
Earth may be constantly producing oil - yters
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Gold#Origins_of_petroleum
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brazzy
Decades old crank theories are now hacker news?

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windsurfer
The article talks bout helium being present. How did it get there?

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brazzy
Um... Helium's the second most common element, by a _huge_ margin.

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mechanical_fish
Though, to be precise, helium is not as common on Earth as it is in the
universe at large, because our gravity isn't strong enough to keep it around
in our atmosphere for very long.

But it is made in big quantities by radioactive decay of elements inside the
Earth. Whereupon most of it diffuses outward and escapes into space -- helium
is a tiny, inert molecule which diffuses relatively easily even through many
"solid" rocks. The only place it tends to pile up on the earth is inside
relatively impermeable underground rock formations: The same ones that trap
natural gas, and that often trap oil as well. That's the reason why helium and
natural gas tend to be found together.

All of which is easily read at:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helium>

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eserorg
If you study the history of the oil business, you will find that approximately
every 25-30 years there is a widespread "oil crisis" precipitated by the
conclusion that we have reached "peak oil" and that the world's aggregate
hydrocarbon production is in decline.

The first such oil crisis occurred in the 1859. Before the first U.S. oil well
was drilled in Pennsylvania in 1859, petroleum supplies were limited to crude
oil that oozed to the surface. An 1859 advertisement for Kier’s Rock Oil
advised consumers to “hurry, before this wonderful product is depleted from
Nature’s laboratory.”

In 1874, the state geologist of Pennsylvania, the United States leading oil-
producing state and the location of the world's first commercial oil well,
estimated that only enough oil remained to keep the nation’s kerosene lamps
burning for four years.

Seven such "peak oil" shortage scares occurred before 1950.

These periodic "peak oil" crises lead to short-term spikes in the spot prices
for crude.

As a consequence, the capital markets flood the oil and gas business with
capital to develop high-cost reserves that had been considered uneconomic. The
vast inflows of capital into the Athabasca oil sands in Canada are an example
of this.

If this "peak oil crisis" coincides with an era of cheap capital, the inflows
of capital into industries that are perceived to be either compliments (oil
sands, oil shale) and/or substitutes for crude oil (wind, solar, biofuels) can
be extremely large.

Inevitably, this overallocation of capital leads to: (1) vast new discoveries
of hydrocarbons, and (2) the invention of new technologies to economically
develop those reserves.

Because the oil and gas industry is opaque in terms of information flows, it
takes several years for news of these developments to recycle back into the
capital markets.

In point of fact it was not until 2007-2008 that news began to percolate about
the vast shale gas discoveries in the United States -- even though the first
such monster wells had been drilled in 2000-2001.

States such as Pennsylvania, where oil and gas records are not made publicly
available for a 5-year "grace" period, exacerbate this problem. In contrast,
most states post updates on new oil and gas wells on a daily basis.

New investments in oil and gas technology can even turn around mature basins
that had been considered to be past their peak production.

For example, according to the United States EIA (see here:
<http://www.eia.doe.gov/steo> and here:
<http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/steo/pub/gifs/Fig12.gif>), U.S. crude oil
production increased this year to 5.24 million BOE (barrels of oil equivalent)
per day -- the first annual increase since 1991.

The net effect is that supply vastly overshoots demand. There is a delayed
recognition that the increase in the industry-average R/P ratio (the ratio of
reserves-in-the-ground to production-per-year) no longer justifies continued
investment.

As a result, crude oil prices crash. Those ventures into higher-cost
technologies that had been launched with the presumption of hindsight that a
new era of permanently higher oil prices had dawned, are deemed uneconomic.
Examples include: oil sands, oil shale, photovoltaic utility-scale power
plants, biofuels, wind energy.

Capital flees the market.

As the global economy continues to grow and capital remains unallocated to E&P
of hydrocarbons (Exploration and production), the industry-average R/P ratio
begins to slowly contract. New technologies that could be used to discover and
produce untapped hydrocarbon reserves (Methane Hydrates, in the US Gulf of
Mexico, for instance) remain undeveloped.

The energy industry refocuses on decreasing costs, instead of increasing
supply.

After another 25 years, the cycle repeats.

(There are of-course short-term supply shocks that can occur for geopolitical
reasons, such as wars, climate change legislation, nationalization of mineral
rights, armed piracy on ocean shipping lanes, etc...)

In view of this history, presupposing a impeding permanent shortfall in global
hydrocarbon supplies is akin to prognosticating the end-of-the road for
Moore's Law and a subsequent end to the IT industry.

~~~
brazzy
Peak oil doesn't mean that all oil will suddenly be gone. It just means that
constantly increasing demand cannot be satsfied forever. For well over a
century, the _rate_ of oil production and consumption has increased very
quickly. It's _physically impossible_ for this development to continue
indefinitely, and no amount of hand-waving can change that.

New discoveries don't change that - you'd need _more_ new discoveries each
year than the year before (which is the opposite of what is actually
happening). Oil sands don't change that - they don't just require more
capital, but also more energy to use - and energy is exactly what you're
trying to produce after all. Eventually we'll have to expend the equivalent 1
barrel of oil to mine and refine 2 barrels worth of oil sands.

Peak oil doesn't mean no more oil tomorrow. Oil production may well continue
for a century or more - it will just keep decreasing, not increasing. When
this starts happening is a matter of debates, research and numbers. There are
strong indications that we are seeing it happen right now:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Hubbert_world_2004.png> (look at the source
- these are not made-up numbers)

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lupin_sansei
> It's physically impossible for this development to continue indefinitely

Why can't oil be made synthetically? Say by genetically engineering bacteria
etc. That being the case I don't see any limit to oil production

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brazzy
First law of thermodynamics. The whole point of oil is that it's energy-rich.
To make it synthetically, you need to take energy from somewhere - but if you
intend to use the oil to produce energy, why not use it directly instead of
going through the intermediate oil stage.

Basically, synthetically-made oil only makes sense only if the process
involves an efficient way to turn a widely-available but inferior form of
energy into oil. Basically, that's bio-ethanol: already being done, but not
feasible at the scale it would take to satisfy all current demand for oil-

~~~
lupin_sansei
Oil is a convenient, efficient storage mechanism for energy, and there's a
vast existing "user base" or machinery that runs on oil. If we use non-oil
energy to provide heat and light in order to "grow" oil via some organic
process we could still be ahead.

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radu_floricica
AFAIK about this it's not as controversial as it sounds, with the caveat that
the current rate of generation is way below what once was, or what we're
consuming right now. In other words it's a very interesting scientific issue
but with little practical consequence.

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thelonecabbage
The theory is predictive. It can be used with 67% accuracy to find new oil
deposits. That is both falsifiable and HUGELY practical. The bulk of expense
in oil extraction is finding the oil in the first place, which is why the
Middle east is so attractive, it's all at the surface, shallow drilling and
easy testing.

If this theory pans out, and as he says that oil is distributed all over the
world; it means that oil gets MUCH cheaper and unstable regions can go F@#$
themselves, we'll just drill somewhere else.

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brazzy
Where did you get that 67% number fromß

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pragmatic
Gold proposed that the Earth may possess a virtually endless supply –
suggesting as much as "at least 500 million years' worth of gas"

Wow.

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eugenejen
I guess until the day we can drill oil/gas from Mars or Venus. Then we will
know theory for the biogenic petroleum oil is not correct.

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PieSquared
There's no guarantee there's oil in either place. Remember, oil is the product
of organic matter being compressed under heavy pressure for millions of years.
Even if microbes or their remains are discovered on Mars or Venus, which they
haven't (definitively), there's no guarantee that there was life of any
considerable biomass.

So I really wouldn't get my hopes up for extraterrestrial oil at all, sad as
that may be. On the other hand, minerals and metals most certainly exist
outside of Earth, so...?

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eugenejen
You seems misunderstood what I meant.

I meant if there is petroleum oil in Mars or Venus, it makes the abiogenic
petroleum oil more possible be universal resources.

