6 ms·

Earth may be constantly producing oil

13 points by yters 17y ago

pragmatic 17y ago
Gold proposed that the Earth may possess a virtually endless supply – suggesting as much as "at least 500 million years' worth of gas" Wow.
- eugenejen 17y ago
  I guess until the day we can drill oil/gas from Mars or Venus. Then we will know theory for the biogenic petroleum oil is not correct.
  - PieSquared 17y ago
    There's no guarantee there's oil in either place. Remember, oil is the product of organic matter being compressed under heavy pressure for millions of years. Even if microbes or their remains are discovered on Mars or Venus, which they haven't (definitively), there's no guarantee that there was life of any considerable biomass. So I really wouldn't get my hopes up for extraterrestrial oil at all, sad as that may be. On the other hand, minerals and metals most certainly exist outside of Earth, so...?
    - eugenejen 17y ago
      You seems misunderstood what I meant. If there is petroleum oil in Mars or Venus. It make the abiogenic petroleum oil more possible be universal.
    - eugenejen 17y ago
      You seems misunderstood what I meant. I meant if there is petroleum oil in Mars or Venus, it makes the abiogenic petroleum oil more possible be universal resources.
- ilkhd2 17y ago
  However, no matter how you try, capacity to absorb CO2 is finite.
radu_floricica 17y ago
AFAIK about this it's not as controversial as it sounds, with the caveat that the current rate of generation is way below what once was, or what we're consuming right now. In other words it's a very interesting scientific issue but with little practical consequence.
- thelonecabbage 17y ago
  The theory is predictive. It can be used with 67% accuracy to find new oil deposits. That is both falsifiable and HUGELY practical. The bulk of expense in oil extraction is finding the oil in the first place, which is why the Middle east is so attractive, it's all at the surface, shallow drilling and easy testing. If this theory pans out, and as he says that oil is distributed all over the world; it means that oil gets MUCH cheaper and unstable regions can go F@#$ themselves, we'll just drill somewhere else.
  - brazzy 17y ago
    Where did you get that 67% number fromß
- Chronos 17y ago
  Actually, it is rather controversial. Normally, when you add heat to a large hydrocarbon molecule, it cracks (breaks down into smaller pieces plus more heat). This is why hydrocarbons can catch fire and burn. Going the other direction -- from large molecules to even larger ones -- requires very specific heat ranges and very delicate conditions involving unusual catalysts. Add too much heat, and it cracks faster than it merges. Add too little heat, and it cracks instead of merging (if anything changes at all). There are indeed specific conditions under which merging occurs, but in geology they are extremely rare. If abiogenic oil theory were true, it would predict abundant oil in Washington state (close, but not too close, to vulcanism) and zero oil in Texas (where there are no volcanoes). The facts are, of course, otherwise. The amount of naturally-occurring abiogenic oil is quite possibly non-zero, but clearly accounts for at most a tiny fraction of all naturally-occurring oil. Even if abiogenic oil theory were true, we would still be experiencing peak oil. Assuming it were true, the earth would have been producing all our current global oil reserves over the course of billions of years, and our current rate of extraction would be depleting the reserves faster than abiogenic production could refill them. (Two arguments why abiogenic oil must be slow, even if it's significant: one, the annual rate of carbonate rock subduction is not sufficient to sustain the current annual rate of oil extraction, even with 100% conversion; two, the oil produced would have to go somewhere, e.g. break to the surface and feed an ecosystem of oil-digesting bacteria, if it were being produced at such a rapid rate.)
brazzy 17y ago
Decades old crank theories are now hacker news?
- windsurfer 17y ago
  The article talks bout helium being present. How did it get there?
  - brazzy 17y ago
    Um... Helium's the second most common element, by a huge margin.
    - mechanical_fish 17y ago
      Though, to be precise, helium is not as common on Earth as it is in the universe at large, because our gravity isn't strong enough to keep it around in our atmosphere for very long. But it is made in big quantities by radioactive decay of elements inside the Earth. Whereupon most of it diffuses outward and escapes into space -- helium is a tiny, inert molecule which diffuses relatively easily even through many "solid" rocks. The only place it tends to pile up on the earth is inside relatively impermeable underground rock formations: The same ones that trap natural gas, and that often trap oil as well. That's the reason why helium and natural gas tend to be found together. All of which is easily read at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helium http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helium
    - deleted 17y ago
      [deleted]
  - Chronos 17y ago
    Uh, it's a question with a well-known answer. When uranium and other heavy radioactive elements decay, they often do so via alpha decay. What's an alpha particle? Two neutrons, two protons. Eventually the alpha particle slows down and captures some electrons. What is it now? An atom of Helium-4. If there is radioactive material buried in the earth (there is), and there are geological structures that trap it (there are), then there will be underground deposits of helium (specifically Helium-4). Other than the fact that the same rocks trapping helium can also trap natural gas, though, there is absolutely no further relation between the two. Why would there be? Helium is also found with deposits of radon gas, where no methane is present. BFD.
eserorg 17y ago
If you study the history of the oil business, you will find that approximately every 25-30 years there is a widespread "oil crisis" precipitated by the conclusion that we have reached "peak oil" and that the world's aggregate hydrocarbon production is in decline. The first such oil crisis occurred in the 1859. Before the first U.S. oil well was drilled in Pennsylvania in 1859, petroleum supplies were limited to crude oil that oozed to the surface. An 1859 advertisement for Kier’s Rock Oil advised consumers to “hurry, before this wonderful product is depleted from Nature’s laboratory.” In 1874, the state geologist of Pennsylvania, the United States leading oil-producing state and the location of the world's first commercial oil well, estimated that only enough oil remained to keep the nation’s kerosene lamps burning for four years. Seven such "peak oil" shortage scares occurred before 1950. These periodic "peak oil" crises lead to short-term spikes in the spot prices for crude. As a consequence, the capital markets flood the oil and gas business with capital to develop high-cost reserves that had been considered uneconomic. The vast inflows of capital into the Athabasca oil sands in Canada are an example of this. If this "peak oil crisis" coincides with an era of cheap capital, the inflows of capital into industries that are perceived to be either compliments (oil sands, oil shale) and/or substitutes for crude oil (wind, solar, biofuels) can be extremely large. Inevitably, this overallocation of capital leads to: (1) vast new discoveries of hydrocarbons, and (2) the invention of new technologies to economically develop those reserves. Because the oil and gas industry is opaque in terms of information flows, it takes several years for news of these developments to recycle back into the capital markets. In point of fact it was not until 2007-2008 that news began to percolate about the vast shale gas discoveries in the United States -- even though the first such monster wells had been drilled in 2000-2001. States such as Pennsylvania, where oil and gas records are not made publicly available for a 5-year "grace" period, exacerbate this problem. In contrast, most states post updates on new oil and gas wells on a daily basis. New investments in oil and gas technology can even turn around mature basins that had been considered to be past their peak production. For example, according to the United States EIA (see here: http://www.eia.doe.gov/steo http://www.eia.doe.gov/steo and here: http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/steo/pub/gifs/Fig12.gif http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/steo/pub/gifs/Fig12.gif), U.S. crude oil production increased this year to 5.24 million BOE (barrels of oil equivalent) per day -- the first annual increase since 1991. The net effect is that supply vastly overshoots demand. There is a delayed recognition that the increase in the industry-average R/P ratio (the ratio of reserves-in-the-ground to production-per-year) no longer justifies continued investment. As a result, crude oil prices crash. Those ventures into higher-cost technologies that had been launched with the presumption of hindsight that a new era of permanently higher oil prices had dawned, are deemed uneconomic. Examples include: oil sands, oil shale, photovoltaic utility-scale power plants, biofuels, wind energy. Capital flees the market. As the global economy continues to grow and capital remains unallocated to E&P of hydrocarbons (Exploration and production), the industry-average R/P ratio begins to slowly contract. New technologies that could be used to discover and produce untapped hydrocarbon reserves (Methane Hydrates, in the US Gulf of Mexico, for instance) remain undeveloped. The energy industry refocuses on decreasing costs, instead of increasing supply. After another 25 years, the cycle repeats. (There are of-course short-term supply shocks that can occur for geopolitical reasons, such as wars, climate change legislation, nationalization of mineral rights, armed piracy on ocean shipping lanes, etc...) In view of this history, presupposing a impeding permanent shortfall in global hydrocarbon supplies is akin to prognosticating the end-of-the road for Moore's Law and a subsequent end to the IT industry.
deleted 17y ago
[deleted]

13 points by yters 17y ago

Gold proposed that the Earth may possess a virtually endless supply – suggesting as much as "at least 500 million years' worth of gas" Wow.

eugenejen 17y ago
I guess until the day we can drill oil/gas from Mars or Venus. Then we will know theory for the biogenic petroleum oil is not correct.
- PieSquared 17y ago
  There's no guarantee there's oil in either place. Remember, oil is the product of organic matter being compressed under heavy pressure for millions of years. Even if microbes or their remains are discovered on Mars or Venus, which they haven't (definitively), there's no guarantee that there was life of any considerable biomass. So I really wouldn't get my hopes up for extraterrestrial oil at all, sad as that may be. On the other hand, minerals and metals most certainly exist outside of Earth, so...?
  - eugenejen 17y ago
    You seems misunderstood what I meant. If there is petroleum oil in Mars or Venus. It make the abiogenic petroleum oil more possible be universal.
  - eugenejen 17y ago
    You seems misunderstood what I meant. I meant if there is petroleum oil in Mars or Venus, it makes the abiogenic petroleum oil more possible be universal resources.
ilkhd2 17y ago
However, no matter how you try, capacity to absorb CO2 is finite.

radu_floricica 17y ago

AFAIK about this it's not as controversial as it sounds, with the caveat that the current rate of generation is way below what once was, or what we're consuming right now. In other words it's a very interesting scientific issue but with little practical consequence.

thelonecabbage 17y ago
The theory is predictive. It can be used with 67% accuracy to find new oil deposits. That is both falsifiable and HUGELY practical. The bulk of expense in oil extraction is finding the oil in the first place, which is why the Middle east is so attractive, it's all at the surface, shallow drilling and easy testing. If this theory pans out, and as he says that oil is distributed all over the world; it means that oil gets MUCH cheaper and unstable regions can go F@#$ themselves, we'll just drill somewhere else.
- brazzy 17y ago
  Where did you get that 67% number fromß
Chronos 17y ago
Actually, it is rather controversial. Normally, when you add heat to a large hydrocarbon molecule, it cracks (breaks down into smaller pieces plus more heat). This is why hydrocarbons can catch fire and burn. Going the other direction -- from large molecules to even larger ones -- requires very specific heat ranges and very delicate conditions involving unusual catalysts. Add too much heat, and it cracks faster than it merges. Add too little heat, and it cracks instead of merging (if anything changes at all). There are indeed specific conditions under which merging occurs, but in geology they are extremely rare. If abiogenic oil theory were true, it would predict abundant oil in Washington state (close, but not too close, to vulcanism) and zero oil in Texas (where there are no volcanoes). The facts are, of course, otherwise. The amount of naturally-occurring abiogenic oil is quite possibly non-zero, but clearly accounts for at most a tiny fraction of all naturally-occurring oil. Even if abiogenic oil theory were true, we would still be experiencing peak oil. Assuming it were true, the earth would have been producing all our current global oil reserves over the course of billions of years, and our current rate of extraction would be depleting the reserves faster than abiogenic production could refill them. (Two arguments why abiogenic oil must be slow, even if it's significant: one, the annual rate of carbonate rock subduction is not sufficient to sustain the current annual rate of oil extraction, even with 100% conversion; two, the oil produced would have to go somewhere, e.g. break to the surface and feed an ecosystem of oil-digesting bacteria, if it were being produced at such a rapid rate.)

brazzy 17y ago

Decades old crank theories are now hacker news?

windsurfer 17y ago
The article talks bout helium being present. How did it get there?
- brazzy 17y ago
  Um... Helium's the second most common element, by a huge margin.
  - mechanical_fish 17y ago
    Though, to be precise, helium is not as common on Earth as it is in the universe at large, because our gravity isn't strong enough to keep it around in our atmosphere for very long. But it is made in big quantities by radioactive decay of elements inside the Earth. Whereupon most of it diffuses outward and escapes into space -- helium is a tiny, inert molecule which diffuses relatively easily even through many "solid" rocks. The only place it tends to pile up on the earth is inside relatively impermeable underground rock formations: The same ones that trap natural gas, and that often trap oil as well. That's the reason why helium and natural gas tend to be found together. All of which is easily read at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helium http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helium
  - deleted 17y ago
    [deleted]
- Chronos 17y ago
  Uh, it's a question with a well-known answer. When uranium and other heavy radioactive elements decay, they often do so via alpha decay. What's an alpha particle? Two neutrons, two protons. Eventually the alpha particle slows down and captures some electrons. What is it now? An atom of Helium-4. If there is radioactive material buried in the earth (there is), and there are geological structures that trap it (there are), then there will be underground deposits of helium (specifically Helium-4). Other than the fact that the same rocks trapping helium can also trap natural gas, though, there is absolutely no further relation between the two. Why would there be? Helium is also found with deposits of radon gas, where no methane is present. BFD.

eserorg 17y ago

If you study the history of the oil business, you will find that approximately every 25-30 years there is a widespread "oil crisis" precipitated by the conclusion that we have reached "peak oil" and that the world's aggregate hydrocarbon production is in decline. The first such oil crisis occurred in the 1859. Before the first U.S. oil well was drilled in Pennsylvania in 1859, petroleum supplies were limited to crude oil that oozed to the surface. An 1859 advertisement for Kier’s Rock Oil advised consumers to “hurry, before this wonderful product is depleted from Nature’s laboratory.” In 1874, the state geologist of Pennsylvania, the United States leading oil-producing state and the location of the world's first commercial oil well, estimated that only enough oil remained to keep the nation’s kerosene lamps burning for four years. Seven such "peak oil" shortage scares occurred before 1950. These periodic "peak oil" crises lead to short-term spikes in the spot prices for crude. As a consequence, the capital markets flood the oil and gas business with capital to develop high-cost reserves that had been considered uneconomic. The vast inflows of capital into the Athabasca oil sands in Canada are an example of this. If this "peak oil crisis" coincides with an era of cheap capital, the inflows of capital into industries that are perceived to be either compliments (oil sands, oil shale) and/or substitutes for crude oil (wind, solar, biofuels) can be extremely large. Inevitably, this overallocation of capital leads to: (1) vast new discoveries of hydrocarbons, and (2) the invention of new technologies to economically develop those reserves. Because the oil and gas industry is opaque in terms of information flows, it takes several years for news of these developments to recycle back into the capital markets. In point of fact it was not until 2007-2008 that news began to percolate about the vast shale gas discoveries in the United States -- even though the first such monster wells had been drilled in 2000-2001. States such as Pennsylvania, where oil and gas records are not made publicly available for a 5-year "grace" period, exacerbate this problem. In contrast, most states post updates on new oil and gas wells on a daily basis. New investments in oil and gas technology can even turn around mature basins that had been considered to be past their peak production. For example, according to the United States EIA (see here: http://www.eia.doe.gov/steo http://www.eia.doe.gov/steo and here: http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/steo/pub/gifs/Fig12.gif http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/steo/pub/gifs/Fig12.gif), U.S. crude oil production increased this year to 5.24 million BOE (barrels of oil equivalent) per day -- the first annual increase since 1991. The net effect is that supply vastly overshoots demand. There is a delayed recognition that the increase in the industry-average R/P ratio (the ratio of reserves-in-the-ground to production-per-year) no longer justifies continued investment. As a result, crude oil prices crash. Those ventures into higher-cost technologies that had been launched with the presumption of hindsight that a new era of permanently higher oil prices had dawned, are deemed uneconomic. Examples include: oil sands, oil shale, photovoltaic utility-scale power plants, biofuels, wind energy. Capital flees the market. As the global economy continues to grow and capital remains unallocated to E&P of hydrocarbons (Exploration and production), the industry-average R/P ratio begins to slowly contract. New technologies that could be used to discover and produce untapped hydrocarbon reserves (Methane Hydrates, in the US Gulf of Mexico, for instance) remain undeveloped. The energy industry refocuses on decreasing costs, instead of increasing supply. After another 25 years, the cycle repeats. (There are of-course short-term supply shocks that can occur for geopolitical reasons, such as wars, climate change legislation, nationalization of mineral rights, armed piracy on ocean shipping lanes, etc...) In view of this history, presupposing a impeding permanent shortfall in global hydrocarbon supplies is akin to prognosticating the end-of-the road for Moore's Law and a subsequent end to the IT industry.

deleted 17y ago

[deleted]