When I first ran into this many years ago, in the Sudbury area, I thought that it had something to do with the decomposition of old mine timber but, we subsequently encountered whiffs of methane in brand new deep drifts.

From a practical standpoint, I don't think that this means a hell of a lot. Application of the biogenic theory has led to the discovery of billions of barrels of oil and billions of cubic meters of gas, compared to a few smells of what I now believe to be abiogenic material. It's fun to dream though.

There have been a few small hits of oil in fractured basement rocks and in granite wash but, to the best of my knowledge, all were readily explainable by leakage from adjacent sedimentary resevoirs.

Phantom
Your "if this is true, you could make hydrocarbons in a pot with pressure, heat, water and some rocks" forgot an extremely important element, time.

If the abiogenic theory is valid (I have great skepticism) it would likely take long periods of time to produce significantly recoverable amounts of oil. Note that old oilfields that have been pumped for decades continue to decline in production rates.

One should read the full article to comment intelligently – I have not, so my comment is general: There is evidence that methane – CH4 – is present in Achaean rocks. There were methane explosions in the uranium mines at Elliot Lake, Ontario – with at least two fatalities in 1961, if I recall correctly. I have seen gas issuing from lifters (bottom holes in a blast pattern) that ‘looked down’ too much and penetrated the Achaean basement under the contact with the Huronian sediments that host the uranium-bearing conglomerates. The footwall quartzites were very well indurated, unfractured, and appeared to form a ‘cap’ that trapped the CH4 much as a shale bed might do in conventional oil and gas deposits.

There are also thorium and uranium-bearing hydrocarbons (thucolite) in tension gashes in the quartzites in the hanging wall of the uraniferous conglomerates.

It was assumed at the time that the methane had migrated into the basement from overlying Proterozoic sediments – which seemed counter-intuitive even to a recent graduate, since the pressure in such a sedimentary column increases with depth. Paul Ramdohr visited and ‘liberated’ my collection of thucolite but did not report a genesis of the ‘mineral’. However, he suggested that ‘primeval methane’ might be involved.

Certainly there are many carbonates in deep-seated mineralized systems, and CO2 is part of most hydrothermal systems I have studied. My impression is that simple hydrocarbons can be synthesized under appropriate conditions of temperature and pressure from carbon and water. But, the quantities formed, trapped, and preserved through geologic time are not likely to be more than a nuisance – as at Elliot Lake - and quite unlikely to be a reliable resource.

I believe Gold actually had some deep drilling attempted, but there was a problem because the rock at depth (it is not all that ‘solid’ when under pressure and can flow into man-made openings) closed the drill hole, so he was unable to prove his thesis. The temperature at which abiogenic production of CH4 and more complex hydrocarbons takes place must be limited. If a sediment-hosted oil or gas deposit suffers a rise in ambient temperature above certain limits the natural gas breaks down to CO2, and the oil turns into a sort of coke.

The evidence of oil and gas formation from organic material is compelling. One does not have to argue that particular genesis. (Organic material can be converted to whatever hydrocarbon you wish by synthesis or by cracking – think engines running on ‘biodiesel’ derived from vegetable oils recycled from fast-food restaurants.)

While the observation that hydrocarbons can be created deep in the Earth by abiogenic processes is undoubtedly true, it is more of a scientific curiosity than a ‘new source’ of oil and gas. I would not have put my money into Gold’s venture back when he made his attempt, hoping to become rich. I still consider such exploration an unattractive high risk-low reward venture.

I blogged on this a few days ago, and the best link I was provided with is here: Abiogenic Origin of Hydrocarbons: An Historical Overview

It's interesting to note that even some of those who support the abiotic theory are not enamoured with the idea of a perpetual supply of gasoline, given the ecological sustainability issues in developed nations.

While I usually agree with you cal 2 think about the fact that dinosaurs are mostly on the surface or fairlly shallow, re: Drumheller/South Dakota etc, and oil/gas is from shallow to 20,000 ft. plus. I think everything was a sun at one time and earth just went out a little sooner, explain the molten metal in the center of the earth, and the fact that old oil and gas fields can be pumped dry and 20 years later be re-pumped. I'm no geologist but have a hard time believing fossils made all this oil and gas, what is fueling the sun, and where is the oxygen comming from to burn whatever it is?

bartinsky has a point. i agree that all oil and gas didn't come from fossils. tha tar sands are differnet from buried pools.

from the article above,from Rapheal Alexanders post. pretty much what I said.but a little interesting aside about old global CO2 levels.as for repumping old fields, coning, imibition, repressurization and few other mechanisms account for these on a historical time scale. abiogenic is supposed to be over millions of years.things like this belong on coasttocoastam.com

here is the inside of the article......
In fact, 90 % of the world’s original oil and gas
reserves are located in six stratigraphic intervals during
the Phanerozoic which include the Silurian (9 % of world
reserves), Upper Devonian-Tournaisian (8 % of reserves),
Pennsylvanian-Lower Permian (8 % of reserves), Upper
Jurassic (25 % of reserves) Middle Cretaceous (29 % of
reserves) and Oligocene (12.5% of reserves) (Klemme
and Ulmishek, 1991). These data show that the majority
of the world’s oil and gas is very young with 50 % generated
since the Oligocene. Burial of global organic carbon
during this period corresponds closely to the deposition of
major source rocks for oil and gas (Berner, 2003).
However, these time intervals also appear to be closely
related to the cyclic eruption of hot plumes from the lowermost
mantle which leads to a correlation between eustatic
sea-level highstands and the deposition of marine black
shales (Sheridan, 1997). Of particular interest is the suggestion
that the high global organic carbon burial during
the middle Cretaceous was a consequence of the mid-
Cretaceous superplume (Larson, 1991a) which created a
greenhouse world without ice-caps, sea level a hundred
metres and more higher than at present at times, extensive
continental flooding, deposition of black shales and oil
formation (Caldeira and Rampino,

Not quite sure of the exact details but researchers have found that several kilometers under the botom of the oceans lives a long lived bacteriun that eats some form of iron, giving off ( a form of sulfer?) that another bacterium eats and gives off methane.

Turns out that hydrocarbons are a renewable resource. The reason we find it where it is is because it collects there.

JET pretty much hit all the hig hpoints. Evidence of abiogenic hydrocarbons in Archean and Proterozoic rocks is something that I have seen for myself. I have rubbed elbows with those from the oil patch while they pondered the potential and meaning of such discoveries in underground hardrock mines. Although it exists the amount will probably always be of no importance from an economic standpoint.

As metioned earlier, time (in geologic proportions) is the big factor. Abiogenic hydrocarbon recharge into depleted fields, if it is even possible, is not something we would see as anything appreciable during the human occupation of the earth.

Peak Oil has now been called off, almost.

Der Speigal had an article back in Dec that featured the new saviour - methane hydrate ice that lays under the coastal water around most of the continents. They have map of it.

The trick, it being in ice, is to get it into a form that is easily acquired (without big kabooms) so that we can transport and use it.

Japan is now attempting to use technology tested in our Arctic to retrieve it.

Figures in the article estimate world natural gas reserves at 96 billion tons of carbon, 160 billion tonnes of oil, 675 billion tons of coal, and ta da, 3,000 billion tons of methane hydrate ice gas.

Actually a geophyicist from Yugoslavia, that was a regular member of our weekly luncheon group from different companies in Calgary, told us that the Russians had found oil deposits that were below the sedimentary layer.

In the 1970s, we thought it was insane.

Now maybe not so much.

Cheap oil again, here we come.
Beware of falling house prices.

truthsayer, are you proposing alchemy- iron to sulphur to methane.

I say nay nay. anerobic bacteria are indeed promoted in an iron rich environment , they produce hydrogen sulphide from existing sulphur and a hydrocarbon. H2S does not form CH4--- dont we all wish.

remember also folks , the conditions of the past 10000 years are considerably changed. even the deepest mines in Ontario hardrock were subject to 10000 feet of overburden. CH4 is the most mobile of hydrocarbons, there was a lot of redistribution to "impermeable" rocks along tight fracture faces etc. 50000 to 70000 years of ice loading cycles and you can squish methane into granite fractures. or any ore.

coal is by far the biggest hydrocarbon source. anyone want to argue its origin.

as for methane ices-

looks like they are organic too.

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

From an old time petroleum engineer (now a whorehouse piano player) - you cannot make energy, it already exists, we can only convert it to our use.

And carbon is present in many forms, some long chain and some short - some is prehistoric, and in a solid form, some is in a liquid form (hydrocarbon), and some is still growing in the form of biomass.

Yes, you can extract hydrocarbon (methanol/ethanol) from biomass (plant matter) via gasification and then condense the synthesis gas to liquids via a modified Fishcher Tropsch Process. Even seen a flare at night at a garbage dump? We are talking pure CH4 (methane) - think swamp gas!! Every ton of waste dumped in a landfill will emit about a ton of CH4 as it decomposses, and unless it is flared it will migrate to anywhere it bloody well pleases.

In fact you can technically convert energy from any kind of shit - even bullshit run through an anaerobic digester will provide a carbon energy source.

I guess it depends - if you consider methane hydrates as one of the hydrocarbons under consideration:

"...Methane hydrate is a cage-like lattice of ice inside of which are trapped molecules of methane, the chief constituent of natural gas. If methane hydrate is either warmed or depressurized, it will revert back to water and natural gas. When brought to the earth's surface, one cubic meter of gas hydrate releases 164 cubic meters of natural gas. Hydrate deposits may be several hundred meters thick and generally occur in two types of settings: under Arctic permafrost, and beneath the ocean floor. Methane that forms hydrate can be both biogenic, created by biological activity in sediments, and thermogenic, created by geological processes deeper within the earth..."

http://www.fossil.energy.gov/programs/oilgas/hydrates/index.html

You guys are probably the wrong ones to ask - but what I say to a gal at a bar about "Abiogenic Hydrocarbon Production at Lost City Hydrothermal Field" to have any chance of getting laid?

"Hey baby, wanna' come upstairs and see my screw?"
-- Archimedes

Vitruvius,

I have found that once you bring fasteners into the the discussion - well, ural's rule. There seems to be a profound interest for about 0-3 minutes ... dropping to almost nothing after 40-50 to minutes. Women are fickle.

The source article appears to be behind a subscription wall, so I read only the abstract, but it appears the authors found evidence for trace amounts of (presumably) abiogenic hydrocarbons in waters from a geothermal site. These hydrocarbons have an isotopice signature that differs from normal, (presumably) biogenic hydrocarbons.

The writer of the NRO piece seems to have missed the boat, suggesting that this article may give impetus to the 'abiogenic oil" theory. He also seems to imply that the two theories are mutually opposed. As per JET's post above, the evidence for the biogenic theory is compelling, and the best evidence we have is that it works to predict where we can drill for commercial hydrocarbons. Drive down to the Exxon station (heh, TG), open your wallet, and put the proof in your tank. The reason that we still drill the occasional dry hole is not so much due to shortcomings in the biogenic theory of oil formation, than it is due to the fact that our tools for predicting, imaging, and locating suitable reservoir rocks are still less than perfect. And if you don't have a reservoir, you don't have a well.

And that is where the abiogenic theory comes a cropper when it comes to finding oil: it doesn't have any power to predict where we might find a reservoir. And two things that do tend to be scarce in Archaean rocks, and/or in mantle rocks, are porosity and permeability, the essential properties of reservoir rocks.

I really don't doubt that abiogenic hydrocarbons exist, but I do doubt they will ever be of economic importance here on Earth.

Regarding the thucolite and carbon in Archaean rocks: I'm not sure we can be certain that it is indeed abiogenic. There may well have been primitive single-celled bacteria that far back that existed in sufficient abundance to explain that carbon.

very interesting. not kidding.

The abiotic oil theory has been debunked many times, but I guess cornucopians will grasp at any straw that will allow their dream of perpetual economic growth to go on.

A test in Sweden, directed by one of the main proponents of that theory (the late Thomas Gold), has been a resounding failure. After 40$ millions they found about 80 barrels of oil, which may have been the very lubricant used for the drilling. The mother of all wildcats.

As for methane hydrate, this is indeed a promising source of energy, but its commercial exploitation is still years away. It may or may not come in time to alleviate the effects of Peak Oil.

The viable solar and wind power theory has been debunked many times, but I guess greenies will grasp at any straw that will allow their dream of living closer to nature, but not close enough to deny them their frappuccinos.

Greeneck: did you miss the part that there has been a scientific advance that shows Gold may be correct? You seem to be the one grasping at straws. Its as if you say powered flight can't be possible because Clément Ader failed...

Slightly off topic, but the Fossil Reactors at Oklo in Gabon are a fascinating story. They ran naturally 1.5 billion years ago. They also say a bit about how nuclear waste could be stored.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_nuclear_fission_reactor

I understand the general scepticism regarding abiotic sources of hydrocarbons since we were all taught otherwise. However, consider that there are hydrocarbons all over our solar system, on lifeless planets and moons. Does that not prove that hydrocarbons must come from some abiotic process? And should we not revisit our current theories?

"Greeneck: did you miss the part that there has been a scientific advance that shows Gold may be correct?"

I'm not saying abiotic oil is impossible. I just say it will not have any commercial value. Ask any oil geologist.

As for wind and solar, I agree with you. It can have value for small scale energy production, but not much more than that.

And for this guy living close to nature is not a dream, it's reality. The few acres around my place provide me with ample food and fuel, and the sun provided the electrons needed to fire this message.

Well Kate, some of the greatest minds at SDA have done their best but we seem to be at a bit of an impasse on this topic. I think that it needs to be cross posted to Cherniak, Kinsella, Moveon.org, etc., so that their audience can contribute to the discussion. They’re never in doubt.

"The idea of a bomb that is powered by the atom is pure fantasy and I speak as an expert in explosives." The quote is not exact but it was said prior to the detonation of the A bomb.Oil experts should not forget this .

Now...would CO2 sequestration help or hinder a natural process that produced hydrocarbons?

Maybe we should chew on that for a bit before we start pumping the earth full of CO2 because the environmentalists think it's a good idea.

Posted by: ural at February 5, 2008 1:57 AM
>>> You guys are probably the wrong ones to ask - but what I say to a gal at a bar about "Abiogenic Hydrocarbon Production at Lost City Hydrothermal Field" to have any chance of getting laid?

That kind of bullshit dont work in my whorehouse - you need folding money, or gin!!

Posted by: Whorehouse piano player at February 5, 2008 1:19 PM

"That kind of bullshit dont work in my whorehouse - you need folding money, or gin!!"

Are you telling us that carbon credits, oil futures and casino chips aren't good as cash in your establishment! How utterly (sic) mercenary. Does Al Gore know about this?

Yoop: Don't quite know how to respond to your last post questioning the Rev Al.

I guess it really depends on whether he is a pimp or a whore. There is a difference you know, one is the screwor and the other is the screwee. Although in my line of business I see both kinds all the time - someone is going to have to help me on figuring out the Reverend.

"Abiogenic Hydrocarbon Production at Lost City Hydrothermal Field"

...what's that in English now?

cal2:

Here are some good stats , 90% of all the hydrocarbons in the world are in the northern hemisphere.

I'm skeptical about abiogenic petroleum formation myself, but that particular stat doesn't indicate much. The surface of the southern hemisphere is 81% ocean, and a good part of the 19% that is land includes Antarctica. The southern hemisphere hasn't been drilled to anywhere near the extent that the northern hemisphere has. There's a pretty good chance that more petroleum will be discovered in the southern hemisphere in the future; there was a recent significant discovery off the coast of Brazil.

I don't have a dog in the biogenic/abiogenic fight, but I do know that some researchers have suggested a middle position between the two poles of thought. Some say that there may be abiogenic petroleum, but not very much of it; some suggest that natural gas may rise continually from deep in the earth, but that oil and coal are only formed from paleozoic organic matter. BTW, nobody seriously believes that significant amounts of oil originate from "dead dinosaurs" -- the principal sources are postulated to be ancient plants and algae.

Once again, my mind is open on this subject. One thing I am sure of, though, is that we are going to be using oil for a long time to come. There's a hell of a lot of it, and it's still the cheapest way to do a lot of things.

90% of the petroleum is located in the northern hemisphere because of source rock. if it were abiogenic the distribution would be even.

"Greeneck: I'm not saying abiotic oil is impossible. I just say it will not have any commercial value. Ask any oil geologist."

Could be. Then again, farmers used to pay people to remove petroleum from their fields. They thought it was a nuisance. No commercial value and all that.

"Greeneck: As for wind and solar, I agree with you. It can have value for small scale energy production, but not much more than that."

I have a standing bet with any greenie who goes on about some sort of announced project:

1) it will cost more than announced, probably double

2) it will take longer to come on-line than announced

3) it will produce less energy than announced

Wonder why none have ever taken me up on it?

"Greeneck: And for this guy living close to nature is not a dream, it's reality. The few acres around my place provide me with ample food and fuel, and the sun provided the electrons needed to fire this message."

All good stuff. I have 100 acres a few hours north of Toronto. Just aching to get the shovel in the ground for my compound for the apocalypse/b & b (depending on if I'm optimistic/pessimistic that day.

But, we all can't have a few acres to live "green" though...far too bit a footprint on Gaia.

A year or so back I heard a rumor that in Russia had reopened wells that have capped for 30 years because they were dry to find they again yielded oil.