Supplies of oil may be inexhaustible.

June 4, 2002 6:16 PM

Supplies of oil may be inexhaustible. (via Plastic)
posted by BlueTrain (23 comments total)

Of all the things we have to worry about in this day and age, running out of oil should not be one of them.

I'm actually far more worried we won't run out of oil soon enough. We have to stop manufacturing carbon dioxide soon or we are going to cook the planet and there will be nothing anybody can do about it. The political will does not exist and does not currently look like it will come around in time.

-Mars
posted by Mars Saxman at 6:42 PM on June 4, 2002

I find it rather obnoxious that a purportedly scientific article contains references only to sources elsewhere in the popular press. If there actually is an argument for oil in the earth's "core" (a misstatement, I assume), I'd like to see the peer-reviewed work cited. Same with oil originating from the "mineral" methane. As this article is written, it seems awfully fishy.

I think I could find one of the papers alluded to (Whelan et al. in Organic Geochemisty, '94), but the more recent work continues to elude me. Bad scientific journalism.
posted by mr_roboto at 6:43 PM on June 4, 2002

"I'm actually far more worried we won't run out of oil soon enough."

So am I, but for a different reason: We're not going to get anything better until all the oil is gone.

I want my nuclear-fusion-powered flying car.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 6:54 PM on June 4, 2002

So, when do we see 10 cents at the pump?
posted by Dean_Paxton at 7:28 PM on June 4, 2002

If there actually is an argument for oil in the earth's "core"
posted by stbalbach at 7:42 PM on June 4, 2002

This obviously means that we should begin drilling ANWR immediately, in order to allow it to begin refilling as soon as possible.
posted by Dirjy at 7:46 PM on June 4, 2002

If there actually is an argument for oil in the earth's "core"

But this is one Gold theory that very few agree with. Conventional petroleum geologists hold that hydrocarbons are created by the burial of organic material to depths where moderate levels of heat and pressure "cook" it into oil and gas, which then migrate through the crust to the sorts of sedimentary structures best suited to trap them. Geochemists argue that the bulk of the world's hydrocarbons couldn't possibly reside in the Earth's mantle, as Gold posits; at that depth, hydrocarbons would react with the mantle, oxidizing into carbon dioxide, a process which, Gold's foes believe, is evident in the belching forth of carbon dioxide from the Earth's volcanoes. As Steve Drury, who reviewed Gold's book for Geological Magazine, puts it, "Any Earth scientist will take a perverse delight in reading the book, because it is entertaining stuff, but even a beginner will see the gaping holes where Gold has deftly avoided the vast bulk of mundane evidence regarding our planet's hydrocarbons."
posted by y2karl at 7:55 PM on June 4, 2002

The peculiar substance emitted by pro-business public relations groups like the National Center for Policy Analysis (and their supporters) is what is really inexhaustible.

It smells bad, but I'm not sure it'll burn like regular old fossil fuels. Oh well.
posted by fold_and_mutilate at 8:07 PM on June 4, 2002

I still remember an article from the first Popular Science which stated that the number of trees in the old-growth forests in the Pacific Northwest would take centuries to exhaust... and even then, an "Inexhaustible" supply would be found in Canada.
posted by SpecialK at 8:09 PM on June 4, 2002

I'm more worried about us running out of air. Oil I can live without.
posted by MaddCutty at 9:11 PM on June 4, 2002

The supply of hot air on Metafilter is inexhaustible.
posted by quercus at 9:22 PM on June 4, 2002

The fact that an oil supply MIGHT (crackpot?) be replenishing itself is a far cry from being inexhaustable.
posted by entropy at 10:42 PM on June 4, 2002

"Earth discovered to be huge cosmic blackhead"

I'm waiting for that story in The Onion any time now..
posted by kfury at 11:15 PM on June 4, 2002

You know, only US citizens can think of "refills"!

Did you know that in European fast food restaurants there isn't such a thing?

No wonder that this ideas come from the other side of the Atlantic.

They say "refill", we say depletion

To be fair (and jokes aside) at least Mathew Simmons (one of Bush energy advisers) has a clearer vision:

“We need a wake up call. We need it desperately. We need basically a new form of energy. I don’t know that there is one.”  (TV4, Sweden)
posted by samelborp at 11:43 PM on June 4, 2002

We don't "need" anything. We'll get by. With petroleum and global warming, or without it. Current patterns of life will be distrupted by oil shortages or oil gluts, but change is the nature of existence. The human race will adapt, and go on. We are all as grass...
posted by Faze at 6:45 AM on June 5, 2002

we are going to cook the planet and there will be nothing anybody can do about it.

Cooking the planet isn't the real problem. It would only take an average world temperature increase of 5-10 deg C to make climate so violent that large regions of earth are practically unlivable for us thin-skinned humans. Plants, Bugs and fish will happily go on in some form, probably until the sun explodes.
posted by plaino at 6:56 AM on June 5, 2002

I don't think I agree with you about much, Faze, but I sure do like "We are all as grass."

Well, beats Kansas, anyway.
posted by hackly_fracture at 8:59 AM on June 5, 2002

In Sweden I produced oil by the ton from 6 kilometers down. Eighty barrels we pumped, perfectly ordinary crude oil, entirely in nonsedimentary rock, in granite. It looked like perfectly good stuff.

Ooh! Eighty whole barrels! That will last the U.S., which burns 20,000,000 barrels a day, forever!

It's too bad that our energy needs can't be met by the endless supply of corporate stooge policy group propaganda. I'm sure the Bush administration is getting a raging hard on over this article.
posted by mark13 at 9:31 AM on June 5, 2002

Supplies of oil may be inexhaustible.

US oil reserves predicted to outlive heat death of the universe, analysts say.
posted by straight at 11:17 AM on June 5, 2002

I agree it would suck if the oil didn't run out. We really have to kick that habit to save the planet from CO2 and the primitive peoples who, "au hazard" are sitting on it and using the monies we give them to preserve there condition and pay for terrorism.
posted by ParisParamus at 11:34 AM on June 5, 2002

the primitive peoples who, "au hazard" are sitting on it and using the monies we give them to preserve there condition and pay for terrorism.

Now, even I'm not that rude about Texans.
posted by riviera at 12:41 PM on June 5, 2002

funny how that story came out of Detroit, of all places
posted by themikeb at 7:54 AM on June 6, 2002

For what it's worth, I've read Gold's book ("The Deep Hot Biosphere") and it is quite convincing. After reading it I tracked down one of my professors in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, and, according to him, Gold is almost certainly right. To paraphrase what he said:

- many geologists and planetary scientists outside of the United States have been on to what Gold is now saying for a long time;
- the existence of Gold's 'deep hot biosphere' is a fact, not a conjecture;
- the abiotic, terrestrial source of oil almost certainly exists;
- but in question is the rate of refill, not its existence.

So, in other words, it is very likely that Gold is right and the oil is 'refilling'; but, at the same time, we are likely using it faster than it can be 'refilled.' You all should read the book, though, it is excellent and genuinely fascinating. Well-written too.
posted by josh at 10:52 AM on June 6, 2002