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View Full Version : Is oil a finite and depleting resource?


Dynasty
11-07-2002, 10:29 PM
...on a planet that is coming to grips with the fact that oil is finite and depleting...

This is a sentence fragment from an Anonymous post in a different thread.

It is the standard belief that oil is a fossil fuel created millions of years ago when dinosaurs and plants died (very simplified, I know). Therefore, it has always been believed that the world's oil reserves are finite. Eventually, we are supposed to run out of "dead dinsoaurs" to fuel our cars. However, this view of oil has run into a couple of roadblocks which I first about read in a science magazine article a year ago (forgot name of magazine).

First, the largest oil reserves in the Middle East have shown no signs of depletion despite decades of non-stop pumping. Measurements of these reserves show that they are at the same levels as when the pumping started so long ago. Pumping seems to have had no impact on them.

Second, the oil is not where the dinosaus and other prehistoric life were. For example, the American West was a bastion of the T-Rex and many other dinosaurs. Yet, the American West, other than Texas, is hardly a major oil reserve. At the same time, the Middle East is oil rich for no apparent reason. There's no correlation between where the dinosaurs lived in and where the oil is today.

These factors among other things has created a theory within the scientific community which contradicts the orginal oil origin theory. The theory is that oil is a natural by-product of inner-Earth's mechanics. It's theorized that the spining, churning, and other stuff that goes on in the center of the Earth is what is creating oil and that it rises towards the surface through certain randomly created paths.

Is anbody familar with any further articles/research on these ideas?

This would not be the first time that a widely held 20th century scientific belief was later completely refuted by a new theory. At one point, the scientific communty almost universly believed that the dinosaurs were killed of slowly by climatic change. Then, it was proposed that the were all killed nearly simultaneously by a catasrophic event. The catastrophic event theory was widely dismissed until a massive crater was found in the Yucitan peninsula dating at exactly the same time of the death of the dinosaurs. Now, the catastrophic event of a meteor crashing into Earth and wiping out nearly all life on the planet is the accepted truth.

Zeno
11-08-2002, 12:55 AM
You are being mislead Dynasty. I would first state that you should read a college Geology text. A good one is called simply "Earth" by Frank Press and Raymond Siever. It is a very well written and a well constructed text and has a good solid grounding of earth structure, mechanics, plate tectonics, and the interaction of earth's different systems. This would help explain any of your questions.

My second point is that it is very popular to make simplistic claims about important resources. Ever heard the one about the internal-combustion engine that ran on water etc? This falls into a catergory of pesudo-science and modern legends and myths that provide comfort from uncomfortable facts. I suspect this is the case about the pumping levels of the mideast. By the way, Russia has a very large amount of oil reserves. I do not know the current estimates, but they use to be more than the mideast reserves.

Crude oil is a complex mix of different chemicals but it is mainly hydrocarbons. That is, hydrogen and carbon atoms in different combinations, with various other elements, sulfur for example. It is physically impossible for these elements to exist very deep in the earth's interior in any fluid-like form. The earth, especially towards the center is composed of silicate minerals (olivine, pyroxenes, plagiclaise, etc.) The main elements that make up these minerals are Oxygen, Silicon, Iron, calcium, Magnesium etc. under tremendous heat and pressure and are in a crystalline form. The core of the earth is Iron and nickel. Oil is not derived from such materials.

As for the death of the dinosuars the evidence always suggested some large scale change, that included climate change, the main problem was the cause of that change. Volcanic activity was at one time a hypothesis but lacked viable evidence. The impact origin is now accept and has good evidence to back it up. But the impact caused the changes (climate and other changes) that lead to the extinctions. Extinctions occur when living systems are put out of balance by forces (whatever the cause) the put them in disequalibrium with their surroundings and the living systems (animal or plant) cannot adapt faster than the change. In the dinosaurs case it may have been quick (in geologic terms) but in many cases it is not so.

I have wondered a bit but a final point is that it is fun to think that some long estabished theory or fact is completely wrong and that something more pleasent is actually true. As a poker player you should not fall for such illusions. They always lose money in the long run. The earth's oil resources are finite. Just like having only 52 cards in a poker deck. Trust me on this one.


-Zeno

eLROY
11-08-2002, 06:10 AM
Quick question: How much did it cost for a gallon of oil, and how much mileage/heat could you get out of it in

1. 1000 B.C.?
2. 0 A.D.?
3. 1000 A.D.?
4. 2000 A.D.?

The price of no resource, or no quantity humans need to live comfortable lives, has ever declined.

We will NEVER run out of oil. Can anyone name a natural resource we have EVER run out of? No!

eLROY

brad
11-08-2002, 06:56 AM
'Can anyone name a natural resource we have EVER run out of? No!'

off the top of my head i say fresh unpolluted water. unless you go to great pains youre drinking mtbe and other contaminants guaranteed.

eLROY
11-08-2002, 07:10 AM

nicky g
11-08-2002, 07:12 AM
even if that theory were true, what is the point of continuing to rely on hugely polluting fossil fuels when the wind, waves and sun can give us the same energy? and virtually for free, in the long run? especially when the pursuit of oil has caused so much trouble around the world, and drilling for more threatens to destroy what's left of the wilderness.

brad
11-08-2002, 07:12 AM
i read somewhere that world oil reserves are peaked right now.

in other words, up until right now new technology, new drilling sites, wells, etc., expanded the supply of available oil faster than we could pump it out of the ground.

from this moment on, the (usable) world oil supply will decrease.

note that the biggest impact is the price of oil. for example the US's need for oil could be totally satisfied with domestic production (not even including alaska, just continental US), but the cost would be prohibitive.

anyway thats what i read, cant remember where, but it was a couple places and was at least somewhat authoritative.

brad
11-08-2002, 07:14 AM
im being serious. i mean i personally dont double filter reverse osmosis or whatever, but it can be done.

but since i doubt ill live forever anyway, i dont see the point.

scalf
11-08-2002, 08:10 AM
/forums/images/icons/wink.gif there are no finite resources...just finite thinking...remember about 100 years ago..people were worried about whale oil being finite resource,,,what ever happened to cold fusion?...jmho..gl /forums/images/icons/smile.gif

Ray Zee
11-09-2002, 12:23 AM
we use whatever we want until the last of it is almost gone.
we still kill millions of mutton birds (short-tailed shearwaters) in the south pacific just to get their oil. just like we wiped out many seal species and whales for oil to light lamps and perfume ( ambergeis).
oil will be used up and then we will panic and suffer a great decline in the stand of living and then invent something else to destroy.