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WorldNetDaily: Sustainable oil?
by k at 2:01 pm EDT, Jun 3, 2004

Decius wrote:
] It does imply that we have a lot more oil
] then we think we do, but how much is totally unclear, as the
] actual theory is unproven. In order to measure the size of
] something you must first establish that it exists.

[ This is the crux of it. Even if you accept that there are billions of barrels of oil somewhere underneath the levels we know about, it's going to take a serious capital investment to find, assess, and develop those resources. I think it's a good idea to spend some dollars investigating the theory, especially if it leads to mechanisms that allow you to identify existing fields that are likely to refill themselves at some point soon (i.e. from a bigger pocket underneath it).

In the meantime, as Decius says, the resource is still limited on timescales we care about. It's not effectively renewable, so yes, we could put off the impending lack of oil, maybe for a hundred years or more, so lets look into it, but I think it's still imperative to spend the majority of our resources in this area on finding and building an energy infrastructure that's actually renewable.

This article tripped a wire in my increasingly disorganized brain about an article i read a few years back in Wired which i thought was an interview w/ Dr. Gold (who's cited here)... sure enough, a few tries at wired's Lycos powered search engine yeilded this story from about 4 years ago : http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/8.07/gold.html?pg=1&topic=&topic_set=

-k]

RE: WorldNetDaily: Sustainable oil?
by oaknet at 6:16 pm EDT, Jun 3, 2004

k wrote:
] Decius wrote:
] ] It does imply that we have a lot more oil
] ] then we think we do, but how much is totally unclear, as the
]
] ] actual theory is unproven. In order to measure the size of
] ] something you must first establish that it exists.
]
] [ This is the crux of it. Even if you accept that there are
] billions of barrels of oil somewhere underneath the levels we
] know about, it's going to take a serious capital investment to
] find, assess, and develop those resources. I think it's a
] good idea to spend some dollars investigating the theory,
] especially if it leads to mechanisms that allow you to
] identify existing fields that are likely to refill themselves
] at some point soon (i.e. from a bigger pocket underneath it).
]
] In the meantime, as Decius says, the resource is still
] limited on timescales we care about. It's not effectively
] renewable, so yes, we could put off the impending lack of oil,
] maybe for a hundred years or more, so lets look into it, but I
] think it's still imperative to spend the majority of our
] resources in this area on finding and building an energy
] infrastructure that's actually renewable.

It's an interesting article if only from the scientific standpoint (although if true, I can imagine future generations chuckling at our belief that oil came from trees and dinosaurs!).

I agree with what you are both saying here, though as I read it the author was suggesting that a few oil wells (such as the one he uses as an example) might refill automatically from deeper levels thus extending their productive lifespan.

But again, even if this were so, and there's no reason to get too excited about it just yet - imagine the environmental consquences of a massive increase in "fossil" fuel availability. Which is worse - none at all, or too much?

WorldNetDaily: Sustainable oil? by wilpig at 11:27 am EDT, Jun 3, 2004
] He was quoted as stating that "competent physicists, ] chemists, chemical engineers and men knowledgeable of ] thermodynamics have known that natural petroleum does not ] evolve from biological materials since the last quarter ] of the 19th century."
Link - Reply

WorldNetDaily: Sustainable oil?
by Decius at 11:58 am EDT, Jun 3, 2004

] He was quoted as stating that "competent physicists,
] chemists, chemical engineers and men knowledgeable of
] thermodynamics have known that natural petroleum does not
] evolve from biological materials since the last quarter
] of the 19th century."

Hrm. This article is interesting in light of our discussions about energy. It makes two mistakes. First, it grossly overestimates how widely accepted this theory is. There are a lot of articles up on the net about this theory and its author. Largely, they seem to say that this is simply unproven. It might be true, but no one is sure, and there are reasons to be skeptical of it.

The second mistake is what this theory, if true, implies for oil as a resource. It does imply that we have a lot more oil then we think we do, but how much is totally unclear, as the actual theory is unproven. In order to measure the size of something you must first establish that it exists. Also, whether or not oil is "renewable" is debatable. Gold is talking about oil renewal in tens of thousands of year timeframes. Thats a far site more rapid then the millions of year timeframes the presently accepted theories promote. However, its not commerically "renewable" on human timescales.