Is Fossil Fuel Actually Produced Renewably Inside the Earth? | The Epoch Times

[Scott]

The evidence that many oil fields have been refilling themselves is not new. I'd certainly heard it before. The article below cites a New York Times article from 1995 that suggests it:
Geochemist Says Oil Fields May Be Refilled Naturally | New York Times


But until now, I hadn't heard of an explanation as to how this could be. This article bridges that gap to some extent. Note that this doesn't mean I think that the world should continue to use oil the way they are currently doing. Regardless of how renewable oil is, I firmly believe that its effects on global warming are quite real. In any case, on to the article...

**
Most people are taught that petroleum is formed deep under the Earth over the course of millions of years and is derived from the remains of plankton, plants, and other biological organisms. This explanation is stated matter-of-factly on certain government and educational websites.

This theory for oil formation is, however, just that—a theory. There is an opposing view that has substantial evidence to back it up.

Credence for oil’s organic origin (biotic origin) is strong in the United States, while the idea of an inorganic origin (abiotic origin) has long been accepted among post-Soviet scientists. Some American scientists have also jumped on the abiotic train, scorned though it may be by most of their peers.

They point to problems posed by the idea that oil comes from dead plants.

Where Did All That Dead Stuff Come From?

When a plant or animal dies, very little of its matter is buried. Nature recycles—some of nature’s greatest recyclers are insects, microorganisms, fungi, and bacteria. Has enough organic matter really been buried below the Earth to create trillions of barrels of oil?

Moreover, the biotic theory holds that organic matter must fit within the “oil window” before becoming oil. The oil window refers to a set of conditions, including reaching a particular depth (1 to 2.5 miles) where the temperature is right (140 to 300 degrees Fahrenheit) for oil to be produced.

Proponents of the alternative, abiotic theory, say oil may instead be a primordial substance that rises up from the Earth’s depths through fissures. Thus, oil might originate independently of organic sources undergoing chemical processes, similar to how methane is found on asteroids or in other barren environments.
**

Full article:
Is Fossil Fuel Actually Produced Renewably Inside the Earth? Some Scientists Theorize ‘Abiotic’ Origins of Oil | The Epoch Times

 

[Jade Dragon]

Good, put the source in the title. That way we don't have to bat an eye at your septic media postings.

 

[Celticguy]

Good, put the source in the title. That way we don't have to bat an eye at your septic media postings.

no kidding, as soon as I saw NYT, its turn the page time.

 

[Poor Richard Saunders]

The evidence that many oil fields have been refilling themselves is not new. I'd certainly heard it before. The article below cites a New York Times article from 1995 that suggests it:
Geochemist Says Oil Fields May Be Refilled Naturally | New York Times


But until now, I hadn't heard of an explanation as to how this could be.

You found the NY Times article that clearly gives a reasonable explanation but you hadn't heard an explanation (which you clearly ignored) so you jump to the conclusion that it is abiotic regeneration?

Oh wait.. I see why you think it is abiotic. It is a theory put forward by post- Soviet scientists.

 

[Scott]

You found the NY Times article that clearly gives a reasonable explanation but you hadn't heard an explanation (which you clearly ignored) so you jump to the conclusion that it is abiotic regeneration?

I didn't jump to any conclusions. The theory of oil having abiotic origins is not new.

Furthermore, Tara MacIsaac's Epoch Times article mentioned the New York Times article for a reason. Quoting from the Epoch Times article written by Tara MacIsaac:
**
Eugene Island: On Eugene Island, Louisiana, in 1995, it was reported that the oil fields were—perplexingly—refilling themselves after being depleted. The findings of Dr. Jean K. Whelan, part of a U.S. Department of Energy exploration program, seem to support the abiotic theory to explain this. She found that the oil likely came from great depths, as abiotic proponents say.

A New York Times article from that time explained: “[Whelan] has found evidence of differences in the composition of oil over periods of time as it flows from greater to shallower depths. By gauging degradative chemical changes in the oil resulting from action by oil-eating bacteria, she infers that oil is moving in quite rapid spurts from great depths to reservoirs closer to the surface.”

Whelan also supported a theory of Gold’s that microbes eat oil, thus explaining the presence of biological material found in oil at great depths.
**

Oh wait.. I see why you think it is abiotic. It is a theory put forward by post- Soviet scientists.

No, it's a theory -accepted- by Post-Soviet scientists. The first abiogenic hypothesis was developed much earlier, and there have been others since:

**
An abiogenic hypothesis was first proposed by Georgius Agricola in the 16th century and various additional abiogenic hypotheses were proposed in the 19th century, most notably by Prussian geographer Alexander von Humboldt,[when?] the Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleev (1877)[7] and the French chemist Marcellin Berthelot. Abiogenic hypotheses were revived in the last half of the 20th century by Soviet scientists who had little influence outside the Soviet Union because most of their research was published in Russian. The hypothesis was re-defined and made popular in the West by Thomas Gold, who developed his theories from 1979 to 1998 and published his research in English.
**

Source:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenic_petroleum_origin#History


MacIsaac's Epoch Times article focuses on Thomas Gold's work. Once again from her article:

**
Thomas Gold of New York’s Cornell University, who died in 2004, was a vocal proponent of abiotic theory. He advised a team that drilled in central Sweden in the late 1980s and early 1990s at a site known as the Siljan Ring that would have been seen as unpromising, to say the least, by surveyors working from a biotic perspective.
**

Gold found a bit of oil, but only a bit, which allowed his critics to claim that it originally came from elsewhere. Again from MacIsaac's article:
**
Yet, critics posited that oil seeped down there from sedimentary rock, to which Gold rebutted: “Oil seepage generated after 360 million years from such a small quantity of sediments seemed improbable.”
**

Perhaps the most notable oil finds using this theory, however, were in Ukraine. Again from MacIsaac's article:

**
Oil Fields in Ukraine: A strong proponent of abiotic theory, Professor Vladilen A. Krayushkin, Chairman of the Department of Petroleum Exploration at the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences, is quoted in a 1996 paper by Dr. J. F. Kenney, titled “Special Edition on The Future of Petroleum.”

Krayushkin said: “The eleven major and one giant oil and gas fields here described have been discovered in a region which had, forty years ago, been condemned as possessing no potential for petroleum production. The exploration for these fields was conducted entirely according to the perspective of the modern Russian-Ukrainian theory of abyssal, abiotic petroleum origins.
**

 

[Poor Richard Saunders]

I didn't jump to any conclusions. The theory of oil having abiotic origins is not new.

Furthermore, Tara MacIsaac's Epoch Times article mentioned the New York Times article for a reason. Quoting from the Epoch Times article written by Tara MacIsaac:
**
Eugene Island: On Eugene Island, Louisiana, in 1995, it was reported that the oil fields were—perplexingly—refilling themselves after being depleted. The findings of Dr. Jean K. Whelan, part of a U.S. Department of Energy exploration program, seem to support the abiotic theory to explain this. She found that the oil likely came from great depths, as abiotic proponents say.

A New York Times article from that time explained: “[Whelan] has found evidence of differences in the composition of oil over periods of time as it flows from greater to shallower depths. By gauging degradative chemical changes in the oil resulting from action by oil-eating bacteria, she infers that oil is moving in quite rapid spurts from great depths to reservoirs closer to the surface.”

Whelan also supported a theory of Gold’s that microbes eat oil, thus explaining the presence of biological material found in oil at great depths.
**



No, it's a theory -accepted- by Post-Soviet scientists. The first abiogenic hypothesis was developed much earlier, and there have been others since:

**
An abiogenic hypothesis was first proposed by Georgius Agricola in the 16th century and various additional abiogenic hypotheses were proposed in the 19th century, most notably by Prussian geographer Alexander von Humboldt,[when?] the Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleev (1877)[7] and the French chemist Marcellin Berthelot. Abiogenic hypotheses were revived in the last half of the 20th century by Soviet scientists who had little influence outside the Soviet Union because most of their research was published in Russian. The hypothesis was re-defined and made popular in the West by Thomas Gold, who developed his theories from 1979 to 1998 and published his research in English.
**

Source:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenic_petroleum_origin#History


MacIsaac's Epoch Times article focuses on Thomas Gold's work. Once again from her article:

**
Thomas Gold of New York’s Cornell University, who died in 2004, was a vocal proponent of abiotic theory. He advised a team that drilled in central Sweden in the late 1980s and early 1990s at a site known as the Siljan Ring that would have been seen as unpromising, to say the least, by surveyors working from a biotic perspective.
**

Gold found a bit of oil, but only a bit, which allowed his critics to claim that it originally came from elsewhere. Again from MacIsaac's article:
**
Yet, critics posited that oil seeped down there from sedimentary rock, to which Gold rebutted: “Oil seepage generated after 360 million years from such a small quantity of sediments seemed improbable.”
**

Perhaps the most notable oil finds using this theory, however, were in Ukraine. Again from MacIsaac's article:

**
Oil Fields in Ukraine: A strong proponent of abiotic theory, Professor Vladilen A. Krayushkin, Chairman of the Department of Petroleum Exploration at the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences, is quoted in a 1996 paper by Dr. J. F. Kenney, titled “Special Edition on The Future of Petroleum.”

Krayushkin said: “The eleven major and one giant oil and gas fields here described have been discovered in a region which had, forty years ago, been condemned as possessing no potential for petroleum production. The exploration for these fields was conducted entirely according to the perspective of the modern Russian-Ukrainian theory of abyssal, abiotic petroleum origins.
**

There is no evidence in support of the theory of abiotic creation of oil.
If it exists then you should be able to do the following:
Isolate the abiotic oil from biotic oil
Suspend abiotic oil in a liquid like water
Create abiotic oil in the lab.
There should be no biotic molecules in the molecule of abiotic oil.
Send samples of abiotic oil to 20 labs to sequence the molecules. The labs should all have give a result of the same molecule and that molecule can't contain any biological atoms.

Since you can't do any of these it proves that oil is created by abiotic processes.

(Let's see if you have any critical thinking skills at all.)

 

[Damocles]

A theory in s ience has evidence to back it up. Abiotic oil creation is a poorly constructed hypothesis, not a theory.

 

[Cypress]

When a plant or animal dies, very little of its matter is buried. Nature recycles—some of nature’s greatest recyclers are insects, microorganisms, fungi, and bacteria.

Has enough organic matter really been buried below the Earth to create trillions of barrels of oil?

Yes.

A larger fraction of organic matter is preserved under anoxic conditions which precludes burrowing animals recyclers and normal bacteria. Anoxic bacteria are not as efficient at breaking down organic matter.

My recollection also is that oil, gas, and coal have isotopic signatures consistent with a biological source

Abiogenic petroleum might be produced in small amounts, but it does not account for the vast majority of the world's petroleum deposits

 

[Scott]

There is no evidence in support of the theory of abiotic creation of oil.

I just cited a bunch of evidence for it in my last post.

If it exists then you should be able to do the following:
Isolate the abiotic oil from biotic oil
Suspend abiotic oil in a liquid like water
Create abiotic oil in the lab.

Can you prove that these things should be able to be done if oil can be created abiotically?

There should be no biotic molecules in the molecule of abiotic oil.

Tara MacIsaac gave a possible reason for biological organisms being in oil:
**
Whelan also supported a theory of Gold’s that microbes eat oil, thus explaining the presence of biological material found in oil at great depths.
**

 

[Scott]

A theory in science has evidence to back it up. Abiotic oil creation is a poorly constructed hypothesis, not a theory.

I imagine that some or perhaps even most in the west would agree with you, but not everyone. An article you may find interesting, published in 2011:

Abiotic Oil a Theory Worth Exploring | usnews.com

It also seems clear that those in the former Soviet states have generally believed in the abiotic origins of oil for some time and have applied their beliefs to where they drill. I think we can agree that they're doing fairly well for themselves in terms of oil production. There was a passage in Tara MacIsaac's article that I quoted in post#5 that I'll repeat in case you missed it in that post:

**
Oil Fields in Ukraine: A strong proponent of abiotic theory, Professor Vladilen A. Krayushkin, Chairman of the Department of Petroleum Exploration at the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences, is quoted in a 1996 paper by Dr. J. F. Kenney, titled “Special Edition on The Future of Petroleum.”

Krayushkin said: “The eleven major and one giant oil and gas fields here described have been discovered in a region which had, forty years ago, been condemned as possessing no potential for petroleum production. The exploration for these fields was conducted entirely according to the perspective of the modern Russian-Ukrainian theory of abyssal, abiotic petroleum origins.
**

 

[Scott]

**

Where Did All That Dead Stuff Come From?

When a plant or animal dies, very little of its matter is buried. Nature recycles—some of nature’s greatest recyclers are insects, microorganisms, fungi, and bacteria. Has enough organic matter really been buried below the Earth to create trillions of barrels of oil?

Yes.

Can you prove this?

My recollection also is that oil, gas, and coal have isotopic signatures consistent with a biological source

Again, can you prove this?

Abiogenic petroleum might be produced in small amounts, but it does not account for the vast majority of the world's petroleum deposits

Again, can you prove this?


Furthermore, it seems that you didn't respond to the passage immediately proceeding from the part of the opening post that you quoted, namely the following:

**
Moreover, the biotic theory holds that organic matter must fit within the “oil window” before becoming oil. The oil window refers to a set of conditions, including reaching a particular depth (1 to 2.5 miles) where the temperature is right (140 to 300 degrees Fahrenheit) for oil to be produced.

Proponents of the alternative, abiotic theory, say oil may instead be a primordial substance that rises up from the Earth’s depths through fissures. Thus, oil might originate independently of organic sources undergoing chemical processes, similar to how methane is found on asteroids or in other barren environments.
**

To be fair, MacIsaac does acknowledge that skeptics have made a counterargument to the last point:
**
Skeptics say methane is a simpler substance than petroleum; the process of forming the hydrocarbons in petroleum is more complex and the same logic might not hold.
**

But that's a "might", not a definite "can't".

 

[Cypress]

Can you prove this?



Again, can you prove this?



Again, can you prove this?


Furthermore, it seems that you didn't respond to the passage immediately proceeding from the part of the opening post that you quoted, namely the following:

**
Moreover, the biotic theory holds that organic matter must fit within the “oil window” before becoming oil. The oil window refers to a set of conditions, including reaching a particular depth (1 to 2.5 miles) where the temperature is right (140 to 300 degrees Fahrenheit) for oil to be produced.

Proponents of the alternative, abiotic theory, say oil may instead be a primordial substance that rises up from the Earth’s depths through fissures. Thus, oil might originate independently of organic sources undergoing chemical processes, similar to how methane is found on asteroids or in other barren environments.
**

To be fair, MacIsaac does acknowledge that skeptics have made a counterargument to the last point:
**
Skeptics say methane is a simpler substance than petroleum; the process of forming the hydrocarbons in petroleum is more complex and the same logic might not hold.
**

But that's a "might", not a definite "can't".

I'll assume you simply didn't know that anoxic conditions are a major reason for the preservation of a larger fraction of organic matter in sediments.

Isotopic signatures in oil, gas, and coal point to a biological signature

Almost all the petroleum in the world comes from sedimentary basins. If oil was sourced from the upper mantle, there would be vast amounts of oil in igneous and metamorphic rock.

Small amounts of methane and simple hydrocarbons have been found locally in volcanic rock or granite, but it cannot possibly explain the vast amounts of biologically deprived peteoleum in sedimentary basins

 

[Into the Night]

The evidence that many oil fields have been refilling themselves is not new. I'd certainly heard it before. The article below cites a New York Times article from 1995 that suggests it:
Geochemist Says Oil Fields May Be Refilled Naturally | New York Times


But until now, I hadn't heard of an explanation as to how this could be. This article bridges that gap to some extent. Note that this doesn't mean I think that the world should continue to use oil the way they are currently doing. Regardless of how renewable oil is, I firmly believe that its effects on global warming are quite real. In any case, on to the article...

**
Most people are taught that petroleum is formed deep under the Earth over the course of millions of years and is derived from the remains of plankton, plants, and other biological organisms. This explanation is stated matter-of-factly on certain government and educational websites.

This theory for oil formation is, however, just that—a theory. There is an opposing view that has substantial evidence to back it up.

Credence for oil’s organic origin (biotic origin) is strong in the United States, while the idea of an inorganic origin (abiotic origin) has long been accepted among post-Soviet scientists. Some American scientists have also jumped on the abiotic train, scorned though it may be by most of their peers.

They point to problems posed by the idea that oil comes from dead plants.

Where Did All That Dead Stuff Come From?

When a plant or animal dies, very little of its matter is buried. Nature recycles—some of nature’s greatest recyclers are insects, microorganisms, fungi, and bacteria. Has enough organic matter really been buried below the Earth to create trillions of barrels of oil?

Moreover, the biotic theory holds that organic matter must fit within the “oil window” before becoming oil. The oil window refers to a set of conditions, including reaching a particular depth (1 to 2.5 miles) where the temperature is right (140 to 300 degrees Fahrenheit) for oil to be produced.

Proponents of the alternative, abiotic theory, say oil may instead be a primordial substance that rises up from the Earth’s depths through fissures. Thus, oil might originate independently of organic sources undergoing chemical processes, similar to how methane is found on asteroids or in other barren environments.
**

Full article:
Is Fossil Fuel Actually Produced Renewably Inside the Earth? Some Scientists Theorize ‘Abiotic’ Origins of Oil | The Epoch Times

Oil is not a 'primordial substance'. It is simply a hydrocarbon. Hydrocarbons can be synthesized without using any plant matter, fungus, or bacteria. That process was developed by the Germans in WW2. Conditions underground produce the same conditions for that process.

Oil is a renewable resource. So is methane (another hydrocarbon).

It is not possible for any gas or vapor to warm the Earth. You cannot create energy out of nothing. You are ignoring the 1st law of theemodynamics. CO2 cannot warm the Earth.
It is not possible to measure the temperature of the Earth. Base rate fallacy.
CO2 is absolutely essential for life to exist on Earth.

 

[Into the Night]

There is no evidence in support of the theory of abiotic creation of oil.

You can't make this evidence disappear by denying it either.

If it exists then you should be able to do the following:
Isolate the abiotic oil from biotic oil

There is no such thing as 'biotic oil'.

Suspend abiotic oil in a liquid like water

Easy.

Create abiotic oil in the lab.

Done. It's called the Fischer-Tropsche process, developed during WW2 by Germany.

There should be no biotic molecules in the molecule of abiotic oil.

Done.

Send samples of abiotic oil to 20 labs to sequence the molecules. The labs should all have give a result of the same molecule and that molecule can't contain any biological atoms.

There is no such thing as a 'biological atom'.
Oil is a hydrocarbon. It contains no biological material.

Since you can't do any of these it proves that oil is created by abiotic processes.

It's already been done.

(Let's see if you have any critical thinking skills at all.)

Obviously, YOU don't!

 

[Into the Night]

A theory in s ience has evidence to back it up. Abiotic oil creation is a poorly constructed hypothesis, not a theory.

Not quite right. A theory, any theory, is an explanatory argument. A theory of science must be falsifiable...in other words you must be able to develop tests against the theory itself by trying to break it. Those test must be specific, produce a specific result, be available to conduct, and be practical to conduct. As long as a theory withstands such tests, it is automatically a theory of science, and will remain so until some test finally breaks the theory (falsifying the theory, and thus utterly destroying it).

Oil has already been synthesized from nothing more than carbon dioxide or carbon monoxide, hydrogen, and heat and pressure in the presence of an iron catalyst. Germany did it during WW2.
These conditions are found naturally underground.

It is not only a theory of science, it has sound underpinnings.

 

[Into the Night]

Yes.

A larger fraction of organic matter is preserved under anoxic conditions which precludes burrowing animals recyclers and normal bacteria. Anoxic bacteria are not as efficient at breaking down organic matter.

My recollection also is that oil, gas, and coal have isotopic signatures consistent with a biological source

Abiogenic petroleum might be produced in small amounts, but it does not account for the vast majority of the world's petroleum deposits

There is no 'signature'. A hydrocarbon is NOT biological material. Oil is found quite deep, well below any fossil layers. So is natural gas.

 

[Into the Night]

I'll assume you simply didn't know that anoxic conditions are a major reason for the preservation of a larger fraction of organic matter in sediments.

Hydrocarbons are not biological material.

Isotopic signatures in oil, gas, and coal point to a biological signature

There is no 'signature'. Hydrocarbons are not biological material.

Almost all the petroleum in the world comes from sedimentary basins.

WRONG. Oil can be found ANYWHERE you care to drill, if you are willing to go deep enough. Oil comes closest to the surface at tectonic plate edges, particularly where spreading or shearing action is taking place, such as the Mideast, the southern United States and out into the gulf, the North Sea (north of Scotland), the Alaskan north shore, off the coast of the SODC on down into Baja. NONE of these are sedimentary rock.

If oil was sourced from the upper mantle, there would be vast amounts of oil in igneous and metamorphic rock.

There is.

Small amounts of methane and simple hydrocarbons have been found locally in volcanic rock or granite, but it cannot possibly explain the vast amounts of biologically deprived peteoleum in sedimentary basins

Lie. Hydrocarbons are NOT biological material. Sediments are NOT biological material.

 

[Nordberg]

When an oil well is all drilled out, they move to a new spot. If your insane idea was true, the oil wells would just sit waiting for the brand-spanking new oil. It does not work that way.

 

[Into the Night]

When an oil well is all drilled out, they move to a new spot. If your insane idea was true, the oil wells would just sit waiting for the brand-spanking new oil. It does not work that way.

Oil wells, when fully tapped, are closed temporarily. They refill and they can be pumped again. No different than drawing too much water from a well at once.

It does work that way.

 

[Cypress]

There is no 'signature'. A hydrocarbon is NOT biological material. Oil is found quite deep, well below any fossil layers. So is natural gas.

Some of the world's largest peteoleum reservoirs in Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Russia occur in ancient, buried carbonate reef rocks, which are rocks of biologic origin including reef-building organisms which have calcareous shells and structures.