Abiotic oil: Ruppert and McGowan are going at it

No, not me, another McGowan.
But it looks like a Celtic Blood Feud to me.

Two of my favorite people.

http://www.davesweb.cnchost.com/nwsltr55.html

Abiotic oil defined:
http://solstice.crest.org/discussion/greenbuilding/200201/msg00511.html

"It's probably best to put the kids to bed, because this could get ugly."-davesweb

Ruppert's POV:

http://www.mail-archive.com/armchair@gmu.edu/msg03319.html

If you know anything about the oil industry you are automatically disqualified from having an opinion.

Silly me.

(Well, then again that type of thinking seems to work fairly well for the Bush Admin.)

I do not know about Celtic, but definitely a blood feud. However, is oil thicker than blood? It floats on water.

Anyway, I do not think the issue is "If you know anything about the oil industry you are automatically disqualified from having an opinion." However, it is also not silly to always remember that statement. Instead, it is most important to question all of the "claims", "facts" and/or "assumptions." It was really frightening to me reading the board posts of the last month or so on "Peak Oil." Not because the world could be already on course to run out, but at how quickly people were flaming dissenters by simply parroting the claims made at these peak oil sites. It reminded be of the ditto heads (though, fortunately, without the self-stupefying claim of actually being a ditto-head).

Instead, how about some critical thinking, especially starting with looking at how these same arguments played out in the '60s and '70s with Ehrlich and Lovins? I think they wound their way through many of these concerns and ended up with a progressive direction to head in (e.g., http://www.rmi.org/),

So, be critical and thus cheer up, there are possibilities.

It's true, some of the Peak oil sites have something of a doom and gloom ring to them. I read Ken Deffeyes Book "Hubberts Peak" and he made a lot of sense.

As a ship's engineer for 25 years you learn a little about oil.

I can say with certainty:

Over the years the quality of residual oil has declined. This is because refineries have become more efficient at extracting the high value distillates from the oil.

In 1972 residual fuel oil had been stable at around $3 per barrel for years.

Oil companies have been going to ever more inhospitable areas of the world and drilling deeper for oil.

The control of oil has become a more military problem over time.

That leaves me with these thoughts:

It could very well be that our demand for oil is out stripping the production capacity as it exists and the rate at which it is growing. That could account for the need to improve refinery efficiency and the increase in price.

The military adventures in the Middle East could simply be due to the fact that the oil is close to the surface there and therefore easily obtainable.

But then there's the difficulty of finding new oil in the ground and the ever increasing cost of getting the oil out.

If it turns out that we are wrong, that we have a much larger supply of oil than thought and a larger capacity for the earth's atmosphere to absorb the exhaust from burning this oil, fine. Good news.

As for this "blood feud" I see this as little more than 2 guys grand standing and a battle of ego's than anything else.

I think the question of oil running out is very real.

Ehrlich and Lovins -- and several other scientists and activists -- were actually correct. But once the price of oil increased, and major public efforts were made to conserve, the demand for oil dropped off and gave us another decade and a half of slack time. The statistics are easily available onboth pro- and con- "peak oil" websites.

The problem isn't that we will run out and the world will come to an end, it's that the price of producing oil will increase to the point that the world economy will be shaken, damaged, or possibly destroyed. Industrial civilization has been depending on a 2-3% per annum growth rate in energy demand, a growth rate we can't sustain for more than another few years. Even adding nuclear, wind, and better oil production methods don't add much time.

The problem is to find a way to allow economic growth without ever-increasing energy demand growth.Oil's only a part of it. I think the real problem lies in the way our society deals with wealth, linking it to energy as it does.

The abiotic oil theory is pretty cool, but we're taking it faster than it can be made. Either way, that 2-3% per year growth factor is going to catch up with us.

In any case, I seldom like flaming people who disagree with my point of view on energy and economics (unless they're acting like jerks, of course). We've wasted far too much time already.

--bkl

Yes, I think this would cover both theories.
No matter which, we're still not going to be
able to come up w/ enough of the stuff
at a reasonable cost/benefit.

So, being objective means:

Sharing resources, accepting immigration, or
reducing the # of humans who will be able
to use hydrocarbons. Or becoming more
efficient ( by a factor of 4).

Any DUers in Pennsylvania?

shooting the final scenes for a documentary on peak oil, and had the chance to talk to a woman whose grandfather helped to start the oil industry in Canada and around the world. Her family's wells have been operating for almost 150 years, and they aren't replenishing themselves. Actually, they are pumping a lot of water now.

I brought up the theory of Abiotic Oil, and she just rolled her eyes.

If Abiotic Oil was a reality, the ground around Petrolia would be have been bleeding oil a long time ago.

http://www.endofsuburbia.com/

...it isn't bubbling up here. So *if* we choose to rely on abiotic oil, it still means sending large chunks of our economy overseas just to move our stuff and ourselves from place to place.

water used to pump oil out. Or water aquifers.
Or saltwater/brine discharge.

We still have oil wells, but mostly "Seepers" i.e. wells that produce a barrel a month or so (and pumped every month or so after the oil had time to seep back into the oil well). Each month you get less and less oil out of the wells but enough to drive a pickup truck to work the pump every couple of months. I have several in my area, the pumps just standing there. I have NEVER seen one of the pumps actually pumping. You can see the pumps are operated every so often, but also that it is weeks or months between pumps.

I believe the same situation is incurring in Texas, the wells are slowly drying out after years of production (through Texas's wells were bigger, deeper and founded later than Pennsylvania's Wells).

Just North of El Dorado ( that's a long "A" thank you).

Maybe one of the worst handled oil fieilds in
the nation.

If any abiotic oil is there, meaning the fields are being
recharged, it should be there.

And by mishandled, I mean the propellant was allowed
to come out too fast.

http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/links/doi/10.1046/j.1526-0984.2001.84001.x/abs/

No matter how much intellectual enjoyment I derive from exploring these competing theories of the origins of oil, the true answer is virtually irrelevant. Either way, the demand for oil is outstripping production.

Even if the theory of abiotic oil is proven beyond a shadow of a doubt, the presence of an "inexhaustible" supply of oil is of no use if the replenishment rate falls below our demand. For the sake of argument, let's say that oil fields were formed by the slow seepage of oil from the center of the earth. Unless the seepage rate is higher than our escalating usage, we still have a problem of inadequate supplies of oil and massive economic disruption as supply fails to meet demand.

Our basic dilemma is that Western economies are based on a pyramid scheme. Our economy must continue to grow -- as if development is infinite despite a finite world. We're hitting the limits of our system on multiple fronts, not just oil. Our environment is damaged, possibly beyond repair, our weather is changing in ways that will stress our populations, sheer numbers of humans are overwhelming our governments' abilities to regulate our society, etc. etc.

If I'm lucky, given my age (50), I'll just miss the inevitable 'correction' that is coming our way.

--Boomer

And why is this growth required? Population growth is one answer, but not a good one as it is well within our ability to flatten or ever reverse that growth without resorting to any of the nightmare senarios suggested by the opponents of population stabilization. Then of course the needs of our Alphas must be met. Wealth is power and they will always require more in order to stay on top of the social order.
I'm convinced that much of what ails is evolutionary baggage, in this case a hierarchial social structure. Socialism is a first attempt to correct this, but time is running short.
I'm your age and I fear it it's gonna be real tough on us "old" folks.

He identified our debt and interest based monetary system as the real cause of the coming energy crisis not the diminishing amount of crude oil left in the ground.

.

is that they have yet to explain the carbon 13 ratios of the oil. I may be totally off on this and I tried to find a reference on it. Carbon has two stable naturally occuring isotopes, 13 and 12. Biological organisms take up less 13 than 12 since it requires less energy. Oil, if from biological sources, should have a lower 13C/12C ratio than inorganic carbon. The oil found has ratios that correspond to those from organic fossils from the prehistorical period of its fomation. If I remember the article that I read years ago, the proponents of abiotic oil have yet to explain why oil has 13C/12C ratios that indicate biological origin. That is why it is not a commonly accepted theory.

>> Biological organisms take up less 13 than 12 since it requires less energy.

While and organism is alive, it's ratio of C13 to C12 is the same as ambient: it's in equilibrium with the surroundings. When the organism dies, the carbon in the body is "frozen": it stops circulating with the environment. Gradually, the C13 decays, and the ratio drops below the ambient. Carbon-dating works by measuring how much C13 has decayed. Other isotope-dating methods work essentially the same way.

Added this on edit from a quick websearch.

Link


Fractionation of Isotopes

Earlier in this chapter, we mentioned that the carbon released from burning fossil fuels has a lower d13C (-25 to -20‰) than the atmosphere (-8‰). Why is this so? A partial explanation is that fossil fuels are derived from a combination of terrestrial and marine organic material, and if we look at the carbon isotope values in those material today, we see that they have d13C values of around -25‰ to -20‰. But then the question becomes: Why are the d13C values of modern organic matter so different from the atmosphere? This brings us to the underlying explanation -- the process of photosynthesis favors the lighter form of carbon. Photosynthesis, along with a few other processes, lead to variations in carbon isotope ratios. These processes are sometimes called isotope fractionation processes, which turn out to be very useful in helping us to decipher the past behavior of the carbon cycle.

Actually, I was thinking of C12 and C14. I forgot all about C13 being the other stable isotope.


So, photosynthesis preferentially favors lighter carbon isotopes? That's cool.

I wonder what that implies about those of us up the food chain from plants.

Carbon Isotope Fractionation during Anaerobic Biodegradation of Toluene: Implications for Intrinsic Bioremediation

Jason M. E. Ahad, Barbara Sherwood Lollar,* Elizabeth A. Edwards, Greg F. Slater, and Brent E. Sleep

Stable Isotope Laboratory, Department of Geology, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, M5S 3B1, Department of Chemical Engineering & Applied Chemistry, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, M5S 3E5, and Department of Civil Engineering, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, M5S 1A4

Received for review July 16, 1999

Revised manuscript received November 12, 1999

Accepted November 18, 1999

Abstract:

Carbon isotope fractionation produced by anaerobic biodegradation of toluene was evaluated in laboratory experiments under both methanogenic and sulfate-reducing conditions. A small (~2”) but highly reproducible 13C-enrichment in the residual toluene at advanced stages of microbial transformation was observed in both cultures. The maximum isotopic enrichment observed in the residual toluene was +2.0” and +2.4” for the methanogenic and sulfate-reducing cultures, respectively, corresponding to isotopic enrichment factors () of -0.5 and -0.8. Because the accuracy and reproducibility associated with gas chromatograph-combustion-isotope ratio mass spectrometry (GC/C/IRMS) is ±0.5”, delineating which of these two terminal electron-accepting processes (TEAP) is responsible for the biodegradation of toluene at field sites will not be possible. However, the potential does exist to use compound-specific isotope analysis (CSIA), in conjunction with other methodologies, as a means of validating advanced stages of intrinsic bioremediation in anaerobic systems. Caution is urged that relating this small (~2”) fractionation to biodegradation at complex field sites will prove a challenge.

Environ. Sci. Technol., 34 (5), 892 -896, 2000

Just a note: Heavy water can kill simply by slowing down the hydrogen ion transfers on which living systems depend. The difference between deuterium and hydrogen has a profound effect on rates of reactions.

This is somewhat less true with C-12 and C-13.

I just finished Kenneth Deffeyes "Hubbert's Peak" and one of the most important things I learned is that oil can only be produced under very limited geological circumstances. Deffeyes says that all oil deposits are or were at one time submerged under layers of rock in a rather narrow window between 7,500 and 15,000 feet deep. The nearer the top of the window, the more petroleum is formed and the less natural gas. The deeper the strata, the less petroleum is formed and the more natural gas. This is one reason why the idea of abiotic oil garners little credence in the petroleum geology industry. Enough wells have been drilled around the world to pretty well establish the fact that oil is a biological by-product, not some mysterious mineral substance from deep in the bowels of the earth.

I feel honored to sample your intellectual
products offered here.

From the above I will continue to hold that
the asymptotic point of global oil production is
at most single digit years away.

Deffeyes says Thanksgiving 2005.
From his 011604 missive.