[Zohaar818]

http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=38645

Anyone who tells you oil is a fossil fuel and a finite resource obvioulsy hasn't talked to an oil man lately..
Makes you wonder why they keep raising the price..or why we needed to drill in Alaska..and why they insist on calling it a fossil fuel of which there is a looming shortage...

Zohaar

[Tormod]

I think you need to check the credibility of your sources, Zohaar.

[Turtle]

___I have heard of this on the radio before. I read the entire article Zo linked & it is well referenced.
___I must wonder, any references extant of vigorous attacks against this idea? The implications for this astound me.

[Tormod]

Maybe I was unclear. His story is printed in a paper of dubios scientific credibility. That does not imply the article is wrong.

Oil and tar can be produced from organic matter. However, that is what fossils are. The term "fossil fuel" does not necessarily mean that all oil comes from deposits of dead animals and plants, but that the primary source is hydrocarbon deposits. Oil is a byproduct of life (animal oil, vegetable oil), but can also be synthesised. It can also be produced in other ways. Google "define: crude oil" and it should be apparent that this is not a mystery.

Anyway, all natural resources on earth are finite by definition. However, some are reusable. Some are more harmful to the climate than others, and some are easier to produce than others.

By the way, I live in a country which has gained all of it's wealth from selling fossil fuels and natural gas.

[Biochemist]

Originally Posted by Zohaar818

...Makes you wonder why they keep raising the price..or why we needed to drill in Alaska..and why they insist on calling it a fossil fuel of which there is a looming shortage...

Interesting article, but not related to the issue of oil prices. Petroleum prices are based on supply and demand. Billions of barrels in the ground (or under the continental shelf) do not hop into your gas tank or home furnace. Someone has to drill for them.

OPEC is currently pumping at capacity (per today's Wall Street Journal), and worldwide demand is still expected to outstrip supply for the forseeable future. It would indeed be good news to find out the the "fossil" fuels are self replenishing, but that still means that we need to a) drill more wells and b) continue to apply current technology to get more from existing wells just ot keep up with projected demand.

[bumab]

Originally Posted by Biochemist

It would indeed be good news to find out the the "fossil" fuels are self replenishing, but that still means that we need to a) drill more wells and b) continue to apply current technology to get more from existing wells just ot keep up with projected demand.

Ah, I disagree. An endless supply of cheap combusibles would undoubtably cause a decrease in the research and intrest in cleaner energy. While I'm not so idealistic as to suppose eventually we will have a power source that is pollutant free and cost free (the real solution- use your own energy! walk!!!), we can certainly improve over fossil fuels.

[Zohaar818]

Originally Posted by Tormod

I think you need to check the credibility of your sources, Zohaar.

http://www.physicsweb.org/articles/news/8/9/9/1

http://physicsweb.org/articles/review/12/2/1

I did....if there is a scientific rebuttal to the facts as cited I would sure like to hear it.

Fossil fuel is defined in the dictionary as:
fossil fuel
n.
A hydrocarbon deposit, such as petroleum, coal, or natural gas, derived from living matter of a previous geologic time and used for fuel.

If you don't like that one try this:
"The noun fossil fuel has one meaning:

Meaning #1: fuel consisting of the remains of organisms preserved in rocks in the earth's crust with high carbon and hydrogen content"

And it just ain't so.
The evidence is now persuading many in the industry that this definition is incorrect as it applies to oil..since it seems now that oil is the natural by-product of geo-physical/geo-thermal mechanics going on miles underneath our feet..not the decomposition under pressure [and over extended time periods] of previoulsly living organisms [bio-matter]. This must be espeically clear when it is a fact that oil deposits have been found at depths well below the levels at which even the most conservative scientists agree that fossils could account for.

And in fact..many scientists have known this since at least the 50's..
http://www.prouty.org/oil.html
[I strongly ureg you to read thw whole article..and again, if you take issue with the science or the scientists quoted, please say specifically what you disagree with or find inaccurate and misrepresented...]

As it stands I remain steadfast in my assertion..oil is NOT a fossil fuel.

-Zohaar

[Tormod]

Originally Posted by Zohaar818

As it stands I remain steadfast in my assertion..oil is NOT a fossil fuel.

Read my reply above. Some oil is indeed fossil fuel. Some is not.

[Zohaar818]

Originally Posted by Tormod

Read my reply above. Some oil is indeed fossil fuel. Some is not.

Which oil is that..the stuff being pumped from wells in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Siberia, Texas and refined to be sold to us by Shell and Exxon and Aramco....

Are you saying the earth makes oil from bio-matter but also "synthesizes" oil.

The science here does not say that oil is produced over eons of time, nor does it say that it is a deposit..a fossilized resource...the science says that oil is being produced constantly and seeping up from the deep through crevices and faults into pools in higher locations...that the very mechanics of inner earth replenish the supply [and rather quickly].

perhaps the country you live in which made so much of its wealth by oil has an official mythology to promote and perhaps you've been slave to what you were taught in the state-mandated school system of your nation......that is no fault of yours...I share a similar experience..However...I am looking for an argument [ if any] purely on the science not the theology or mythology of oil.
Just because we initially discovered oil in what could have been or appeared to be 'fossil deposits' a little more than a century a go, doesn't mean that's where it originated or was 'made'...like finding human remains in an outdoor trash mound doesn't mean that's where the body originated.
I find it hard to read that natural geologic processes which are on-going even as we speak, are creating anything that fits the description of 'fossil' fuels.
if all you can say about it is that any petroleum which wells up is a hydrocarbon and therefore fossil..unless [naturally?] synthesized I'm afraid I'll have to ask to go back and read the sources again to see if you still want to maintain that view.

-Sincerely
Zohaar

[Zohaar818]

Debunking the mythology of 'oil' as we were taught in school...

"In the first place what is oil? Is it 85% carbon, 13% hydrogen and 0.5% oxygen with traces of sulfur and nitrogen. Most geochemists ( in the pay of oil companies) believe that the oil originates from the decomposition of organic matter. They would have us believe that because organic matter - that is, formerly living organisms - is quantifiably a very limited source, the supply of oil itself must be limited.
It is not.

"Oil is often called a "fossil" fuel; the idea being that it comes from formerly living organisms. This may have been plausible back when oil wells were drilled into the fossil layers of the earth's crust; but today, great quantities of oil are found in deeper wells that are found below the level of any fossils. How could then could oil have come from fossils, or decomposed former living matter, if it exists in rock formations far below layers of fossils - the evidence of formerly living organisms? It must not come from living matter at all!

"Furthermore, if all the plants, insects and animals that ever lived were all squeezed into a massive ooze, there is no way they could have amounted to the volume of oil that has been found to date. They just would not make that much juice. On top of this, oil geochemists will admit, if pressed, that if all the oil wells ever drilled by their so - called scientific methods of divining had been drilled totally at random, they would have found as much oil with random drilling as by " educated " drilling. In other words, there is a lot of oil down there.....most everywhere. Just drill for it - and if you don't strike it, drill a little deeper.

"There can only be one answer to the misinformation we have about oil. The oil men have always wanted a monopoly control, and with it, they want to charge as much money as they can for every gallon of gasoline. With this, they gross hundreds of billions of dollars per - year. They want us to believe that our present rate of oil consumption, we have possibly 20 to 30 years before we run out. They make this sound credible with their " decomposed organic matter" fable.

"By bursting this bubble and pulling the plug on this scenario, we discover that petroleum is a natural organic product that is rising, in enormous quantities , from deep within the earth; with deeper drilling, as wildcatters are already doing, there will adequate oil for a long, long time, even at the present rate of consumption.

"From 1956 to 1971, the number of giant oil fields more than doubled as drills go deep into the Paleozoic strata and below. Today, there is a glut on the market, and those who control oil are doing all they can to limit production in order to keep the prices very high. To do this, they get a lot of government help...".

http://www.prouty.org/coment13.html


And for another and rather well thought view of the subject..go here..
http://www.questionsquestions.net/docs04/peakoil1.html

remember that more than half the world's geologists work for oil companies..and only ten percent or less are actively engaged as independents who do not owe their salaries to institutional support of the corporate or state-sponsored mythology..