Sustainable oil?

[Rogue 9]

I'm quite skeptical, but I thought you guys might like a look. Captain Chewbacca? Care to sound off on this one?

[Lord Zentei]

"Any geologist will tell you, well, most geologists will tell you that OIL IS CREATED BY THE MAGMA OF THE EARTH. The oil wells in Pennsylvania that were pumped out dry at the turn of the century and capped are now filled with oil again."

[Petrosjko]

I'd heard rumbles about this before, but nothing verified. That old fields were slowly replenishing and that something was pushing deeper pockets of oil up to higher strata, with a potential cause being that something down there was producing it.

Very interesting notion, and if true, it has serious ramfications, of course.

[Petrosjko]

This majorly sets off the old bullshit alarm, though.

In the past Professor Gold has explained the nature of pulsars and solar flares, proved that the Earth's poles change position over time, made new discoveries about the workings of the human inner ear, and was the only scientist to predict that Moon's surface consists of dust. His new theory has already been grabbing the attention of the international press and a drilling operation has been started in Sweden on the basis of his idea.

Yeeeeeeeah. And just last week, he built a perpetual motion machine in his basement, to pass the time.

[Firefox]

Oil's created by magma? ... Think of the goldmine sitting under the Hawaiian islands.

[Lord Zentei]

This majorly sets off the old bullshit alarm, though.

In the past Professor Gold has explained the nature of pulsars and solar flares, proved that the Earth's poles change position over time, made new discoveries about the workings of the human inner ear, and was the only scientist to predict that Moon's surface consists of dust. His new theory has already been grabbing the attention of the international press and a drilling operation has been started in Sweden on the basis of his idea.

Yeeeeeeeah. And just last week, he built a perpetual motion machine in his basement, to pass the time.

My earlier use of Mencken's Maxim pointed out.

Oil may gradually seep into the wells that were "emptied" earlier, if much of the oil in the vicinity of the drill-hole was emptied out and more oil was predsent in the immediate vicinity.

How silicon dioxide is to transform into hydocarbons is anyone's guess...

[Sea Skimmer]

It's true that some once dry oil wells and fields now have oil in them again. However most wells once dry have remained dry, and with the depth modern surveying and drilling can reach it is quite unlikely that any deep reserves of oil are lurking undetected. The wells in Pennsylvanian for example where mostly pump dry by some of the first oilrigs ever, rigs which couldn't reach more then a fraction of the depth we can hit today.

[Petrosjko]

Well, if Sweden suddenly becomes the new big player in OPEC, he'll have the last laugh.

[Lord Zentei]

Drilling in regions where magma is close to the surface can be a useful energy source, of course: it's called "geothermal energy". We use it a lot in Iceland. However, it has nothing to do with oil.

[The Dude]

How silicon dioxide is to transform into hydocarbons is anyone's guess...

IIRC the idea is that the Earth's iron core contains a small percentage (but massive total quantity) of dissolved carbon. The hydrocarbons are generated by reaction of upward-migrating carbon with hydrogen and oxygen in the mantle.

[Rogue 9]

I thought not. I didn't read the whole thing before posting; now I see I should have. Sorry for the waste of time, though I hope it was a good laugh.

[The Dude]

Well, if Sweden suddenly becomes the new big player in OPEC, he'll have the last laugh.

True, but those drilling plans are almost ten years old with AFAIK no results to date.

[Illuminatus Primus]

Oh God. Not abiotic oil.

[Guardsman Bass]

I just ran across a little bit about this guy. Isn't he the one who says that there is a enormous mass of carbon down low in the crust near the mantle, carbon from billions of years of dead microbes? If I recall, the theory was that hydrocarbons from this mass of dead microbes rises up, mixes with other materials in the oil fields, and - voila- new oil!

[Admiral Valdemar]

Great. Thought this theory was done away with ages ago. It's the stuff Creationists enjoy.

[Lord Zentei]

Great. Thought this theory was done away with ages ago. It's the stuff Creationists enjoy.

And conspiracy theorists, new agers, pseudocience appreciaters and all manner of other whack-a-loons. Well, perhaps not the new agers, they are against the evil oil.

Kirilian photography, Hollow Earth, etc, etc. These things seem to crop up again and again like bad pennies. Stupid people seem to have no imagination, strangely enough.