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75 comments on Abiotic Snake Oil

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Ender on November 4, 2005 - 7:52pm Permalink | Subthread | Comments top
For some basement oil this abiotic explanation is one of the possible explanations.  However it is only one of them and not the best.

Even if it was true do the proponents imagine that oil bubbles out of the mantle at 83 million barrels per day to satisfy our present consumption?   If abiotic oil was correct then it would still be a very slow process over billions of years not a panacea for our addiction.

They still have to explain biomarkers and the very simple fact that most current oil is found where the current theory predicts it to be.  We could not be that wrong for so long and found as much oil as we have.

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CmdrPhil on November 4, 2005 - 8:44pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
It's nearly impossible to disprove the possibility of abiotic origin of oil.  The pertinent question, as you suggest, is whether the generation rate of oil, whatever the source, is close to what we need to sustain our current rate of use.

If you assume the generation rate is 83e6 barrels/day, 7 barrels of oil weighs 1 metric ton, then in 1.4 billion years 0.1% of the Earth's mass has been converted to oil, and it only took 300 yrs or so to create all of the oil-like hydrocarbons we have thus far observed on the planet.  So if one would want to argue that abiotic oil can replenish our current rate of consumption, you would have to also explain either what happened to those vast oceans of oil generated over the history of the planet or why the process has suddenly speeded up now that humans have decided to burn it for fuel.  I don't have to know much about geology to know that the argument is improbable at best.

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Nate Hagens on November 4, 2005 - 11:42pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
I wonder what the correlation is between people believing in creationism and believing in abiotic oil? and betting on favorites in sports, liking Sean Hannity, etc. People like to see things in positive light, and ones past few days experience are the best expectation for tomorrow. Peak oil is a 5 standard deviation event that no matter how close and real it is, most will ignore. Its in their brain chemicals...
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Dan Ur on November 6, 2005 - 7:52pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
I am a Christian.  And I believe that Abiotic oil is a farce, A "snake" oil that is lurking to draw people away from the "Truth" that is going on today.

 We have USED oil all so willy nilly that we are at or very near the peak.  

 Anyone that tries to tie the Abiotic oil "myth" into the debate over "HOW THE WORLD GOT HERE" is maybe slightly tongue in cheek.  

 Don't mix Apples and Oranges.

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mikeB on November 8, 2005 - 8:52am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Except that the Hebrew bible hijacked by Christians implies that the earth must be under 10,000 years old, whereas the orthodox theory for the formation of oil requires hundreds of millions of years.
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LJR on November 6, 2005 - 1:59pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
It's the Intelligent Designer at work, Phil.
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Prof. Goose on November 4, 2005 - 10:15pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
that's right Phil, the only way we can disprove abiotic oil is by cutting the earth in half, especially with the argument that most of the oil is under the deep ocean floor, etc.

testable hypotheses are the key to science.  the rest is conjecture until you can replicate the process...

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