Peak Oil (was "petroleum geologist explains US war policy")

[vimto]

A Gallon of Gas is now costing $3 in the US...they don't like the high gas prices put up em do they

Shame

 

[Bernie Gunther]

Oh well bigfish, you can find some crank stuff backing up abiotic theories if you want, but you asked for some peer-reviewed laboratory based studies backing up the mainstream view of fossil fuel formation and I provided some.

If you want to believe something else I can't stop you, and don't care to, but that's indisputably what the mainstream of organic geochemistry has to say.

If abiotic oil were to make any difference to the arrival of peak oil, whether it's next week or in thirty years, iit would have to replenish supply in line with projected demand. There is so far no evidence whatsoever of this happening.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

Let me put it more bluntly. If it is to make a difference, abiotic oil needs to make a difference either right now, or pretty damn soon.

When you can show me some evidence that abiotic oil is making a significant contribution to global supply, then I will certainly take these claims seriously. Until then I do not.

 

[bigfish]

Oh well bigfish, you can find some crank stuff backing up abiotic theories if you want, but you asked for some peer-reviewed laboratory based studies backing up the mainstream view of fossil fuel formation and I provided some.

Yes, you did, but part of the material you've provided dates from 1934. The problem I'm having with it is that it has subsequently been falsified. By the way, if the science I've cited really is "crank stuff," as you rather disingenuously insist, then it should be pretty much a formality for you to demolish it. Can you do that, or are you simply blagging your way out?

If you want to believe something else I can't stop you, and don't care to, but that's indisputably what the mainstream of organic geochemistry has to say.

I doubt very much that is what the Russian, Ukrainian, Chinese and Vietnamese geochemistry mainstream are saying, bearing in mind all of these countries apply inorganic theory extensively in pursuit of petroleum. What I think is indisputable is that the view you put forward is peculiar to the western oil cartels and the geophysicists who work for them in one capacity or other.

If abiotic oil were to make any difference to the arrival of peak oil, whether it's next week or in thirty years, it would have to replenish supply in line with projected demand. There is so far no evidence whatsoever of this happening.

I'm sorry, but I beg to differ. The ratio between proven oil reserves and current production has constantly improved over time. In 1948, for example, the ratio stood at 20 years, in 1972 it had risen to 35 years, in 2003 it reached 40 years. In 1970 Saudi Arabian proven reserves stood at 88 billion barrels, today they stand at 265 billion barrels from the same wells, despite 50 years of intervening production as the worlds leading oil producer. Only recently the Saudi oil minister announced the further addition of another 200 billion barrels to Saudi proven reserves, giving a new total of 465 billion barrels. So where does all of this oil keep coming from?

 

[Backatcha Bandit]

Perhaps it is time for you to re-read the thread, BF. We've been over the issue of 'proven reserves' in some detail before and I see little to be gained by repeating myself. You demonstrably do not share this view.

Also, if you are going to post numbers, please provide a source. Otherwise we won't know where you are c+p-ing Exxon glossies and where you are doing the sums for yourself.

One source, though, that I do recognise is our old chum [Petro-comical] Ali Al-Naimi:

Only recently the Saudi oil minister announced the further addition of another 200 billion barrels to Saudi proven reserves

What he actually said:

According to Petroleum and Mineral Resources Minister Ali Al-Naimi: 'There are great opportunities to increase the Kingdom's producible oil reserve by about 200 billion barrels either through new discoveries or increasing the percentage of extractable oil from known reserves.'

http://www.ameinfo.com/61640.html

-and-

How it was reported:

The Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources noted that the Kingdom's proven and productive oil reserves now reach nearly 261 billion barrels, representing approximately one-fourth of the world reserves, adding that there are great opportunities to raise the Kingdom's productive oil reserves by nearly 200 billion barrels through new discoveries or an increase in the rate of oil that can be produced from known underground sources.

http://www.saudinf.com/main/y7708.htm

It's not the first time I've caught you misrepresenting/misunderstanding him, is it?

-

So where does all of this oil keep coming from?

Why is everone ignoring my 'Pixie' theory? Pixie-ist Bastards!

 

[bigfish]

... Also, if you are going to post numbers, please provide a source. Otherwise we won't know where you are c+p-ing Exxon glossies and where you are doing the sums for yourself.

One source, though, that I do recognise is our old chum [Petro-comical] Ali Al-Naimi:


What he actually said:-and-

How it was reported:

It's not the first time I've caught you misrepresenting/misunderstanding him, is it?

http://www.energybulletin.net/6043.html

Most estimates indicate that Saudi Arabia holds roughly one-quarter of the world’s proven oil reserves, with a nominal figure of 261.90 billion barrels, according to the EIA, and may contain up to 1 trillion barrels of ultimately recoverable oil. vi

Saudi sources have recently gone much higher. On December 27, 2004, Saudi oil Minister Ali Al-Naimi stated that the country proven reserves can go up to 461 billion

The proven oil reserve ratio historical trend figures are taken from Wikipedia here.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

So let me be clear about this. Are you saying that abiotic oil is currently preventing depletion in Saudi?

If we look at the production figures for: the US, Norway, Venezuela, the UK, Indonesia, Oman, Argentina, Egypt, Australia and Colombia, to say nothing of various smaller producers, production is fairly obviously in decline and there is no sign of abiotic oil making the least bit of difference. (Chris Skrebowski has provided a useful analysis of production data in this pdf )

Are you claiming that these are also being replenished by abiotic oil, or is in only in Saudi that this is happening?

I think this makes a lot of difference if you want to claim that abiotic oil is something more than a theoretical possibility, but actually means that we don't have to worry about peak oil because supplies will continuously renew themselves.

 

[Backatcha Bandit]

http://www.energybulletin.net/6043.html

That's a draft of the introduction to a report published by the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, you berk.

For someone so keen to repeatedly try (unsuccessfully) to smear Campbell et al as 'Nazi' or 'Nazi funded', you don't appear to pay much attention to your sources.

Henry Kissenger a mate of yours, is he?

You misquoted Petro-comical Ali again, I've pulled you up on it - AGAIN, and by way of a defence you quote the CSIS (sic) misquote - naturally leaving a bit out, which I'll quote for you again:

He reiterated this point on April 8, 2005. He was quoted as saying “There is a possibility that the Kingdom will increase its reserves by around 200 billion barrels, either through new finds or by increasing what it produces from existing fields…

Do you not yet see how your statement that "recently the Saudi oil minister announced the further addition of another 200 billion barrels to Saudi proven reserves" is - well, 'crap'?

 

[Backatcha Bandit]

The proven oil reserve ratio historical trend figures are taken from Wikipedia here.

Again, you fail to attribute your sources correctly.

Those figures you quote are lifted from the whitterings of (Economist) Leonardo Maugeri, an individual I'm sure we have discussed (and dismissed) previously in this thread.

I'll leave you (again) with Campbell's take on him:

Leonardo Maugeri belongs to the camp of classical "flat-earth" economists who believe that markets and technology will always solve the problem of limited resources.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

<snip> and by way of a defence you quote the CSIS (sic) misquote - naturally leaving a bit out, which I'll quote for you again:<snip>

Better be careful, you may be walking into a trap

If you go a couple of pages back, you'll see this rather peculiar response when I caught him leaving out bits of his source that didn't support his line.

Yes, that was my Pavlov's Dog experiment. Thanks for confirming the expected result by homing in on it.

So, let me be quite clear about this. You cleverly laid a trap, by leaving out the one paragraph of the article that contradicted what you were trying to claim.

The confirmation of your fiendishly clever theory here being, that someone quotes the bit that you left out ...

Yes right. That's extremely ... er ... cunning of you.

 

[Ae589]

Leonardo Maugeri belongs to the camp of classical "flat-earth" economists who believe that markets and technology will always solve the problem of limited resources.

Well, I think I believe that too, but the market solving the problem will just be massively expensive energy, and very painful.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

Well, I think I believe that too, but the market solving the problem will just be massively expensive energy, and very painful.

As far as I can see "letting markets solve it" is some sort of code for "letting people who are too poor to buy food/fuel starve/freeze and/or kill each other"

That does not seem to me to be a particularly humane way to approach the problem when it seems to me that we can probably think of better ones.

 

[Backatcha Bandit]

Well, I think I believe that too, but the market solving the problem will just be massively expensive energy, and very painful.

Which would leave the 'technology' to save the day?

Once again, I'm prompted to invite all 'technological cornucopians' to listen to the wise words of Prof. Rick Smalley (carbon nano-tubes, buckey balls etc) on the subject.

His presentation entitled 'Our Energy Challenge' can be downloaded from here:

http://smalley.rice.edu/

Once you've heard what he has to say on the subject, please do let me know if and (most critically) why you think he is wrong.

 

[Backatcha Bandit]

If anyone bothered to watch Smalley's presentation and found it at all interesting or useful, I can also recommend Albert Bartlett's presentation entitled 'Arithmetic, Population and Energy', which can be found (unfortunately in RM format) here:

http://www.globalpublicmedia.com/lectures/461

 

[Ae589]

Which would leave the 'technology' to save the day?

Just finishing the End of Oil by Paul Roberts. The assumption in that book is that although tech may save the day, nothing we have so far is anywhere near ready to or could, so we are putting everything on black and crossing our fingers.

Will download and listen later.




Question to BigFish -

If Abiotic oil replaces our natural reserves as we use them, what was happening before we used oil?

 

[Backatcha Bandit]

Will download and listen later.

Cheers, Ae589. I'd be interested in your comments.

 

[bigfish]

That's a draft of the introduction to a report published by the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, you berk.

yes, but it contains the Saudi oil ministers assessment, which is what I was referencing. I'm sure his comments are carried elsewhere, for example, in the Arab press, but then I suppose 'we' can't simply take the word of 'dodgy A-rabs over 'our' own dedicated doomsday experts like Bushs' billionaire buddy Mathew "Matty Boy" Simmons and Colin "can't count" Campbell eh?

You misquoted Petro-comical Ali again, I've pulled you up on it - AGAIN, and by way of a defence you quote the CSIS (sic) misquote - naturally leaving a bit out, which I'll quote for you again:

You're like a dog that's found a bone. Njoy.

In the meantime, here's a transcript of an up beat speech given by al-Naimi to a 2004 conference hosted by... shock! horror! the CSIS.

http://www.saudi-us-relations.org/newsletter2004/saudi-relations-interest-05-07.html

Do you not yet see how your statement that "recently the Saudi oil minister announced the further addition of another 200 billion barrels to Saudi proven reserves" is - well, 'crap'?

If I insert the word "possible" between the words "the" and "further" would that be okay?

 

[Bernie Gunther]

I still don't understand exactly how abiotic oil is to make a difference if a significant number of countries have obviously passed their production peak.

Is the thought that abiotic Saudi oil exists, but not US, UK, Norwegian etc?

 

[Bernie Gunther]

What I'm trying to get at here is this. You, bigfish are in effect saying that because of abiotic oil, we don't need to worry about production depletion.

We know demand is both quite inelastic and rising, so the stakes are high.

We don't know exactly when the global production peak for conventional oil, or gas, or unconventionals, or coal will occur. What we do know, unless abiotic oil can make a difference, is that logically, there must be a peak.

Now, I can't think that you're claiming that abiotic oil is going to regenerate US oil say, where production has been falling since the 70's.

So I'm deducing that you either think there are some fields, perhaps the saudi ones, which are being replenished quickly enough that we can keep increasing production and not run out. Or you think that if we drilled in some other place, automatically dismissed by the people who are paid to find oil for a living as unlikely, then we'd find some of the abiotic kind?

 

[bigfish]

Oh well bigfish, you can find some crank stuff backing up abiotic theories if you want...

ut part of the material you've provided dates from 1934. The problem I'm having with it is that it has subsequently been falsified.

You appear to be running from the challenge BG, which seems odd for someone who allegedly holds science in such high regard. The science dating from 1934 that you provided and then reminded me to address on two occasions elsewhere has been repudiated and superseded by more precise science, as is the way with science. Now if the Kenney et al material cited is, as you say, "crank stuff", then it should be pretty much a cakewalk for you to demolish it. So why have you ducked out?

 

[Bernie Gunther]

The reason I'm focussing on real-world production depletion is that it's the primary reason I don't take abiotic oil seriously. In this case the scientific debate over biomarkers, in which you favour a minority viewpoint, seems to me to be an academic curiosity only. What I would like to understand is why I should believe that abiotic oil, if it indeed exists, is actually going to make any difference?

We know production has fallen in places like the US and elsewhere and we've got decades worth of figures to prove it. Logically, if abiotic oil is to make any difference, it must either already be replenishing some of those reserves that haven't yet shown a drop in production, or it must be someplace we haven't looked. Without some evidence that one of these scenarios is the case, then I really don't see how it makes any difference to the issue of peak oil. In this case, I don't actually care much about whether its origin is abiotic. I've read enough of your stuff to agree that it's at least possible although I'd strongly incline towards the standard account of oil's origins.

For this to make any difference though, it must be more than an academic debate over biomarkers or whatever. Some wells somewhere actually have to provide inexhaustable supplies or it simply doesn't make any difference to the debate that I can see. The reason I don't take it seriously is that I see no evidence that this is the case.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

For what it's worth, I cited Triebs 1934 paper as one of a whole pageful and I did it in the introductory part where I was outlining the history of organic geochemistry, in essence summarising the source I linked. Complaining that history happened a long time ago is pretty silly and pointless if you ask me.

What you had asked for were laboratory examples showing an experimental basis for the organic origins theory. I provided those, clearly labelled as such, in the second half of the post. So I think you're making a lot of fuss about very little. You asked for those references, I provided them but as I say in my post above, for me that stuff is all quite literally academic until someone shows me a well that can self-regenerate faster than human demand can increase, or offers convincing evidence that there are any such magic wells.

Right now, what I'm seeing is a whole lot of countries whose production figures, far less debatable than Saudi reserve claims, are obviously in decline.

 

[parallelepipete]

Once again, I'm prompted to invite all 'technological cornucopians' to listen to the wise words of Prof. Rick Smalley (carbon nano-tubes, buckey balls etc) on the subject.

His presentation entitled 'Our Energy Challenge' can be downloaded from here:

http://smalley.rice.edu/

I downloaded all 200 MB of it - and now when I play it there's no sound! Apparently it was created 'using a codec not supported by Windows Media Player'.

I was quite looking forward to watching it too...

 

[Slash]

I downloaded all 200 MB of it - and now when I play it there's no sound! Apparently it was created 'using a codec not supported by Windows Media Player'.

Find the right CoDec perhaps? (Google for them if you don't know)

 

[Backatcha Bandit]

I downloaded all 200 MB of it - and now when I play it there's no sound! Apparently it was created 'using a codec not supported by Windows Media Player'.

I was quite looking forward to watching it too...

Sorry to hear that, PP. I believe the audio codec use when encoding this file is ' RealAudio SIPR 16000Hz mono 16Kbps', so first I'd try installing the Real Alternative (like 'realplayer' but not malware) codec. If you still get no sound, try some of the 'codec packs' listed on the left in that link.

Perhaps try playing it with an alternative player (to Windows Media Player 10) - Winamp? 'Media Player Classic' (included with the 'real alternative' bundle), or VLC.

-

If you're interested, there is also a powerpoint slideshow or a .pdf file of what is on the screen behind Smalley during the lecture.

 

[bigfish]

The reason I'm focussing on real-world production depletion is that it's the primary reason I don't take abiotic oil seriously. In this case the scientific debate over biomarkers, in which you favour a minority viewpoint, seems to me to be an academic curiosity only...

I can see why it might be of comfort to you to dismiss matters as a mere academic curiosity, given your efforts here. Incidentally, science in not about consensus. All new scientific discoveries begin their life as a minority viewpoint. Just look the example a few posts back where, using Brysons work, I show that first an amateur and then a botanist were the first people to invent the ideas of continental drift and plate tectonics. It took mainstream geology more than 50 years just to start waking up from their protracted slumber... some of them, and others too, are still 'asleep' today.

What I would like to understand is why I should believe that abiotic oil, if it indeed exists, is actually going to make any difference?

Because it demolishes the ludicrous idea that petroleum is constrained by a finite amount of biomass laid down in sedimentary basins millions of years ago and establishes the idea that it evolves by way of a continuous process happening at the Earths mantle... a process that is constrained only by the amount of carboniferous material laid down by meteorites crashing into the Earth over eons of time in its evolutionary formation. In effect petroleum is an infinite resource, because it permeates the universe.

We know production has fallen in places like the US and elsewhere and we've got decades worth of figures to prove it.

You used to say that "we know that fossil fuels are finite". Now you say that "we know that production is falling etc., etc.,". The data shows that production has shifted while proven global petroleum reserves have continued to climb over time, despite more and more oil being used. We are not running out of oil, we are running into an abundance of oil.

If hydrocarbons are renewable - then is "Peak Oil" a fraud?

http://321energy.com/editorials/bainerman/bainerman083105.html

So why is the western media being inundated with notions of the world running out of oil?

One could point a finger at the multinational oil companies and their vested interest in having the price of a barrel of oil rise substantially- to justify further exploration expenses- and of course- to bolster their bottom line.

Says Dr. J.F. Kenney, a long-time research on the origins of hydrocarbons:

"For almost a century, various predictions have been made that the human race was imminently going to run out of available petroleum. The passing of time has proven all those predictions to have been utterly wrong. It is pointed out here how all such predictions have depended fundamentally upon an archaic hypothesis from the 18th century that petroleum somehow (miraculously) evolved from biological detritus, and was accordingly limited in abundance."

That hypothesis has been replaced during the past forty years by the modern Russian-Ukrainian theory of abyssal, abiotic petroleum origins which has established that petroleum is a primordial material erupted from great depth. Therefore, according to Kenney, petroleum abundances are limited by little more than the quantities of its constituents as were incorporated into the Earth at the time of its formation.

As far back as 1757, in his address at the Imperial Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg, Academician Mikhailo V. Lomonosov, stated:

"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 [petroleum , or crude oil]"

More than 200 years later, Professor Emmanuil Chekaliuk told the conference on Petroleum and Petroleum Geology in Moscow that:

"Statistical thermodynamic analysis has established clearly that hydrocarbon molecules which comprise petroleum require very high pressures for their spontaneous formation, comparable to the pressures required for the same of diamond. In that sense, hydrocarbon molecules are the high-pressure polymorphs of the reduced carbon system as is diamond of elemental carbon. Any notion which might suggest that hydrocarbon molecules spontaneously evolve in the regimes of temperature and pressure characterized by the near-surface of the Earth, which are the regimes of methane creation and hydrocarbon destruction, does not even deserve consideration."

Contrarily, the statistics of the international petroleum industry establish that, far from diminishing, the net known recoverable reserves of petroleum have been growing steadily for the past fifty years. Those statistics show that, for every year since about 1946, the international petroleum industry has discovered at least five new tons of recoverable oil for every three which have been consumed.

As Professor P. Odell of the London School of Economics has put it, instead of "running out of oil," the human race by every measure seems to be "running into oil".

Says Dr. Kenney: "There stands no reason to worry about, and even less to plan for, any predicted demise of the petroleum industry based upon a vanishing of petroleum reserves. On the contrary, these considerations compel additional investment and development in the technology and skills of deep drilling, of deep seismic measurement and interpretation, of the reservoir properties of crystalline rock, and of the associated completion and production practices which should be applied in such non-traditional reservoirs"

If Kenney is correct, not only are any predictions that the world is "running out of oil" invalid, so also are suggestions that the petroleum exploration and production industry is a "mature" or "declining" one.

The impact on the planet of the conclusions of this debate
Much research remains to be done on "alternative" theories of the how much hydrocarbons are left in the world- unfortunately- those entities most able to do this research- the western multinational oil conglomerates- have the least interest in arriving at any conclusion other than those that are part of the "Peak Oil" stream of thought. Today the mainstream press has accepted as a given that the world has only a finite amount of oil and natural gas- and thus any decision taken on how to deal with the world's future needs are based on these conclusions. If they are erroneous- then the world is about to embark on a plan to provide for its energy needs for the coming century based on a false notion.

Research geochemist Michael Lewan of the U.S.Geological Survey in Denver, is one of the most knowledgeable advocates of the opposing theory, that petroleum is a "fossil fuel". Yet even Lewan admits:

"I don't think anybody has ever doubted that there is an inorganic source of hydrocarbons. The key question is, 'Do they exist in commercial quantities?'"

We might never know the answer to that question because both sides of this debate are not being heard by the general public. If the Russians have accepted the theory that hydrocarbons are renewable- and over time they will become the leading exporters of oil and gas worldwide- this fact alone requires these alternative theories of how fossil fuels are created- is required.

It behooves western governments to begin taking these alternative theories seriously- and design future energy policies based on possibility that they are correct. Whatever strategies for meeting the world's ferocious appetite for energy are devised today- will impact the planet for decades to come.

In this issue- we simply can't afford to be wrong.

Joel Bainerman

 

[bigfish]

http://321energy.com/editorials/bainerman/bainerman083105.html

Dr. Gold: "Astronomers have been able to find that hydrocarbons, as oil, gas and coal are called, occur on many other planetary bodies. They are a common substance in the universe. You find it in the kind of gas clouds that made systems like our solar system. You find large quantities of hydrocarbons in them. Is it reasonable to think that our little Earth, one of the planets, contains oil and gas for reasons that are all its own and that these other bodies have it because it was built into them when they were born? That question makes a lot of sense. After all, they didn’t have dinosaurs and ferns on Jupiter to produce oil and gas?"

He continues: "Human skull fossils have been found in anthracite coal in Pennsylvania. The official theory of the development of coal will not accept that reality, since human beings were not around when anthracite coal was formed. Coal was formed millions of years ago. However, you cannot mistake the fact that these are human fossils."

"The coal we dig is hard, brittle stuff. It was once a liquid, because we find embedded in the middle of a six-foot seam of coal such things as a delicate wing of some animal or a leaf of a plant. They are undestroyed, absolutely preserved; with every cell in that fossil filled with exactly the same coal as all the coal on the outside. A hard, brittle coal is not going to get into each cell of a delicate leaf without destroying it. So obviously that stuff was a thin liquid at one time which gradually hardened."

Gold claims that the only thing we find now on the Earth that would do that is petroleum, which gradually becomes stiffer and harder. That is the only logical explanation for the origin of coal. So the fact that coal contains fossils does not prove that it is a fossil fuel; it proves exactly the opposite. Those fossils found in coal prove that coal is not made from those fossils. Where then does the carbon base come from that produces all of this?

Says Dr. Gold: "Petroleum and coal were made from materials in which heavy hydrocarbons were common components. We know that because the meteorites are the sort of debris left over from the formations of the planets and those contain carbon in unoxidized form as hydrocarbons as oil and coal-like particles. We find that in one large class of meteorites and we find that equally on many of the other planetary bodies in the solar system. So it’s pretty clear that when the Earth formed it contained a lot of carbon material built into it."

Dr. Gold's ideas would lead us to believe that there is so much natural gas in the earth that it is causing earthquakes in trying to escape from the Earth. If you’ll drill deep enough anywhere, you will find natural gas. It may not be in commercial quantities every time, but more than likely it will be.

Is the oil and gas industry reconsidering things in light of his work?

Absolutely not.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

Yes but all that amounts to is that maybe there is some abiotic oil someplace. That does not, by itself, mean that peak oil is no longer an issue.

In order to prove that assertion you would need to show that somebody has found some, and that it regenerates faster than demand can grow.

Until you've shown that further thing, not just the theoretical possibility of abiotic oil, but that it can actually meet demand going forwards, you haven't made the peak oil problem go away.

 

[bigfish]

Yes but all that amounts to is that maybe there is some abiotic oil someplace. That does not, by itself, mean that peak oil is no longer an issue.

In order to prove that assertion you would need to show that somebody has found some, and that it regenerates faster than demand can grow...

Nonsense! I don't have to prove that a "peak" wont happen. Like many have before you, and all proved wrong, you're the one now asserting AGAIN that some kind of mythical peak is set to occur within a very narrow time frame, for which all the evidence you have thus far presented simply does not stand up to theoretical criticism. All of the science that I have presented and which you are unable to repudiate, clearly demonstrates that there is no transmogrified fixed reserve of finite biomass to deplete in the first place. So stop coming the old soldier.

In fact, you're coming across more and more as a sort of tired old pen-for-rent PR wonk—like Porter the "Peaker" (what happened to him by the way and what's happened to his year zero doomsday site now that he's getting his rubbish published in the corporate media?)—whose livelihood seems to hinge on meeting the targets of some contract set at bombarding the general public with the mythical peak oil message... in other words, such is your dedication to duty that for all I know you might well be engaged in peddling FEAR for REWARD, just like Porter seems to be.

More and more oil from super deep wells, incidentally, is feeding into the global market all the time. A phenomena that might well explain why the FSU has risen to become the second biggest exporter of petroleum in the world and looks set to become number 1.

The theory of deep, abiotic petroleum origins is presently applied extensively throughout the former U.S.S.R. as the guiding perspective for petroleum exploration and development projects. There are presently more than 80 oil and gas fields in the Caspian district alone which were explored and developed by applying the perspective of the modern theory and which produce from the crystalline basement rock.

Similarly, such exploration in the western Siberia cratonic-rift sedimentary basin has developed 90 petroleum fields of which 80 produce either partly or entirely from the crystalline basement. The exploration and discoveries of the 11 major and 1 giant fields on the northern flank of the Dneiper-Donets basin have already been noted. There are presently deep drilling exploration projects under way in Azerbaijan, Tatarstan, and Asian Siberia directed to testing potential oil and gas reservoirs in the crystalline basement.

Until you've shown that further thing, not just the theoretical possibility of abiotic oil, but that it can actually meet demand going forwards, you haven't made the peak oil problem go away.

What "peak" are you on about?

Contrarily, the statistics of the international petroleum industry establish that, far from diminishing, the net known recoverable reserves of petroleum have been growing steadily for the past fifty years. Those statistics show that, for every year since about 1946, the international petroleum industry has discovered at least five new tons of recoverable oil for every three which have been consumed.

"Peak"? What "peak"? I don't understand what you are talking about... But then again, I'm not an 'expert' like you.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

We have seen production peaks in many countries. Peaking is established beyond doubt. For abiotic oil to make any difference to this, I think you need to show that somewhere, it will prevent a field from depleting or at least that there is some evidence that it might. Otherwise there is no basis to claim that it makes a meaningful difference to the problem of production depletion.

I would have no problem if you were saying that abiotic oil has enough theory behind it to justify someone going and looking for some. That's reasonable.

Saying it's going to prevent other fields from displaying the same depletion behaviour as most of the US lower 48 has, and therefore that anybody talking about peak oil is spreading misinformation, requires more than just some evidence than that abiotic oil may possibly exist somewhere.