Oil is NOT a fossil fuel...

[Zohaar818]

Petroleum is almost exlusively even-carbon species from biological acetyl Co-A oligomerization. Refractory polycyclic chemical markers from polyisoprenoids and the like are chiral and resolved as per biological specs. C12/C-13 isotope fractionation is a loud marker for biological process.

 

http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/youare.swf

 

A small fraction of natural gas may accumulate from abiogenic outgassing. Petroleum is created from anaerobic degradation of dead stuff trapped in sediment, followed by morphogenesis at modest temperatures and trapping accumulation beneath impermeable capstone or halite.

 

Hey dude, have you ever seen raw petroleum? The nasty thick oily smelly stuff ought to be burned.

Again from the quoted article as posted above:

"Our results reported the spontaneous genesis of methane, ethane, propane, butane, pentane, hexane, heptane, nonane, and decane, in both the normal and branched isomers, and alkenes, in the distribution characteristic of natural petroleum.

" The second law of thermodynamics prohibits spontaneous genesis of hydrocarbons heavier than methane in the regimes of temperature and pressure found in the near-surface crust of the Earth. This fact has been known by competent physicists, chemists, chemical engineers, mechanical engineers and thermodynamicists since the third quarter of the 19th century.

"...there is no “debate” on this consequence of the laws of thermodynamics, - nor on any other aspect of those laws. That natural petroleum is not a “fossil fuel” has been known (by competent scientists) since the time of Clausius, Boltzmann, Gibbs, and Mendeleev.

 

The scientific problem connected with the genesis of hydrocarbons has been that genuine scientists have not heretofore been able to explain how, and under what conditions, such molecules do spontaneously evolve. Our article has resolved this question: Petroleum hydrocarbons heavier than methane are the high-pressure members of the hydrogen-carbon system; their spontaneous genesis requires pressures comparable to those necessary for the spontaneous genesis of diamond.

 

4.) Clarke’s ipse dixit and unsupported assertion that the spontaneous genesis of hydrocarbons can “be recreated in the laboratory,” is a gratuitous falsehood.

 

"..Such experiments have been attempted by diverse persons (who have been ignorant of the overriding constraints of the laws of thermodynamics) numerous times during the past century. All such attempts have failed, without a single, legitimate exception. Hydrocarbons can be (and are) synthesized at low pressures by the well-known Fischer-Tropsch processes, or the Kolb reactions. Such are driven, not spontaneous, processes. Heat can similarly be transferred from a colder to a hotter body, - so long as one drives the process by a refrigeration engine; however, such processes do not occur spontaneously in the natural world.

 

Go here for further edification...

http://www.gasresources.net/Introduction.htm

 

I don't make the science up..I just post it.

;-)

 

-Zohaar

[UncleAl]

"Our results reported the spontaneous genesis of methane, ethane, propane, butane, pentane, hexane, heptane, nonane, and decane, in both the normal and branched isomers, and alkenes, in the distribution characteristic of natural petroleum.

Petroleum does not contain odd-numbered alkanes - and certainly not in thermodyanmic equilibrium concentrations. Your source is lying. Uncle Al will make it easy for you: PETROLEUM IS MADE BY GOD. Any obvious empirical inconsistencies are now tests of faith. Take your propaganda and go away.

 

Petroleum hydrocarbons heavier than methane are the high-pressure members of the hydrogen-carbon system; their spontaneous genesis requires pressures comparable to those necessary for the spontaneous genesis of diamond.

http://www.me.berkeley.edu/diamond/submissions/diam_intro/cphased.htm

 

3500 C and 2.2 million psi for geodynamic diamond formation 100 miles down? Petroleum does not survive 200 C diagenesis. Diamond C-12/C-13 isotope ratio is nothing like petroleum C-12/C-13 ratio. You are an idiot.

[Biochemist]

...You are an idiot.

Gee, UA. You are being a little guarded. What do you really think?

[Zohaar818]

Petroleum does not contain odd-numbered alkanes - and certainly not in thermodyanmic equilibrium concentrations. Your source is lying. Uncle Al will make it easy for you: PETROLEUM IS MADE BY GOD. Any obvious empirical inconsistencies are now tests of faith. Take your propaganda and go away.

 

 

http://www.me.berkeley.edu/diamond/submissions/diam_intro/cphased.htm

3500 C and 2.2 million psi for geodynamic diamond formation 100 miles down? Petroleum does not survive 200 C diagenesis. Diamond C-12/C-13 isotope ratio is nothing like petroleum C-12/C-13 ratio. You are an idiot.

 

 

You are surely no scientist or petrochemist or you wouldn't have to expressd yourself in such hostile [and ignorant] comments such as posted:

http://www.chemcases.com/fuels/fuels-b.htm

 

This link debunks your claim entirely about temperatures but in the safe bet you won't read it let me post a quote to consider:

"A reaction that CAN occur, will NOT OCCUR if the activation energy is not available to bring the reactant to the "transition state". This process, just like many spontaneous process does not occur at modest temperatures".

And the process in question is called hydrocarbon cracking, a process in which petroleum and its components are subjected to temperatures as high as 400c in order to crack the hydrocarbon chain and elicit more gasoline at which will burn at higher octane and keep your engine from knocking.

 

As for diamonds being formed at high temperature and pressure..have you heard of carbon vapor deposition? it a fast way to make daimonds of jewel quality by artifical means..but really the means used is more like earth's natural way than the traditional view you hold.

http://clearlyexplained.com/news/nature/2005/may/1N1705_2005.html

These new fast diamonds can be grown about five times faster than commercially available diamonds produced by the standard high temperature and high pressure method.

 

The Carnegie process growth rate is about 100 micrometers per hour and can reach upto 300 micrometers per hour.

 

Typically produced synthetic diamond is yellow and most CVD diamond is brown, limiting their optical uses but this team has made colorless single-crystal diamonds, transparent from the ultraviolet to infrared wavelengths with their CVD process.

 

Dr. Russell Hemley who leads the diamond effort at Carnegie explained that "High-quality crystals over 3 carats are very difficult to produce using the conventional approach," He further explained about others working on the problems of creating diamonds adding that "Several groups have begun to grow diamond single crystals by CVD, but large, colorless, and flawless ones remain a challenge. Our fabrication of 10-carat, half-inch, CVD diamonds is a major breakthrough."

 

The results were reported at the 10th International Conference on New Diamond Science and Technology, Tsukuba, Japan, on May 12, and will be reported at the Applied Diamond Congress in Argonne,

 

here's a lecture from someone who I don't believe justifies the idiot label...

 

From "The Global Energy Outlook for the 21st Century," a lecture delivered on May 21, 2003 by Peter R. Odell, Professor Emeritus at the Erasmus University in Rotterdam, where he was the Director of the Center for International Energy Studies:

Finally, a word of caution on the essential fragility of a study on the very long-term future for the world's energy supply which accepts without question the validity of the original 18th century hypothesis that all oil and gas resources have been generated from biological matter in the chemical and thermodynamic environments of the earth's crust. There is an alternative theory - already 50 years old - which suggests an inorganic origin for additional oil and gas. This alternative view is widely accepted in the countries of the former Soviet Union where, it is claimed, "large volumes of hydrocarbons are being produced from the pre-Cambrian crystalline basement". Recent applications of the inorganic theory have, however, also led to claims for the possibility of the Middle East fields being able to produce oil "forever" and to the concept of repleting oil and gas fields in the gulf of Mexico. More generally, it is argued, "all giant fields are most logically explained by inorganic theory because simple calculations of potential hydrocarbon contents in sediments shows that organic materials are too few to supply the volumes of petroleum involved."

 

The significance of the alternative theory of the origin of additional oil and gas potential is self evident for the issue of the longevity of hydrocarbons' production potential and production costs in the 21st century. Instead of having to consider a stock reserve already accumulated in a finite number of so-called oil and gas plays, the possibility emerges of evaluating hydrocarbons as essentially renewable resources in the context of whatever demand developments may emege. If fields do replete because the oil and gas extracted from them is abyssal and abiotic (based on chemical reactions under specific thermodynamic conditions deep in the earth's mantle), then extraction costs should not rise as production from such fields continues for an indefinite period. Neither do estimates of reserves, reserves-to-production ratios and annual rates of discovery and additions to reserves have any of the importance correctly attributed to them in evaluating the future supply prospects under the organic theory of oil and gas' derivation. In essence, the "ball park" in which consideration of the issues relating to the future of oil and gas has hitherto been made would no longer remain relevant.

[more: http://www.clingendael.nl/ciep/pdf/Odell_2003_05_21_lecture.pdf]

 

here's a news article which reports exactly what i posted here...

http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2005/05/317075.shtml

Dismissal of the Claims of a Biological Connection for Natural Petroleum

 

"The claims which have traditionally been put forward to argue a connection between natural petroleum and biological matter have been subjected to scientific scrutiny and have been established to be baseless. The outcome of such scrutiny comes hardly as a surprise, given recognition of the constraints of thermodynamics upon the genesis of hydrocarbons.

 

If liquid hydrocarbons might evolve from biological detritus in the thermodynamic regime of the crust of the Earth, we could all expect to go to bed at night in our dotage, with white hair (or, at least, whatever might remain of same), a spreading waistline, and all the undesirable decrepitude of age, and to awake in the morning, clear eyed, with our hair returned of the color of our youth, with a slim waistline, a strong, flexible body, and with our sexual vigor restored. Alas, such is not to be. The merciless laws of thermodynamics do not accommodate folklore fables. Natural petroleum has no connection with biological matter."

 

(Scientific Paper Published In 'Energia')

 

BTW..Russia is not only the world's largest oil producer but the one of the world's major diamond miners and exporters and if I am an idiot I am in good company...

 

J. F. Kenney

Joint Institute of The Physics of the Earth - Russian Academy of Sciences

Gas Resources Corporation, 11811 North Freeway, Houston, TX 77060, U.S.A.

 

Ac. Ye. F. Shnyukov

National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine

Vladimirskaya Street 56, 252.601 Kiev, Ukraine

 

V. A. Krayushkin

Institute of Geological Sciences

O. Gonchara Street 55-B, 01054 Kiev, Ukraine

 

I. K. Karpov

Institute of Geochemistry - Russian Academy of Sciences

Favorskii Street 1a, 664.033 Irkutsk, RUSSIA

 

V. G. Kutcherov

Russian State University of Oil and Gas

Leninskii Prospect 65, 117.917 Moscow, Russia

 

I. N. Plotnikova

National Petroleum Company of Tatarstan (TatNeft S.A.)

Butlerov Street 45-54, 423.020 Kazan, Tatarstan, RUSSIA

 

 

1. Introduction.

 

With recognition that the laws of thermodynamics prohibit spontaneous evolution of liquid hydrocarbons in the regime of temperature and pressure characteristic of the crust of the Earth, one should not expect there to exist legitimate scientific evidence that might suggest that such could occur. Indeed, and correctly, there exists no such evidence.

 

Nonetheless, and surprisingly, there continue to be often promulgated diverse claims purporting to constitute "evidence" that natural petroleum somehow evolves (miraculously) from biological matter. In this short article, such claims are briefly subjected to scientific scrutiny, demonstrated to be without merit, and dismissed.

 

The claims which purport to argue for some connection between natural petroleum and biological matter fall into roughly two classes: the "look-like/come-from" claims; and the "similar(recondite)-properties/come-from" claims.

 

The "look-like/come-from" claims apply a line of unreason exactly as designated: Such argue that, because certain molecules found in natural petroleum "look like" certain other molecules found in biological systems, then the former must "come-from" the latter. Such notion is, of course, equivalent to asserting that elephant tusks evolve because those animals must eat piano keys.

 

In some instances, the "look-like/come-from" claims assert that certain molecules found in natural petroleum actually are biological molecules, and evolve only in biological systems. These molecules have often been given the spurious name "biomarkers."

 

The scientific correction must be stated unequivocally: There have never been observed any specifically biological molecules in natural petroleum, except as contaminants. Petroleum is an excellent solvent for carbon compounds; and, in the sedimentary strata from which petroleum is often produced, natural petroleum takes into solution much carbon material, including biological detritus. However, such contaminants are unrelated to the petroleum solvent.

 

The claims about "biomarkers" have been thoroughly discredited by observations of those molecules in the interiors of ancient, abiotic meteorites, and also in many cases by laboratory synthesis under imposed conditions mimicking the natural environment. In the discussion below, the claims put forth about porphyrin and isoprenoid molecules are addressed particularly, because many "look-like/come-from" claims have been put forth for those compounds.

 

The "similar(recondite)-properties/come-from" claims involve diverse, odd phenomena with which persons not working directly in a scientific profession would be unfamiliar. These include the "odd-even abundance imbalance" claims, the "carbon isotope" claims, and the "optical-activity" claims. The first, the "odd-even abundance imbalance" claims, are demonstrated to be utterly unrelated to any biological property. The second, "carbon isotope" claims, are shown to depend upon measurement of an obscure property of carbon fluids which cannot reliably be considered a measure of origin. The third, the "optical-activity" claims, deserve particular note; for the observations of optical activity in natural petroleum have been trumpeted loudly for years as a "proof" of some "biological origin" of petroleum. Those claims have been thoroughly discredited decades ago by observation of optical activity in the petroleum material extracted from the interiors of carbonaceous meteorites.

 

 

6. Conclusion.

 

The claims which have traditionally been put forward to argue a connection between natural petroleum and biological matter have been subjected to scientific scrutiny and have been established to be baseless. The outcome of such scrutiny comes hardly as a surprise, given recognition of the constraints of thermodynamics upon the genesis of hydrocarbons.

 

If liquid hydrocarbons might evolve from biological detritus in the thermodynamic regime of the crust of the Earth, we could all expect to go to bed at night in our dotage, with white hair (or, at least, whatever might remain of same), a spreading waistline, and all the undesirable decrepitude of age, and to awake in the morning, clear eyed, with our hair returned of the color of our youth, with a slim waistline, a strong, flexible body, and with our sexual vigor restored. Alas, such is not to be. The merciless laws of thermodynamics do not accommodate folklore fables. Natural petroleum has no connection with biological matter.

 

However, recognition of such fact leaves unanswered the conundrums which eluded the scientific community for more than a century: How does natural petroleum evolve ? And from where does natural petroleum come ?

 

The theoretical resolution of these questions had to await development of the most modern techniques of quantum statistical mechanics. The experimental demonstration of the required equipment has been only recently available. The following article substantially answers these questions.

Published in Energia, 2001, 22/3, 26-34.

http://www.gasresources.net/DisposalBioClaims.htm

 

These were their sources and reference texts..

 

1 M. H. Studier, R. Hayatsu and E. Anders, "Organic compounds in carbonaceous chondrites", Science, 1965, 149, 1455-1459.

2 B. Nagy, Carbonaceous Meteorites, Elsevier, Amsterdam, 1975.

3 G. P. Vdovykin, Carbonaceous Matter of Meteorites (Organic Compounds, Diamonds, Graphite), Nauka Press, Moscow, 1976.

4 B. Mason, "The carbonaceous chondrites", Space Science Review, 1963, 1, 621-640.

5 C. A. Ponnamperuma, "The carbonaceous meteorites", in Carbonaceous Meteorites, ed. B. Nagy, Elsevier, Amsterdam, 1975, 747.

6 J. D. Bernal, "Significance of carbonaceous meteorites in theories on the origin of life", Nature, 1961, 190, 129-131.

7 E. Gelphi and J. Oro, "Organic compounds in meteorites - IV. Gas chromatographic - mass spectrometric studies of isoprenoids and other isomeric alkanes in carbonaceous chordrites", Geochim. Cosmochim. Acta, 1970, 34, 981-994.

8 G. W. Hodgson and B. L. Baker, "Evidence for porphyrins in the Orgueil meteorite", Nature, 1964, 202, 125-131.

9 V. A. Krayushkin, The Abiotic, Mantle Origin of Petroleum, Naukova Dumka, Kiev, 1984.

10 V. B. Porfir'yev, "Inorganic origin of petroleum", American Association of Petroleum Geologists Bulletin, 1974, 58, 3-33.

11 P. N. Kropotkin, Y. I. Pikovskii, B. M. Valyaev, K. B. Serebrovskaya, A. P. Rudenko, A. L. Lapidus, E. B. Chekaliuk and G. N. Dolenko, Journal of D. I. Mendeleev, All-Union Chem. Soc., Moscow, 1986.

12 M. H. Studier, R. Hayatsu and E. Anders, "Origin of organic matter in the early solar system: I. Hydrocarbons", Geochim. Cosmochim. Acta, 1968, 32, 151-173.

13 G. P. Vdovykin, Meteorites, Nauka, Moscow, 1968.

14 G. W. Hodgson and B. L. Baker, "Porphyrin abiogenesis from pyrole and formaldehyde under simulated geochemical conditions", Nature, 1967, 216, 29-32.

15 F. K. North, Petroleum Geology, Allen & Unwin, Boston, 1985.

16 B. Tissot and D. H. Welte, Petroleum Formation and Occurrence, Springer, Berlin, 1981.

17 R. C. Selley, Elements of Petroleum Geology, W. H. Freeman, New York, 1995.

18 T. S. Zemanian, Chemical Kinetics and Equilibria of Hydrocarbon Mixtures at Advanced Temperatures and Pressures, Cornell, Ithaca, 1985.

19 J. F. Kenney and U. K. Deiters, "The evolution of multicomponent systems at high pressures: IV. The genesis of optical activity in high-density, abiotic fluids", Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys., 2000, 2, 3163-3174.

20 L. Pasteur, "Sur la dissymétrie moleculaire", C.R. Hebd. Séanc, 1848, 26, 535.

21 L. Pasteur, "Sur la dissymétrie moleculaire", in Leçons de chimie professées en 1860 par M. M. Pasteur, Cahours, Wurtz, Berthelot, Sante-claire Deville, Barral, et Dumas, Paris 1861, Hachette, Paris, 1886.

22 M. H. Engel and B. Nagy, "Distribution and enantiomeric composition of amino acids in the Murchison meteorite", Nature, 1982, 296, 837-840.

23 M. H. Engel, S. A. Macko and J. A. Silfer, "Carbon isotope composition of individual amino acids in the Murchison meteorite", Nature, 1990, 348, 47-49.

24 M. H. Engel and S. A. Macko, "Isotopic evidence for extraterrestrial non-racemic amino acids in the Murchison meteorite", Nature, 1997, 389, 265-268.

25 S. Pizzarello and J. R. Cronin, "Non-racemic amino acids in the Murray and Murchison meteorites", Geochim. Cosmochim. Acta, 2000, 64, 329-338.

26 B. Nagy, "Optical Activity in the Orgueil meteorite", Science, 1965, 150, 1846.

27 U. Colombo, F. Gazzarini and R. Gonfiantini, "Die Variationen in der chemischen und isotopen Zusammensetzung von Erdgas aus Suditalien", Leipzig, 1967, vol. Vortrag ASTI-67.

28 E. M. Galimov, Isotope Zusammensetzung des Kohlenstoffe aus Gassen der Erdrinde, Leipzig, 1967.

29 V. A. Krayushkin, "Origins, patterns, dimensions, and distributions of the world petroleum potential", Georesursy, 2000, 3, 14-18.

30 P. Szatmari, "Petroleum formation by Fischer-Tropsch synthesis in plate tectonics", Bull. A.A.P.G., 1989, 73, 989-996.

 

For further reading....

http://www.davesweb.cnchost.com/nwsltr59.html

 

Speaking of propagandist..any chance you or a family member works for an oil company?

As for God creating petroleum..I can live with that..I think he gave it to the Devil to use just to see who could be tempted...

-Zohaar

[Zohaar818]

A WORD OR TWO ABOUT ALKANES...

I went to do some research and the first page I came to says...

 

The first ten normal members of the alkane family have n values of 1-10. A normal hydrocarbon alkane is one where all the carbon atoms in the molecule are in a "continuous" chain. A continuous chain does not necessarily mean that the carbons are in a straight line. The carbons can "snake" or "zig zag" as long as you can trace through the carbons without lifting the tracer off the surface.

 

http://members.aol.com/logan20/alkanes.html

 

And I have gone on to learn that..

In propane there are THREE atoms of Carbon and EIGHT atoms of Hydrogen...

three and 8 equal an odd number, don't they? 11 isn't it?

So what was that you were saying about there being no such thing as odd numbered alkanes..or did you mean alkENE?

"Alkenes are a very similar group of chemicals. They have a double bond between two Carbon atoms, they are "unsaturated" hydrocarbons. Their names follow a similar pattern: ethene, propene, butene, pentene, etc..

 

It is not possible to have "methene" because there have to be TWO atoms of Carbon in a molecule of an alkene. Think about it. Here is a general formula for the alkenes:

 

Cx H2x

By now you will have realised that the spelling of chemical names is very important.

http://www.purchon.com/chemistry/alkanes.htm

 

Now then...if you want to argue the point take it up with the authors of the papers cited above or go blow it in the ear of jeff rense and the editors of more than 60 newspapaers and magazines which have carried the article since .

 

But DO have a nice day

[Harzburgite]

BTW..Russia is not only the world's largest oil producer but the one of the world's major diamond miners and exporters and if I am an idiot I am in good company...

I accept, in advance, that this was a 'by the way' aside. But you may understand that the objective bystander will tend to have reservations about the controversial portions of your post when a simple contention is, well, simply wrong.

Taking the period from January 1997 to March 2005, Russian production exceeded Saudi Arabia's only in a single three month period (in the first half of 2004). In general Saudi production has run half a million barrels per day over the Russian figures.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/international/petroleu.html#IntlProduction

[bumab]

And I have gone on to learn that..

In propane there are THREE atoms of Carbon and EIGHT atoms of Hydrogen...

three and 8 equal an odd number, don't they? 11 isn't it?

So what was that you were saying about there being no such thing as odd numbered alkanes..or did you mean alkENE?

 

The quote was talking about alkanes IN PETROLEUM there's little odd numbered alkanes. Most here know the basics of organic chemistry you are still learning. Congrats. Any even numbered carbon chain will have an even number overall- n + 2n + 2 gives you the overall number of atoms. Octane is the big one in gas, guess what? It's 8 carbons. I notice you left it out of your abiotically produced list earlier... interesting.

 

 

Anyway, good luck arguing chemistry with Al...

[Zohaar818]

The quote was talking about alkanes IN PETROLEUM there's little odd numbered alkanes. Most here know the basics of organic chemistry you are still learning. Congrats. Any even numbered carbon chain will have an even number overall- n + 2n + 2 gives you the overall number of atoms. Octane is the big one in gas, guess what? It's 8 carbons. I notice you left it out of your abiotically produced list earlier... interesting.

 

 

Anyway, good luck arguing chemistry with Al...

 

And you have nothing to say about the diamonds and the hydrocarbon cracking I see.

Actually that quote about the propane, I realize, was in error as alkanes go from one to ten...and that would make 1,3,5,7 and 9 ODD NUMBERED ALKANES..which was my point and one big AL seemed to dismiss out of hand.

Gee, Al..what a guy..what a mind...

 

Anyway..I don't argue positions per se....I post what i find fascinating or curious and hope some 'scientist'..or educated mind will enlighten me by either showing me the factual errors in what is posted, providing relevant sites to read....and when they don't I chide them and keep digging through the material on my own.

It is when I get comments from guys like bundy..I'm sorry, I mean Big Al..that i wonder if this is really a science forum or a place for malcontents and the societally challenged to let off steam safely by posting insults and resentful slurs as if it passed for relevant scientific discourse..

 

-Sincerely

Zohaar

 

PS--for the record, although I am not a certified 'scientist', in the way I assume most of the respondents here would measure it.. I do have a bachelor's degree in applied behavioural science [uCSC] and 20 years experience as an intel analyst for among other agencies..the NSA...

Suffice it to say being called an idiot rolls off me like water on a duck's back..and besides, it is my skin that is very very thick, not my skull.

[Biochemist]

...alkanes go from one to ten...

Actually alkanes go to any length. If they get big enough, they are solid, not liquid, and hence not part of petroleum.

 

This is indeed an interesting thread, but I understand that many smart folks still consider abiogeneic petroleum a minority position. I did read your links, and there were some trivial factual errors in then (not worth noting) but I wonder of the little factual errors that I happen to notice are indicative of larger errors on the core issues (that I did not see).

 

UncleAl, for all of his high-temperature responses, does usually represent a coherent argument from an organic chemistry perspetive. Speaking as a moderator, I appreciate you putting up with his occasional over-the-top tenor.

[Zohaar818]

Yo..AL...this one's for you...

 

http://www.petrosurveys.com/aux2.html

Abstract (American Chemical Society, San Francisco, 2000)

 

As in oils, molar quantities of the heavier normal-alkanes in U.S. Gulf Coast gas-condensates are exponentially distributed by carbon number. In 62 gas-condensates, the modal class of Slope Factor (SF) values is 1.50 to 1.60, compared to 1.20 to 1.30 in a suite of oils from the same region. Experimentally-generated gas-condensates also exhibit n-alkane SF values systematically higher than those of oils. In both experimental and reservoired gas-condensates, pressure and temperature are shown to be the principal factors controlling n-alkane Slope Factors. In unaltered oils SF serves as an index of maturity, but in reservoired gas-condensates the SF-maturity relationship is random. Virtually all of a representative set of gas-condensates from the Gulf Coast Tertiary-Quaternary section have attributes compatible with an origin involving the vaporization of oil of various levels of maturity by allochthonous gas (evaporative fractionation of oil) at moderate pressures and temperatures.

 

 

http://chemed.chem.purdue.edu/genchem/topicreview/bp/1organic/coal.html

Another way to increase the octane number is thermal reforming. At high temperatures (500-600C) and high pressures (25-50 atm), straight-chain alkanes isomerize to form branched alkanes and cycloalkanes, thereby increasing the octane number of the gasoline. Running this reaction in the presence of hydrogen and a catalyst such as a mixture of silica (SiO2) and alumina (Al2O3) results in catalytic reforming, which can produce a gasoline with even higher octane numbers. Thermal or catalytic reforming and gasoline additives such as tetraethyllead increase the octane number of the straight-run gasoline obtained from the distillation of crude oil, but neither process increases the yield of gasoline from a barrel of oil.

 

The data in the table of petroluem fractions suggest that we could increase the yield of gasoline by "cracking" the hydrocarbons that end up in the kerosene or fuel oil fractions into smaller pieces. Thermal cracking was discovered as early as the 1860s. At high temperatures (500C) and high pressures (25 atm), long-chain hydrocarbons break into smaller pieces. A saturated C12 hydrocarbon in kerosene, for example, might break into two C6 fragments. Because the total number of carbon and hydrogen atoms remains constant, one of the products of this reaction must contain a C=C double bond...

 

Notice to big AL..this process of cracking hydrocarbons is more than a century old and uses temperatures of above 500 degrees at 20-25 atmospheres of pressure.

http://www.alevelchemistry.co.uk/Module_2/HTML%20Pages/hydrocarbons/2.2%20Hydrocarbons%20Notes.htm

 

Thermal Cracking

 

When alkanes are heated to high temperatures their molecules vibrate strongly enough to break and form smaller molecules. One of these molecules is usually an alkane. Reducing chain length generally results in unsaturation. Such reactions are known as cracking

 

e.g. C8H18 C5H12 + CH3CH=CH2

 

octane pentane propene

 

Thermal cracking is generally used for cracking residues to middle distillates.

 

Catalytic Cracking

 

By using a catalyst, cracking can be made to occur at fairly low temperature. This is known as catalytic cracking.

 

Catalytic cracking is the most important source of petrol and raw materials for the chemical industry. Heavier fractions can be cracked to produce extra gasoline. Cracking tends to produce branched-chain rather than straight-chain alkanes, so the gasoline produced this way has a high octane rating. Processes similar to cracking can be used to convert low-grade gasoline to high grade fuel.

 

The catalysts are usually natural clays and synthetic alumina/ silica mixtures (Al2O3/SiO2).

 

Isomerisation

 

This involves breaking up straight chainalkanes and reassembling them as branched chain isomers.

 

Both of these processes are important in the production of unleaded gasoline.

 

Catalytic Reforming

 

Reforming involves converting straight chain alkanes into ring molecules such as arenes and cycloalkanes.

 

Benzene C6H6 and other aromatic compounds can be made by passing petrol vapour over a heated platinum catalyst.

 

500oC/15 atm

 

C6H14 C6H6 + 4H2

 

hexane Pt catalyst benzene

 

 

 

The u.s.a. obtains about half its benzene in this way.

 

 

Note to big AL...

 

Either come back with a petrochemist to rebutt the article I posted or withdraw the idiot comment like the gentleman I'm sure you wish to be seen as.

Of course if you don't have a petrochemist to help you out..or indeed, if you are not really a gentleman, don't bother writing back.

[Harzburgite]

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

Returning to your initial post. Would you care to explain why the majority of wells that have been drilled some time ago run dry? Why fields have a finite productive life? Why the few instances where production has increased may be attributed to replenishment via fault line?

If your contention is that the process of re-generation takes an extended period of time then how can it solve the supply problem as you imply in this quote? If it occurs rapidly enough to ensure an adequate supply then why do we not see reservoirs routinely recharging?

[Biochemist]

... Would you care to explain why the majority of wells that have been drilled some time ago run dry? ... Why the few instances where production has increased may be attributed to replenishment via fault line?...If it occurs rapidly enough to ensure an adequate supply then why do we not see reservoirs routinely recharging?

Good question. I don't really have a position on Z's thesis, but it would be important to separate the notion of fuel creation from sequestration and replenishment. Even if the fuel creation was abiogenic, it does not mean that the rate of creation is higher than our rate of consumption. Further, it would be reasonable to presume (based on empirical evidence) that most fields are sequestered pools, because they have indeed either run dry or significantly decreased their output.

 

Lastly, wordwide demand continues to rise. OPEC is currently pumping at capacity and demand will continue to outstrip supply for the forseeable future unless prices rise to make the market mechanism allocate usage. Abiogenic sources don't necesarily help the long term energy problem.

 

I think the answer is still pebble bed reactors until we have hydrogen fusion reactors.

[UncleAl]

You are surely no scientist or petrochemist

 

Senior Research Chemist at Occidental Research, division of Occidental Petroleum, 1977-1979. What do you have, boy?

 

Russian Academy of Sciences

Sciences of Ukraine

Russian State University

Tatarstan

 

Giggle. Did you know Russians invented the lightbulb, the phonograph, movies... and Edison stole them all? GIGGLE.

[Zohaar818]

Good question. I don't really have a position on Z's thesis, but it would be important to separate the notion of fuel creation from sequestration and replenishment. Even if the fuel creation was abiogenic, it does not mean that the rate of creation is higher than our rate of consumption. Further, it would be reasonable to presume (based on empirical evidence) that most fields are sequestered pools, because they have indeed either run dry or significantly decreased their output.

 

Lastly, wordwide demand continues to rise. OPEC is currently pumping at capacity and demand will continue to outstrip supply for the forseeable future unless prices rise to make the market mechanism allocate usage. Abiogenic sources don't necesarily help the long term energy problem.

 

April 26th, 2005

Saudi officials say oil production increase not quick fix

http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/nation/11487329.htm

 

Saudi foreign affairs adviser Adel al-Jubeir emphasized the long-term nature of the plan. He pointedly noted that refineries in the United States were running near capacity and the exploding economies in China and India were increasingly demanding more oil.

 

Additionally, he said, while the Saudis could squeeze out another 1.4 million barrels a day, the oil is the heavy crude not so eagerly sought by refiners. "But it is available," he said.

 

"It will not make a difference if Saudi Arabia ships an extra million or 2 million barrels of crude oil to the United States," al-Jubeir told reporters as the two leaders finished their talks at the ranch. " If you cannot refine it, it will not turn into gasoline, and that will not turn into lower prices."

 

There is more oil available to be tapped and pumped than there is capacity to refine it..so there is no oil shortage per se.....the price inflation has nothing to do with the scarcity of a finite fossil supply.

[Zohaar818]

Senior Research Chemist at Occidental Research, division of Occidental Petroleum, 1977-1979. What do you have, boy?

 

Russian Academy of Sciences

Sciences of Ukraine

Russian State University

Tatarstan

 

Giggle. Did you know Russians invented the lightbulb, the phonograph, movies... and Edison stole them all? GIGGLE.

 

Again, the breadth and depth of your unbiased and informed scientific reasoning... and the eloquence of your expression... inspire a kind of awe

 

http://www.aapg.org/explorer/2002/11nov/abiogenic.cfm

 

http://www.geolsoc.org.uk/template.cfm?name=Origin_of_Petroleum_Biogenic_andor_Abiogenic_and_Its_Significance_in_Hydrocarbon_Exploration_and_Productions

.or look up.

 

American Association of Petroleum Geologists

Institute of Petroleum sponsors

Hedberg Conference - Origin of Petroleum: Biogenic and/or Abiogenic and Its Significance in Hydrocarbon Exploration and Productions

Institute of Petroleum

9 - 12 June 2003

 

"For half a century, scientists from the former Soviet Union (FSU) have recognized that the petroleum produced from fields in the FSU have been generated by abiogenic processes. This is not a new concept being reported in 1951. The Russians have used this concept as an exploration strategy and have successfully discovered petroleum fields of which a number of these fields produce either partly and entirely from crystalline basement. Is this exploration strategy limited to the petroleum provinces in Russia or does such a strategy have application to other petroleum provinces like the Gulf of Mexico or the Middle East? Some believe this is a possibility for fields in the Gulf of Mexico, and others argue for application to fields in the Middle East."

 

Apparently serious petroleum scientists take the subject seriously even if they don't entirely agree. They are willing to be persuaded, they have gone to great length and great expense to host an international conference [over two years ago!]

 

To the other sentient beings on this forum, ones who actually are of the scientific mind, before you post more derogatory comments, or high-school science, please read below...

I am not the one behind this theory, I bring it to your attention and post the articles [of which I am discovering ever more] from American sources to support it.

 

http://www.enviroliteracy.org/article.php/1130.html

"The abyssal, abiotic theory of oil formation has received more attention in the West recently because of the work of retired Cornell astronomy professor Thomas Gold, who is known for development of several theories that were initially dismissed, but eventually proven true, including the existence of neutron stars. He has also been wrong, however; he was a proponent of the "steady state" theory of the universe, which has since been discarded for the "Big Bang" theory. Gold's theory of oil formation, which he expounded recently in a book entitled The Deep Hot Biosphere, is that hydrogen and carbon, under high temperatures and pressures found in the mantle during the formation of the Earth, form hydrocarbon molecules which have gradually leaked up to the surface through cracks in rocks. The organic materials which are found in petroleum deposits are easily explained by the metabolism of bacteria which have been found in extreme environments similar to Earth's mantle. These hyperthermophiles, or bacteria which thrive in extreme environments, have been found in hydrothermal vents, at the bottom of volcanoes, and in places where scientists formerly believed life was not possible. Gold argues that the mantle contains vast numbers of these bacteria."

The abiogenic origin of petroleum deposits would explain some phenomena that are not currently understood, such as why petroleum deposits almost always contain biologically inert helium. Based on his theory, Gold persuaded the Swedish State Power Board to drill for oil in a rock that had been fractured by an ancient meteorite. It was a good test of his theory because the rock was not sedimentary and would not contain remains of plant or marine life. The drilling was successful, although not enough oil was found to make the field commercially viable. The abiotic theory, if true, could affect estimates of how much oil remains in the Earth's crust.

 

The abiogenic origin theory of oil formation is rejected by most geologists, who argue that the composition of hydrocarbons found in commercial oil fields have a low content of 13C isotopes, similar to that found in marine and terrestrial plants; whereas hydrocarbons from abiotic origins such as methane have a higher content of 13C isotopes. In an April 2002 letter published in the science journal Nature, Barbara Sherwood Lollar and her colleagues from the Stable Isotope Lab at the University of Toronto reported their analysis of the Kidd Creek mine in Ontario. An unusual ratio of 13C isotopes and the presence of helium provided evidence of hydrocarbons with abiotic origins, but they argued that commercial gas reservoirs do not contain large amounts of hydrocarbons with a similar signature. Gold and other geologists who argue that there are significant amounts of oil from abiotic origins maintain that as oil seeps up through the layers of Earth closer to the surface, it mixes with oil from biological origins, and takes on its characteristics.

 

The American Association of Petroleum Geologists has scheduled a conference in July 2004 to review the evidence supporting the theories about the formation of oil. For more about the abiotic theory of oil formation, visit these websites:

 

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/8.07/gold_pr.html

Wired Magazine: "Fuel's Paradise"

In this July 2000 Wired magazine interview, contributing editor Oliver Morton talks with Thomas Gold about the theory of abiotic oil formation and his career.

 

http://people.cornell.edu/pages/tg21/usgs.html

Thomas Gold: "The Origin of Methane (and Oil) in the Crust of the Earth"

This 1993 paper was published by USGS as a part of a collection called The Future of Energy Gases. Cornell University host's Dr.Gold's website, which presents this paper and others describing the abiotic theory of oil formation.

 

http://www.csun.edu/%7Evcgeo005/Energy.html

"Considerations about Recent Predictions of Impending Shortages of Petroleum Evaluated from the Perspective of Modern Petroleum"

This article by J.F. Kenney of the Joint Institute of the Physics of the Earth was orginally published in the June 1996 edition of Energy World, a publication of the British Institute of Petroleum. Presented through the California State University Northridge website, this article argues that reports concerning the impending oil shortage are inaccurate.

 

http://www.aapg.org/explorer/2002/11nov/abiogenic.cfm

Explorer: Abiogenic Gas Debate

This article by correspondent David Brown was published in the November 2002 edition of Explorer, a publication of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists. Though the article is dated in references to upcoming events, the author presents a well rounded explanation of the debate surrounding gas origin theories.

 

 

back to you Uncle ALF,

 

Gold is a professor at Cornell University, not a Russian university...however with a name like that he might be jewish.. Does that also disqualify him in your book, AL?

You know, Russian scientists did manage to create the world's largets nuclear arsenal, launch a space station, and bootstrap their way up to the top of the oil production chain using techniques based on the theories that most oil is abiogenic as stated in the first article I posted.

BTW..it's not Zohaar's Theory..it is the Theory of the Abiogenic Origin of Petroleum...and you will not find many policy makers inside or outside of the Big Oil companies who take the subject lightly..

[Zohaar818]

Could the doubters please explain the following ;

If oil is a fossil fuel, resulting from bio-matter decay then why is it that:

 

(1) Petroleum and methane are found frequently in geographic patterns of long lines or arcs, which are related more to deep-seated large-scale structural features of the crust, than to the smaller scale patchwork of the sedimentary deposits.

 

(2) Hydrocarbon-rich areas tend to be hydrocarbon-rich at many different levels, corresponding to quite different geological epochs, and extending down to the crystalline basement that underlies the sediment. An invasion of an area by hydrocarbon fluids from below could better account for this than the chance of successive deposition.

 

(3) Some petroleums from deeper and hotter levels lack almost completely the biological evidence . Optical activity and the odd-even carbon number effect are sometimes totally absent, and it would be difficult to suppose that such a thorough destruction of the biological molecules had occurred as would be required to account for this, yet leaving the bulk substance quite similar to other crude oils.

 

(4) Methane is found in many locations where a biogenic origin is improbable or where biological deposits seem inadequate: in great ocean rifts in the absence of any substantial sediments; in fissures in igneous and metamorphic rocks, even at great depth; in active volcanic regions, even where there is a minimum of sediments; and there are massive amounts of methane hydrates (methane-water ice combinations) in permafrost and ocean deposits, where it is doubtful that an adequate quantity and distribution of biological source material is present.

 

(5) The hydrocarbon deposits of a large area often show common chemical or isotopic features, quite independent of the varied composition or the geological ages of the formations in which they are found. Such chemical signatures may be seen in the abundance ratios of some minor constituents such as traces of certain metals that are carried in petroleum; or a common tendency may be seen in the ratio of isotopes of some elements, or in the abundance ratio of some of the different molecules that make up petroleum. Thus a chemical analysis of a sample of petroleum could often allow the general area of its origin to be identified, even though quite different formations in that area may be producing petroleum. For example a crude oil from anywhere in the Middle East can be distinguished from an oil originating in any part of South America, or from the oils of West Africa; almost any of the oils from California can be distinguished from that of other regions by the carbon isotope ratio.

 

(6) The regional association of hydrocarbons with the inert gas helium, and a higher level of natural helium seepage in petroleum-bearing regions, has no explanation in the theories of biological origin of peroleum.

 

And one note to UncleAl and Biochemist...would anyone of you explain to me why helium is found in diamonds?

http://www.the-conference.com/JConfAbs/1/473.html

And how, if they have nothing to do with the same process and pressures discussed in the formation of abiogenic oil that C14 is found in some diamonds..which according to accepted theory [ non-russian!] should not be possible...

 

http://keithdevens.com/weblog/archive/2003/Aug/21/RATE

This latter suggestion about primordial C-14 appears to have been somewhat spectacularly supported when Dr Baumgardner sent a diamond for C-14 dating. It was the first time this had been attempted, and the answer came back positive—i.e. the diamond, formed deep inside the earth in a ‘Precambrian’ layer, nevertheless contained radioactive carbon, even though it ‘shouldn’t have’.

 

This is exceptionally striking evidence, because a diamond has remarkably powerful lattice bonds, so there is no way that subsequent biological contamination can be expected to find its way into the interior...."

 

 

-Zohaar

[Zohaar818]

http://www.recipeland.com/encyclopaedia/index.php/Abiogenic_petroleum_origin

That this theory is receiving increasing attention from Western geologists is indicated by the fact that the American Association of Petroleum Geologists scheduled a conference (http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/msg00802.html) to meet in Vienna in July 2004 entitled "Origin of Petroleum—Biogenic and/or Abiogenic and Its Significance in Hydrocarbon Exploration and Production". The conference had to be canceled, however, due to financial considerations. Instead, AAPG will be holding a one-day session on the topic at the June 2005 annual meeting in Calgary, Alberta.

 

Another side of the debate as brought p here in this thread with response to the same factors being present in abiogenic oil production and diamonds:

 

"There is also some scientific evidence that diamonds may be found in larger abundance on Neptune and Uranus. Neptune and Uranus contain a lot of the hydrocarbon gas methane. Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, have shown that focusing a laser beam on pressurized liquid methane can produce diamond dust. Neptune and Uranus contain about 10-percent to 15-percent methane under an outer atmosphere of hydrogen and helium. Scientists think that this methane could possibly turn to diamond at fairly shallow depths. Click here to learn more about the Berkeley experiment."

http://www.howstuffworks.com/diamond1.htm

 

This is where cross-discipline science is relevant...the whole time we argue oil and diamonds and the abiogenic process pro and con..other scientists are theorizing that there are diamonds on planets and moons in our solar system..and the process behind their formation sounds a lot like abiogenesis...given that the atmospheres cited above are reportedly similar to what was once ancient earth...see the correlation guys?