Fossils Are Not Necessary For Crude Oil And Natural Gas (Sweden)

[Abdul Alhazred]

If true it means we aren't running out.

It means we aren't looking in the right place. Such as Sweden.

Fossils From Animals And Plants Are Not Necessary For Crude Oil And Natural Gas, Swedish Researchers Find (http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/09/090910084259.htm)
Science Daily

Researchers at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Stockholm have managed to prove that fossils from animals and plants are not necessary for crude oil and natural gas to be generated. The findings are revolutionary since this means, on the one hand, that it will be much easier to find these sources of energy and, on the other hand, that they can be found all over the globe.

“Using our research we can even say where oil could be found in Sweden,” says Vladimir Kutcherov, a professor at the Division of Energy Technology at KTH.

...

Emphasis added. That's the real test -- predicting where to find more oil.

No "peak oil" after all?

Is there a geologist in the house?

[geni]

Not new. The whole abiogenic oil thing has been around for a while (originaly appeared in the USSR). Seems to have some traction is sweden. There are some claim that an attempt to drill for the stuff produced a few tonns of oil but slight lack of documentation to back the claims.

It's just about posible that abiogenic oil exists but the evidence is firmly against it existing in any real quantity.

[JihadJane]

Failing that, you could also grow some. It takes about the same amount of land to fuel a tractor as it does a horse.

[BenBurch]

No peak oil?

What a unlearned, knee-jerk conclusion to draw.

Here is why; if, as I have always believed there would be, there is some production of oil from geochemical sources, and the "deep, hot biosphere" acting as a catalyst, the majority of what is found is ancient, and the "recharge rate" can be estimated from the geochemical sources and it would be a billion years or so before a significant amount was produced. In addition the core of the planet is cooling and activity is getting less and less as time goes by.

We, however, use up all the oil we find in what is a geological instant.

Sure, come back in 100 My and that empty well will have some oil in it again you can pump. Have fun waiting.

[Correa Neto]

First time I heard about this I was still an undergraduate student, back in the middle 80's(*) and it was not related to the deep biosphere (an younger discovery). The idea was not well received but many an oil geologist think there may eventually be some "non-biological" (mantle) or deep biosphere contribution at some oilfields. Now, the ammount of this contribution, assuming it exists, should be very small and by no means the rate of supply of "new" oil can be enough to ballance our current extraction rate. Make no mistake- there is strong evidence, proof actually, (fluid inclusions in crystals) of methane coming from the deep crust and the mantle. The ammount of it is the problem for this particular theory.

The data supporting the original theory is quite shaky. An example- originally the spatial coincidence between major oil fields and large tectonic features was interpreted being because these large crustal-scale features could drain hcs from the mantle. However, second- and third- order structures adjacent to these large features are likely to generate traps for oil "coventionally" generated.

Another weak point is the reliance on hcs at old rocks; it was supposed that these rocks were too old to host too much biological carbon. I say is that those who use/used this line are/were not used to Precambrian geology. There are, for example, thick carbon-rich Archean metassediments in the Americas, Africa, Asia and Australia, quite often at basins with cyanobacteria fossils. Note that these old rocks with organic matter were sent downwards in the crust and suffered heating and metamorphism at more than one orogenetic event, what increases the odds for remobilization of their hcs. Thus, "conventional biological" hcs from an old (yes, it can also be young hcs, since Earth is quite active) source rock can migrate to some unlikely host such a gneiss, granite, etc. Or to a more conventional one. Again, the problem is the ammount, the importance of this contribution.

Nowadays isotopic data can be used to trace the origin of hcs not only towards certain carbon-rich shale beds but also point to a biological origin. There are also several studies (some of them experimental) which make a strong case for the "conventional" hc accumulation.

Bottomline- don't rely on it to provide enough energy to ballance our demand. At this point, regarding peak oil, all we can say is that undiscovered reserves may delay it. But sooner or later it will come.

As a last note, one must be reminded that deep biosphere criters may and certainly thrieve at oil fields; there's food down there for them. These critters certainly may have a number of roles in oil genesis. However, the original organic mater accumulation comes from standard surface-dwelling critters (OK, sea-dwelling, lake-dwelling, etc.).

(*) It was at an internal seminar at a major oil company; every now and then they picked up a theme and someone to expose it. The guy chosen to defend this one -a brilliant oil geologist, BTW- suffered a rather violent attack and had to remind the audience that he was not a proponent, he was just asked to make a presentation about the theory.

[Cainkane1]

http://www.mikejwilson.com/mars/mars_oil/

There might be oil on mars.

[Bikewer]

that would be an interesting problem in pipeline construction....