Re: Peak oil is an balloon, let's break it.

From: tadchem (thomas.davidson_at_dla.mil)
Date: 02/16/05 

Date: 16 Feb 2005 11:27:35 -0800

Pat Fallon wrote:

<snip>

> IMHO, "Peak Oil" is bogus. Oil is NOT a fossil fuel!

Methane almost never is found in isolation in subterranean gas fields.
It occurs with other gases including helium, neon, nitrogen, carbon
monoxide, carbon dioxide, ethane, ethene, propane, propene, and various
butanes and higher hydrocarbons.

A benchtop demonstration that "Methane was formed from FeO,
CaCO3-calcite, and water at pressures between 5 and 11 GPa and
temperatures ranging from 500°C to 1,500°C" should not be understood
to imply that naturally occurring methane *is* produced that way.
Glass can be made from sand with thermonuclear detonations, too.

A few years ago the late Prof. Tommy Gold (Cornell) and the Swedish
State Power Board ran a test well into the Siljan Ring to tap the
"primordial gas" he expected to find there. The site is an ancient
meteoric impact crater which has been sealed for over 370 MYa:
http://www.unb.ca/passc/ImpactDatabase/images/siljan.htm
Tommy Gold was disappointed.

Naturally occurring petroleum also includes trace heterocyclic
compounds and polycyclic aromatic structures (such as pyridine and
indole) that could not be synthesized from "FeO, CaCO3-calcite, and
water" because this recipe lacks the necessary reduced nitrogen.

And then there's that helium and free nitrogen problem...

Tom Davidson
Richmond, VA

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