“Fossil” Fuel and Abiotic Oil
by Robert Pritchett
Question: Who came
up with the theory/concept/idea that petroleum-based products came from the
dead remains of dinosaurs (dino-juice)?
Answer: Mikhail
Lomonosov in 1757 wrote;
“Believing that nature is subject
to regular and continuous evolution,
he demonstrated the organic origin of soil, peat, coal, petroleum and amber”.
“Fossil” Fuel
Somehow that description over time, got misconstrued as
“Fossil” fuel.
If we are talking about coal, this makes sense, but if we
are discussing natural gas and liquid hydrocarbons, it does not.
(Just a quick thought – if diamonds are derived from
highly compressed coal, does that mean that those who use diamonds, are
carrying around very expensive dinosaur remains? Think about it.)
The “common knowledge” is that Fossil Fuels are hydrocarbons formed from the remains of dead
plants and animals - ,
and also includes hydrocarbon-containing natural resources that are not derived from
animal or plant sources known as mineral fuels.
“Hydrocarbons in crude oil are
mostly alkanes, cycloalkanes and various aromatic
hydrocarbons while the other organic compounds contain nitrogen, oxygen and sulfur, and trace amounts
of metals such as iron, nickel, copper and vanadium.” (Wikipedia.com)
The fact is that organics can be converted into fuel, so we do have a renewable energy resource in
biofuels. Along with that, we also know that there is a lot more to the
regeneration story than even Mikhailo Lomonosov could have imagined centuries
ago, about what is going on miles below the earth’s surface.
“Petra (rock) Oil” was first coined as “petroleum” by Georg
Baur back in 1556 - “as a naturally occurring, flammable liquid found in rock formations in the Earth consisting of a
complex mixture of hydrocarbons of various molecular weights, plus other organic compounds”.
Back in 1998, Thomas Gold wrote a book; “The Deep Hot
Biosphere”, where he hypothesizes that thermophiles -that live on the sea floor eat hydrocarbons from undersea vents and poses that
this is why oil formations can be found under coal deposits, because
thermophiles live in oil deposits as well.
Giora Proskurowski, geochemist at Woods Hole (Mass.)
Oceanographic Institution, wrote
that “the hydrothermal fluids located near the Mid-Atlantic Ridge are rich in
dissolved hydrogen but contain a much lower than normal concentration of
dissolved carbon dioxide. This suggests that what are called Fischer-Tropsch inorganic chemical reactions,
which convert carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, and hydrogen into hydrocarbons,
generated the substances”.
Hubbert’s Peak
There is the theory that we are running out of hydrocarbons
known as “Hubbert’s Peak” The theory is named after American geophysicist Dr. M. King Hubbert who created a method of modeling the production curve given an assumed ultimate
recovery volume.
Sepp Hasslberger, a founding member of the New Energy
Congressat PESWiki, counter-argues that
“Peak Oil” is a sham and a scam foisted deception on us by the petroleum
companies in an effort to increase profits because there is no shortage of liquid hydrocarbons.
Lestor R. Pastor, another founding member of the New
Energy Congresshas dedicated a page to
Lindsay Williams on the “Energy Non-Crisis” regarding the issue as being political control, as the world currency switches
from the U.S. dollar to oil.
Hydrocarbons Are Out of This World
From Space.com, we read;
“Saturn's smoggy moon Titan has
hundreds of times more natural gas and other liquid hydrocarbons than all the
known oil and natural gas reserves on Earth, scientists said today”.
"Titan is just covered in
carbon-bearing material — it's a giant factory of organic
chemicals," said Ralph Lorenz, a Cassini radar team member from the Johns
Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. "This vast carbon inventory
is an important window into the geology and climate history of Titan."
If there are abundant
hydrocarbons on Titan, both gaseous and liquid, that kind of tends to blow
holes in the theory of oil as a fossil fuel, doesn't it?
Abiotic Oil
Abiotic oil is based on the theory that petroleum is
continually-created, magma-formed oil. “Abiogenic petroleum origin” was
originally hypothesized by the Russian chemist Dmitri
Mendeleev in the late 1800’s (and is why the former Soviet
Bloc has oil fields that go way down deep into the earth’s crust)
and by the French chemist Marcellin
Berthelot, who synthisized organic compounds, also back in
the late1800s.
There is a substantial evidence to support the theory know
as “Abiotic Oil”
despite well-funded petroleum industry-based detractors (pun intended).
Alternative Fuels
Using Abiotic Oil as a starting point and realizing that if
the earth can do it, we can create “synthetic” oils too, there are companies
that are making non-fossil fuels today. After all, Germany managed to create alternative fuels back during World War II.
One company of particular interest is Green Power, Inc., using Thermal Depolymerization to accelerate the
geologic process by converting organic waste products through distillation into
what they call “nanodiesel”.
They prefer palletized dry product instead of wet waste,
because the pellets have a higher BTU rating and energy is not lost during the
distillation process in removing the moisture from the organics in order to
heat them above 700 degrees to accelerate the conversion of organics into
hydrocarbon-based fuel. The process does not have the issues associated with
converting used vegetable oils or rendered animal fats into biofuel (shelf life
is usually only 6 months for those processes).
So when do we start changing theories into facts? Scientists
and engineers have been working through technologies based on scientific theory
for centuries and rewording them as “laws”, such as the Law of Thermodynamics,
the Law of Physics, etc.
Now we can stop calling petroleum, “Fossil” Fuel, can’t we?
Mikhailo Lomonosov wrote back in 1757 that;
"Rock oil originates as tiny
bodies of animals buried in the sediments which, under the influence of
increased temperature and pressure acting during an unimaginably long period of
time, transform into rock oil."
He got it partly right. We can accomplish the same thing in
a matter of hours today with various organics, instead of waiting for “Rock
Oil” (petroleum) to form over millions of years.
Question: Should we
be pursuing and developing non-fossil fuels and other renewable alternative
fuels?
Answer: Absolutely!
After all, we do have a big blue and green world to maintain.
