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Sustainable oil?
By Chris Bennett
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Posted: May 25, 2004
1:00 a.m. Eastern
About 80 miles off of the coast of Louisiana lies a mostly submerged
mountain, the top of which is known as Eugene Island. The portion
underwater
is an eerie-looking, sloping tower jutting up from the depths of the Gulf
of
Mexico, with deep fissures and perpendicular faults which spontaneously
spew
natural gas. A significant reservoir of crude oil was discovered nearby in
the late '60s, and by 1970, a platform named Eugene 330 was busily
producing
about 15,000 barrels a day of high-quality crude oil.
By the late '80s, the platform's production had slipped to less than 4,000
barrels per day, and was considered pumped out. Done. Suddenly, in 1990,
production soared back to 15,000 barrels a day, and the reserves which had
been estimated at 60 million barrels in the '70s, were recalculated at 400
million barrels. Interestingly, the measured geological age of the new oil
was quantifiably different than the oil pumped in the '70s.
Analysis of seismic recordings revealed the presence of a "deep fault" at
the base of the Eugene Island reservoir which was gushing up a river of oil
from some deeper and previously unknown source.
Similar results were seen at other Gulf of Mexico oil wells. Similar
results
were found in the Cook Inlet oil fields in Alaska. Similar results were
found in oil fields in Uzbekistan. Similarly in the Middle East, where oil
exploration and extraction have been underway for at least the last 20
years, known reserves have doubled. Currently there are somewhere in the
neighborhood of 680 billion barrels of Middle East reserve oil.
Creating that much oil would take a big pile of dead dinosaurs and
fermenting prehistoric plants. Could there be another source for crude oil?
An intriguing theory now permeating oil company research staffs suggests
that crude oil may actually be a natural inorganic product, not a stepchild
of unfathomable time and organic degradation. The theory suggests there may
be huge, yet-to-be-discovered reserves of oil at depths that dwarf current
world estimates.
The theory is simple: Crude oil forms as a natural inorganic process which
occurs between the mantle and the crust, somewhere between 5 and 20 miles
deep. The proposed mechanism is as follows:
* Methane (CH4) is a common molecule found in quantity throughout our
solar system - huge concentrations exist at great depth in the Earth.
* At the mantle-crust interface, roughly 20,000 feet beneath the
surface, rapidly rising streams of compressed methane-based gasses hit
pockets of high temperature causing the condensation of heavier
hydrocarbons. The product of this condensation is commonly known as crude
oil.
* Some compressed methane-based gasses migrate into pockets and
reservoirs we extract as "natural gas."
* In the geologically "cooler," more tectonically stable regions
around the globe, the crude oil pools into reservoirs.
* In the "hotter," more volcanic and tectonically active areas, the
oil and natural gas continue to condense and eventually to oxidize,
producing carbon dioxide and steam, which exits from active volcanoes.
* Periodically, depending on variations of geology and Earth movement,
oil seeps to the surface in quantity, creating the vast oil-sand deposits
of
Canada and Venezuela, or the continual seeps found beneath the Gulf of
Mexico and Uzbekistan.
* Periodically, depending on variations of geology, the vast, deep
pools of oil break free and replenish existing known reserves of oil.
There are a number of observations across the oil-producing regions of the
globe that support this theory, and the list of proponents begins with
Mendelev (who created the periodic table of elements) and includes
Dr.Thomas
Gold (founding director of Cornell University Center for Radiophysics and
Space Research) and Dr. J.F. Kenney of Gas Resources Corporations, Houston,
Texas.
In his 1999 book, "The Deep Hot Biosphere," Dr. Gold presents compelling
evidence for inorganic oil formation. He notes that geologic structures
where oil is found all correspond to "deep earth" formations, not the
haphazard depositions we find with sedimentary rock, associated fossils or
even current surface life.
He also notes that oil extracted from varying depths from the same oil
field
have the same chemistry - oil chemistry does not vary as fossils vary with
increasing depth. Also interesting is the fact that oil is found in huge
quantities among geographic formations where assays of prehistoric life are
not sufficient to produce the existing reservoirs of oil. Where then did it
come from?
Another interesting fact is that every oil field throughout the world has
outgassing helium. Helium is so often present in oil fields that helium
detectors are used as oil-prospecting tools. Helium is an inert gas known
to
be a fundamental product of the radiological decay or uranium and thorium,
identified in quantity at great depths below the surface of the earth, 200
and more miles below. It is not found in meaningful quantities in areas
that
are not producing methane, oil or natural gas. It is not a member of the
dozen or so common elements associated with life. It is found throughout
the
solar system as a thoroughly inorganic product.
Even more intriguing is evidence that several oil reservoirs around the
globe are refilling themselves, such as the Eugene Island reservoir - not
from the sides, as would be expected from cocurrent organic reservoirs, but
from the bottom up.
Dr. Gold strongly believes that oil is a "renewable, primordial soup
continually manufactured by the Earth under ultrahot conditions and
tremendous pressures. As this substance migrates toward the surface, it is
attached by bacteria, making it appear to have an organic origin dating
back
to the dinosaurs."
Smaller oil companies and innovative teams are using this theory to justify
deep oil drilling in Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico, among other locations,
with some success. Dr. Kenney is on record predicting that parts of Siberia
contain a deep reservoir of oil equal to or exceeding that already
discovered in the Middle East.
Could this be true?
In August 2002, in the "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
(US)," Dr. Kenney published a paper, which had a partial title of "The
genesis of hydrocarbons and the origin of petroleum." Dr. Kenney and three
Russian coauthors conclude:
The Hydrogen-Carbon system does not spontaneously evolve hydrocarbons at
pressures less than 30 Kbar, even in the most favorable environment. The
H-C
system evolves hydrocarbons under pressures found in the mantle of the
Earth
and at temperatures consistent with that environment.
He was quoted as stating that "competent physicists, chemists, chemical
engineers and men knowledgeable of thermodynamics have known that natural
petroleum does not evolve from biological materials since the last quarter
of the 19th century."
Deeply entrenched in our culture is the belief that at some point in the
relatively near future we will see the last working pump on the last
functioning oil well screech and rattle, and that will be that. The end of
the Age of Oil. And unless we find another source of cheap energy, the
world
will rapidly become a much darker and dangerous place.
If Dr. Gold and Dr. Kenney are correct, this "the end of the world as we
know it" scenario simply won't happen. Think about it ... while not
inexhaustible, deep Earth reserves of inorganic crude oil and commercially
feasible extraction would provide the world with generations of low-cost
fuel. Dr. Gold has been quoted saying that current worldwide reserves of
crude oil could be off by a factor of over 100.
A Hedberg Conference, sponsored by the American Association of Petroleum
Geologists, was scheduled to discuss and publicly debate this issue. Papers
were solicited from interested academics and professionals. The conference
was scheduled to begin June 9, 2003, but was canceled at the last minute. A
new date has yet to be set.
_____
Related links:
Gas Origin <http://www.aapg.org/explorer/2002/11nov/abiogenic.cfm>
Theories
To Be Studied
The Mystery Of <http://www.science-frontiers.com/sf124/sf124p10.htm>
Eugene
Island 330
Odd Reservoir Off Louisiana <http://www.oralchelation.com/faq/wsj4.htm>
Prods Oil Experts To Seek A Deeper Meaning
Fuel's Paradise <http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/8.07/gold_pr.html>
_____
Chris Bennett manages an environmental engineering division for a West
Coast
technology firm. He and his wife of 26 years make their home on the San
Francisco Bay.
[Original Message]
From: John Denker <jsd@AV8N.COM>
To: <PHYS-L@LISTS.NAU.EDU>
Date: 7/25/2004 1:33:11 PM
Subject: Basic Choices and Constraints on Long-Term Energy Supplies
Did y'all see the article in Physics Today?
Abstract:
> Population growth and energy demand are exhausting the world's fossil
> energy supplies, some on the timescale of a single human lifespan.
The whole article is free-for-all (at least temporarily) at
http://www.physicstoday.org/vol-57/iss-7/p47.html
I recommend it.
-- Written at an accessible level.
-- Mostly dispassionate, mostly sticks to the facts.
-- Some useful footnotes.
===============
On the down side:
Once again we observe that the energy industry uses the
word "energy" to mean something significantly different
from the standard physics energy ... something more akin
to free energy.
I suppose I can understand why a utility doesn't want to
talk about "free" energy :-) ... maybe they could call it
"useful energy", but it makes things really messy when
they just call it "energy", especially in the same
sentence with technical physics terms such as entropy,
as happens in one place in the Physics Today article.
This kind of terminological snafu drives students nuts.
I don't know how to fix it. It's like one of those
Shakespeare plays where everybody on stage is pretending
to be somebody else.....