Top Ten Scientific Facts

[sathearn]

Being a late joiner to this thread, I would want to go back to the first post and say it would better be described as a list of favorite maveric scientific ideas. I'd like to add to the to and fro about Larson, but right now I'd like to take up another of the alleged "facts":

"2. Hydrocarbons are abiogenic (Von Humboldt 1804, Bakewell 1813, Berthelot 1866, Mendeleyev 1877, Kudryavtsev 1951)."

This claim can be interpreted in two ways: (1) Some hydrocarbons have abiogenic origins or (2) All hydrocarbons are abiogenic in origin. Personally, I accept (1) as probably true, but think there are important objections to (2). I think that the following article by Richard Heinberg provides a balanced response to both the more extreme claims, and to the implications that are commonly drawn from it. (Don't know if you personally would draw those implications, but since many do, it is worth stressing the point.): http://www.energybulletin.net/node/2423.

Here a couple of my own thoughts: Whether the abiogenic oil theory is partly true or not, the fact that individual oilfields peak and decline is overwhelmingly borne out by evidence that is far beyond contrivance. In fact there is overwhelming evidence that the world is now around "peak oil." My article on Energy Bulletin from a couple weeks ago contains some of the evidence that convinces me on this score: http://www.energybulletin.net/node/47669. But supposing that there's as much truth to the abiotic theory as seems compatible with actual oilfield practice, let us suppose that two general types of fact that are often associated with 'peak oil' claims are actually evidence of a basically unlimited source of hydrocarbons located deep in the earth: (1) it is reported (e.g. by Simmons) that many fields, after going into rapid decline (steeper decline rates being generally correlated with more "efficient" extraction technologies), do arrive at a tail (after a decline of 90 percent or so from peak) after which a leveling off occurs and production at the reduced level can go on for quite a while. (2) the recent ultradeep discoveries (e.g. the "Jack" find and a couple of the most recent discoveries in offshore Brazil), which are often mentioned by 'peak oil' opponents, but discussed almost as much by the peak oil concerned. (1) is usually interpreted as being the tail end of the bell curve of production of a finite resource, but it seems conceivable that it could be fit with the abiogenic thesis: perhaps it represents something like the refill rate from the deep fountain of abiotic oil. And maybe (2) represents encounters with abiotic oil closer to the source. Even if both interpretations are correct, the world is still faced with a major reduction in its energy supplies in the near future. Knowlegeable people don't suggest that production from deposits under category (2) could take place for at least a decade, and it seems entirely uncertain whether production could ever be done at an energy profit. (Even if the market price for it is, let's say, a million dollars a barrel, if it takes more than a barrel of oil to produce that oil, it isn't worth doing, as it is only the energy that is left over afterwards that is available to support all other activities in the economy). So the abiogenic people, if they have any concern for evidence, should be joining with us to say that industrial civilization is currently presented with a very big problem with the supply of the energy sources on which it has become overwhelmingly dependent.

Steve Athearn

[Total Science]

I think that the following article by Richard Heinberg provides a balanced response to both the more extreme claims, and to the implications that are commonly drawn from it. (Don't know if you personally would draw those implications, but since many do, it is worth stressing the point.): http://www.energybulletin.net/node/2423.

You're quoting a poet's opinion about hydrocarbon chemistry? Seriously?

He's a laughingstock. The article posted contains many obvious factual and scientific errors.

Quoting from your debunked poetry article:

the temperatures at depths below about 15,000 feet are high enough (above 275 degrees F) to break hydrocarbon bonds. What remains after these molecular bonds are severed is methane, whose molecule contains only a single carbon atom. For petroleum geologists this is not just a matter of theory, but of repeated and sometimes costly experience: they speak of an oil “window” that exists from roughly 7,500 feet to 15,000 feet, within which temperatures are appropriate for oil formation; look far outside the window, and you will most likely come up with a dry hole or, at best, natural gas only.

The reality is that oil rigs have been drilling below 15,000 feet true vertical depth looking for oil since 1938. And guess what else? They've found it!!!

InfoGulf.Com via Offshore Mag: Exploration and Development Below 15,000 feet TVD.

For exploration greater than 15,000 ft TVD on the shelf during the period 2003-2005, 115 wellbores (45 in 2003, 41 in 2004, and 29 in 2005) were drilled by 35 operators.



Furthermore, 275 degree heat is no problem for oil: Brazil Oil Trapped by 500-Degree Heat

Once again we see what clowns poets like Heinberg are when they attempt to opine on scientific topics.