"A minority of geologists have long argued that hydrocarbons were formed through inorganic processes operating on carbon sourced from the earth’s mantle."

I would like to believe in abiogenic oil but where is it? It is not enough to have an hypothesis or to keep saying "drill deeper". Somebody has to show us a pool of the stuff which can be retrieved at an economic rate. It is not a conspiracy; even if the Seven Sisters tried to cover it up, there are lots of junior petes or nationals who would be out there drilling madly for it. Where is it? Please don't say people think it might be here or that it is probably there. Show us the abiogenic oil free and clear, with no hand-waving about how it is on the horizon like fusion reactors or hydrogen-powered cars.

The other question about abiogenic oil is how long would it take for it to replenish existing reservoirs. We know that if it existed, it takes longer than a century, otherwise existing reservoirs would already be visibly refilling. If it takes a couple of centuries or a millennia to percolate upward and refill the reservoirs, it may be an eyeblink in geological time but it is an eternity in human time. We need the oil now, not in some distant future.

Only one very tiny oil field, Eugene Island block 330, has shown any evidence of refilling.

Production from Eugene Island had achieved 20,000 barrels per day (3,200 m³/d) by 1989; by 1992 it had slipped to 15,000 bbl/d (2,400 m³/d), but recovered to reach a peak of 30,000 bbl/d (4,800 m³/d) in 1996. Production from the reservoir has dropped steadily since then.

The source of additional oil was analyzed as migrating through faults from deeper and older formations below of probable Jurassic and Early Cretaceous age. The oil contains biomarkers closely related to other very old oils and was long trapped in deep formations. Eugene Island block 330 oil field

There have been claims of other oil fields refilling but the evidence of such is skimpy at best, just as are all claims of abiogenic oil. Forget about refilling oil reservoirs. Forget about abiogenic oil. It is a waste of time even to engage the fringe element with discussion on these subjects.

Ron Patterson

i have also heard the abioticians claim that the grant canyon field in nevada and labarge in wyoming are abiotic. i.e. the amount of oil that has been produced exceeds the amount that can be accounted for as originally in place. and any field that produces from granite(offshore vietnam for example). i believe that there has been a claim that the tar sands are proof because a source for that much "oil" is not explained.

but as far as i can tell the "proof" amounts to an inability to explain the unexplained.

It's not surprising that wingnuts like Corsi believe in abiotic oil. But you'd think Motley Fool would be...well, less foolish. ;-)

I think what it comes down to is that Americans are scientifically illiterate.

Well, be careful with your statement, Abiotic Hydrocarbons do exist, otherwise they would not exist on other planets in our solar system, which likely means they do exist on our own planet. The question is do they exist here in very large quantities, that is the question. Probably not, but I guess there's no way we can no for sure yet.

Thats like saying, "because life exists on earth, it exists on other planets in the solar system". I'm sorry I don't really see any logic in that statement. Every planet in the solar system is different, so if abiotic hydrocarbons exist on other planets, it certainly does not exist here.

Every planet in the solar system is different, so if abiotic hydrocarbons exist on other planets, it certainly does not exist here.

I don't think that works either, as existence of abiotic carbon compounds elsewhere does not prove they don't exist on earth. Perhaps you meant that the existence of abiotic hydrocarbons elsewhere does not necessarily prove the existence of similar abiotic molecules here.

While I'm highly skeptical of abiotic oil claims, I think it is important to recognize the fact that certain short-chain abiotic carbon compounds certainly exist, e.g. methane. Think of it this way, plants and animals did not create our universal stores of carbon -- plants and animals are made of carbon compounds. Life as we know it exists because of the pre-existing carbon compounds which in primordial times, somehow worked themselves into self-replicating chemicals and eventually into life as we know it. It is plain however, no matter how complex life is today, that some basic ingredients were required to create life and must therefor predate life.

I think where the abiotic oil people get off track is mistaking the ground corn for the whole enchilada. There may well be vast stores of methane in the universe, or even in the core of the earth, but the process by which that simple molecule is converted into the much more complex molecules that make up oil, is not likely to be solely a physical process ongoing within the earth. Life is probably the necessary catalyst for the massive conversion of simple, even abiotic, carbon compounds into the long-chain hydrocarbons we find so useful.

I suppose what I'm saying, is that I'd like to see a distinction made between simple abiotic carbon compounds, which surely exist, and abiotic oil, which probably doesn't. In my own attempts at trying to learn more about this issue, this distinction is often poorly made which allows abiotic proponents to point at moons of methane in the solar system and say "see, I'm not a nutcase, it is scientific fact that hydrocarbons are everywhere -- we can have all the oil we want!"

Any theory that will never be explicitly proven or disproven is a waste of time. Oil depletion will be proven or disproven-the origin of oil on Earth can be debated until Doomsday without a resolution so it is pointless.

I think it's resolved.

Nobody is arguing that not one molecule of abiotic oil exists. Instead, the question is, as geologist John Clarke puts it, whether it exists in "economically interesting accumulations."

Dr. Clarke explains here how we know that "99.9999% of the world's liquid hydrocarbons are produced by maturation of organic matter derived from organisms."

I would agree there is no way it exists in "economically interesting accumulations".

"Any theory that will never be explicitly proven or disproven is a waste of time."

Are you sure that's what you meant to say?

I helped you recover your comment's rating a bit because there is logic in what you say. That being said, the only abiotic hydrocarbon found in any abundance in the solar system is methane gas on Titan (the largest moon of Saturn). Methane is a relatively simple molecule (CH4), especially when compared to the complexity of petroleum. (As a side note for completeness, methane is the primary component of Natural Gas).

That being said, the existence of large amounts of methane on titan and trace amounts in other parts of the solar system do, in my opinion, suggest that some small amount of abiotic hydrocarbon molecules probably have formed on Earth. The reason I say this with some confidence is because of the current leading theories concerning the formation of the solar system, which states that all planets formed out of the same Protoplanetary Accretion Disk.

I do not, however, feel that it could possibly be enough to affect our supply of fossil fuels, nor could it form fast enough to affect petroleum depletion rates. Its probably a negligible amount.

There's a lot more than mere methane in space: List of molecules in interstellar space - Wikipedia. Record holder at 18 atoms is Naphthalene, the primary ingredient in moth balls. "In space, no one can hear you complain about patchy clothes..." Try and visualize a volume of methanol the size of the solar system. None of which has any bearing on terrestrial conditions, in all likelihood, but it's fun to contemplate, like that diamond the size of the moon in 2010: Odyssey Two.

I do not believe abiotic oil exists, if at all, then in amounts that are meaningful to the peak oil issue. And though there are "wingnuts" who have taken up the cause, I don't think all the people who took it up early on were wingnuts. I read Thomas Gold's Deep, hot biosphere. He's ultimately wrong, but not a wingnut, at least in all respects. And he's not even wrong about everything. There ARE bacteria surviving at depths and temperatures that were formerly thought impossible. What he may be, however, is a plagiarist. I read that a lot of the stuff he propounded was earlier propounded by some Russians that he did not adequately credit.

The reason I come to his partial defense is that things like this are very tricky sometimes. Einstein was "wrong" about quantum mechanics. But his criticism of quantum mechanics was far more valuable than the contributions than all but a few who were "right" about QM. It's tricky. Not that Gold was remotely like Einstein.

Gold wasn't any slouch intellectually, though. A story about him was that there was a gathering of scientists, one of them says to another "Is that Gold, the famous biophysicist?" "No, that's Gold, the renowned astronomer." Same man, natch. Among various achievements: coined the term "magnetosphere." Also had NASA prepare against the possibility of the Moon being knee-deep in dust, remember that? He was as brilliant as Corsi is dull. Engdahl's pretty sharp as well but these dreams of reservoirs refilling for our use are just that, dreams.