Well, it's good to see that this experiment has gotten wide-spread attention, including the New York Times, but the usual suspects are out there spreading misinformation (see link below):
New York Times, July 31, 2009 -- Fossil Fuels Without the Fossils? New Research Says It's Possible
http://www.nytimes.com/gwire/2009/07/31 ... a-796.html
"I don't think anybody in the research field doubts that methane could be formed this way," said Wayne Ahr, a petroleum geologist at Texas A&M University. "The problem is if it existed in commercial quantities, it seems someone would have found it by now."
Barry Katz, a geochemist at Chevron Corp., agreed.
"I don't disagree with the idea," Katz said. "I disagree with the idea of commercial quantities. There's no question that it's coming out of the system. However, it's not coming out in commercial quantities."
And while the oil and gas industry is not necessarily looking for hydrocarbons in the same rocks that mantle-derived methane and ethane would have formed in, the resource has not been encountered on a commercial scale during any petroleum exploration or scientific drilling in other rock types, Katz said."
This is an out-right lie.
Plain and simple.
The oil industry is looking for oil and has found oil in sedimentary basins (oil TRAPPING geological structures) above deep faults within the Earth's crust, in fact, the oil industry spends large amounts of time and money to fully understand these deep fault networks both in structure and in the geological timing of their development.
There is no scientifically verified process for low chemical energy potential molecules (biological detritus) to convert to high chemical energy potential molecules (oil), and the second law of thermodynamics prevents such process from taking place in the low pressure and temperature shallow crust (see link below):
A fundamental attribute of modern Russian petroleum science is that it conforms to the general, fundamental laws of physics and chemistry. Although such constraint may seem an obvious requisite for any scientific assertion, the 18th-century hypothesis that petroleum might somehow evolve spontaneously from biological detritus in the near-surface depths of the Earth stands, contrarily, in glaring violation of the most fundamental, and irrevocable, laws of nature: the second law of thermodynamics.
This article discusses the reasons which led physicists, chemists, thermodynamicists, and chemical, mechanical, and petroleum engineers to reject, already by the last quarter of the nineteenth century, the hypothesis that highly-reduced hydrocarbon molecules of high chemical potentials might somehow evolve spontaneously from highly-oxidized biological molecules of low chemical potentials, and reviews briefly the fundamental scientific reasons for the failure of the 18th-century hypothesis1 of a biological origin of petroleum.
http://www.gasresources.net/ThrmcCnstrnts.htm
It shall be noted that the authors of the, above, quoted passages don't consider electromagnetic energy in the crustal environoment in their discussion.
Both oil industry experts quoted, above, speak of a lack of "commercial quantities", but that's not accurate, as ALL oil is abiotic in origin.
Also, if this process happens, which it does, as the experts in the New York Times article readily admit, then what is the physical limitation for abiotic oil formation from primordial chemical compounds, so as to be not wide-spread and robust?
"One can, then, conceive the production, by purely mineral means, of all natural hydrocarbons. The intervention of heat, of water, and of alkaline metals - lastly, the tendency of hydrocarbons to unite together to form the more condensed material - suffice to account for the formation of these curious compounds. Moreover, this formation will be continuous because the reactions which started it are renewed incessantly." -- Marcellin Berthelot, chemist, 1866
Marcellin Berthelot "is considered as one of the greatest chemists of all time."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcellin_Berthelot
"The fundamental conception that underlay all Berthelot's chemical work was that all chemical phenomena depend on the action of physical forces which can be determined and measured."
Sadly, the powers that be in the oil industry didn't want to hear that.
"When he began his active career it was generally believed that, although some instances of the synthetic production of organic substances had been observed, on the whole organic chemistry remained an analytical science and could not become a constructive one, because the formation of the substances with which it deals required the intervention of vital activity in some shape. To this attitude he offered uncompromising opposition, and by the synthetic production of numerous hydrocarbons, natural fats, sugars and other bodies he proved that organic compounds can be formed by ordinary methods of chemical manipulation and obey the same principles as inorganic substances, thus exhibiting the "creative character in virtue of which chemistry actually realizes the abstract conceptions of its theories and classifications-- a prerogative so far possessed neither by the natural nor by the historical sciences."
(See Wikipedia article linked, above, under Berthelot's name.)
To this day, in spite of the vast majority of the scientific evidence oil geologists still cling to this "vitalism", which has been proved false over and over.
The reader needs to focus on the "commercial quanities" assertions made by the experts because that is the current fall-back position of the oil industry: There simply is too much evidence to deny that oil is formed by abiotic means from primordial mineral compounds.
So, instead, the public stance of oil geologists is to state the lack of "commercial quantities".
This assertion achieves two goals: First, it assumes that all current oil supplies are derived by the "fossil" theory without challenge, which avoids the proposition and overwhelming supporting scientific evidence that ALL oil is abiotic in origin because it avoids the embarrassing fact that no quantified chemical process has been identified that produces "fossil" derived petroleum whether in the laboratory or in the field (see link below):
Of the lies told to try to defend the childish notion of a “Biological-Origin-of-Petroleum” [BOOP], none are more egregious or more blatant than the claims that “the (spontaneous) generation of oil from organic matter at low pressures has been demonstrated in the laboratory.” All such claims are entirely fraudulent, without a single exception. There has never been observed a spontaneous generation of natural petroleum (crude oil) from biological matter at low pressures in any laboratory, anywhere, ever.
Typically, these lies are pronounced without even a pretense of offering any demonstration, or legitimate evidence, of such extraordinary assertions. Indeed, anyone hearing or reading such claims should immediately demand evidence of such.
http://www.gasresources.net/EssayforWeb ... pounds.htm
And in a seperate paper:
With recognition that the laws of thermodynamics prohibit spontaneous evolution of liquid hydrocarbons in the regime of temperature and pressure characteristic of the crust of the Earth, one should not expect there to exist legitimate scientific evidence that might suggest that such could occur. Indeed, and correctly, there exists no such evidence.
Nonetheless, and surprisingly, there continue to be often promulgated diverse claims purporting to constitute “evidence” that natural petroleum somehow evolves (miraculously) from biological matter. In this short article, such claims are briefly subjected to scientific scrutiny, demonstrated to be without merit, and dismissed.
Often times oil industry experts will claim bio-markers "prove" oil is derived from organic detritus (see link below):
The scientific correction must be stated unequivocally: There have never been observed any specifically biological molecules in natural petroleum, except as contaminants. Petroleum is an excellent solvent for carbon compounds; and, in the sedimentary strata from which petroleum is often produced, natural petroleum takes into solution much carbon material, including biological detritus. However, such contaminants are unrelated to the petroleum solvent.
http://www.gasresources.net/disposalbioclaims.htm
So-called "diagenesis" and "catagenesis", the supposed two-step process of "fossil" theory oil formation is only a vague qualitative description with zero supporting scientific evidence it actually happens. It is simply ASSUMED it happens.
As there is no direct scientific evidence for the "fossil" theory, oil geologists at best are only left with indirect inferences it happens, and all those inferences have been credibly falsified ("bio-marker", "odd-even", "optical activity", and "carbon isotope ratios", see above link disposal of biological claims).
In public statements such as in the New York Times article, oil geologist spokesmen never want to respond to this direct challenge of the "fossil" theory.
(And they rarely have to because of the reporter's limited knowledge and space limitations of the story, and the fact that reporters rarely go into the interview prepared to challenge the oil industry spokesmen's scientific basis for his opinion.)
Second, by asserting there are no "commercial quantities", oil industry spokemen avoid discussion of where oil is being found right now, in places like the ultra-deep water, ultra-deep below the bottom of the seafloor of the Gulf of Mexico, off the coast of Brazil, off the West African coast, and other places. And, how oil located in these ultra-deep water, ultra-deep below the seafloor subsalt, high temperature, and high pressure oil deposits specifically contradict the so-called "oil window" corollary of the "fossil" theory and how, in fact, these oil formations specifically support the Abiotic Oil theory.
Granted, a knowledgable reporter could ask the right questions in a sit-down interview, but these reporters rarely have the factual preparation needed for the right kind of questions, and, rather, the reporters mostly "lap-up" whatever the spokesmen have to say without follow up questions.
Indeed, these statements by the oil spokesmen are usually just like the ones in the New York Times story, short and parrot the oil industry party-line without having to respond to contradicting scientific evidence.
How many times have you read a lengthy sit-down interview of an oil geologist with a well informed and prepared journalist who is ready to challenge the oil geologist about the basic scientific premise supporting "fossil" theory? Rather, what you read in the discussions of Abiotic Oil theory on the internet by those that want to dismiss Abiotic Oil theory are monologues by oil geologists or their supporters, which use all the strategies and tactics available to avoid answering the hard scientific facts and evidence, such as strawman arguments, avoiding the best evidence of Abiotic Oil theory, and misstating the scientific evidence and even going into personal attacks.
Of course, subscribers to Plasma Cosmology and Electric Universe have also seen those strategies and tactics.
