Date: Sun, 23 Feb 1997 12:17:32 +0100 (MET)
From: rolf.martens-AT-mailbox.swipnet.se (Rolf Martens)
Subject: M-G: UNITE! Info #28en: 5/8 Chemical fuels, not "fossil", I.


UNITE! Info #28en: 5/8 Chemical fuels, not "fossil", I.
[Posted: 23.02.97]


(5) Why the chemical fuels are NOT "fossil"  [Posted: 18.08.96]


This item contains [continued from posting (4) - part 4/8]:

REPLIES TO LISA R. AND BARKELY R. ON OIL, NATURAL
GAS AND COAL (ctd.)


D) IS THERE ANY EVIDENCE FOR ABIOTIC COAL?

One of your objections, Barkley, was:

>But I note that the articles you quoted only talked about "oil
>and gas", not coal, but somehow you dragged coal into it
>as well. The evidence for that appears to be near zero.

This runs directly counter to an earlier objection by Lisa, who
- because of a misunderstanding, I think, or some unclarity on
my part - complained about my "separating" the question of
coal from that of gas and oil, when "most people" were in
agreement on all three of these fuels having essentially a
common origin. And so they have, too. I'm not contradicting that.  

In that part I quoted in my posting (2) from Bergstroem,
diamonds' containing small enclosed bubbles of methane was
mentioned, as indicating that diamonds, which consist of pure
(crystallized) carbon, are formed in a methane-rich environment,
at great depths of course because of the pressure necessary to
create them. There's nothing directly on coal, or carbon, in the
article by Gold and Soter I've referred to, but Bergstroem (on
pp. 11-12) has the following further passage on this, which may
also interest Lisa because of those leaf-like etc things in her
grandmother's coal pile: 

"*Pure Carbon*"

"Although pure carbon" [In Swedish as e.g. in French, the word 
for "carbon" and "coal" is the same, "kol", respectively "charbon",
but I suppose the author would have used "carbon" here] "does
not belong among the hydrocarbons, it is one of the so-called
fossil fuels. It also may arise as one of the products when
hydrocarbons are heated. One probably cannot get away from
the fact that the easily recognizable remains of plants in coal
have contributed strongly to precisely the concept "fossil fuels".
The fact that carbon in charred plants originates from the plants
themselves of course can hardly be denied, and therefore, the
biological origin is unusually clear."

"Still, in this case, too, there are phenomena which it hasn't been
possible to explain. One of them is the fact that three-dimension-
ally conserved plant remains in certain cases may consist entirely
of carbon. In the original plant, however, carbon constituted only
a small portion. Carbon, thus, has been added to such fossils,
and has not only come to be placed on the outside but has
filled cells with intact cell membranes. How is this possible?
Has the carbon been transported in the form of a gaseous
hydrocarbons, after which the hydrogen has disappeared? In any
case, something more has happened than just the carbonization
of the plant material."

"Carbon may also occur without any direct connection to organic
deposits. On the Billingen [mountain] in Vaestergoetland 
[Sweden], for instance, there is a thick layer of dust-like coal 
without organic structures (Lundquist et al., 1931). This layer is 
not situated on any quite definite level but changes somewhat in 
position in relation to different lime banks. It can therefore not 
have been sedimentary but must have arisen afterwards."

"There also is carbon in the form of graphite in crevices in
primary rock in this country (figure 5)." [not of much interest 
here] "Graphite also is present in, for instance, crystalline rock 
on Ceylon, where it for a century has been the object of the most
important mineral industry of that island. It fills out crevices
which may be more than one metre across (figure 6)." [I'll not
discuss that one either.]

"Thus, there is no doubt that carbon may have a biological
origin, but there are also deposits where a biogical model is
very difficult to use and at any rate would presuppose a number
of hypothetical assumptions."

In view of some later findings, not least precisely here in Sweden,
which even more conclusively proved the cosmic or "deep gas" 
theory to be correct for natural gas and for oil, I on my (non-
expert) part hold that, clearly, much of those very large 
quantities of coal which are known to exist on earth likewise must 
originate from methane that has streamed up from the mantle, and 
that the methane in this case, as in 1985 only guessed at by 
Bergstroem, by heating and/or by other processes has lost its 
hydrogen to become coal, in a similar manner to that in which that 
graphite must have arisen.

Besides, as far as coal is concerned, there hasn't been all that
great a scare about its supply "risking exhaustion". Most people
know, I think, that there's plenty of coal. The main "reason" why 
"the sky is falling" which the media are providing us with in 
connection with coal, is, even more pronouncedly than in
connection with oil and natural gas, that so-called "man-made
global warming" - a theory on which the facts are much more
difficult to prove than that, today, rather ridiculous fairytale 
of the chemical fuels' being mainly "fossil" in origin.


E) WOULD "FOSSIL" MEAN "SCARCE"?

Lisa also wrote, on 15.08:

>I'd still like to know why a bio origin would "necessarily" imply
>scarcity.  If that is not necessary, then the alleged motivation 
>[for the "capitalist" conspiracy against the use of petro-fuels] 
>just disappears, it would seem.

But surely, Lisa, you cannot have avoided hearing, lots of times
even, those "heartfelt complaints" and "warnings" by the (phoney)
"environmentalists" about how those "fossil riches" have been
"slowly and thriftily accumulated" by "Mother Nature" or whatever 
"during millions and millions and years", and here now come "we 
greedy materialistic people of the 20th century" and "thoughtlessly
squander them all away in a few decades". Of course a mainly 
"fossil" origin *would* imply relative scarcity. Even during those 
millions of years, plant life could concievably - in that manner 
which, up until 1979 at least, nobody had been able to explain - 
have produced only a limited supply, compared to those vast
amounts (of the basic stuff, methane) which there in reality are 
in the earth's mantle and also stuck in many places in the crust. 

So far, an incomplete reply to you, Lisa and Barkley, incomplete
since it (more or less) only has dealt with (one part of) the
technical/scientific side of things. I quite agree that the 
political side must also be covered if these important matters are 
really to be understood. 


F) POLITICAL "BAGGAGE": SEE PAST AND FUTURE POSTS

In earlier postings, I did try to cover that side. Then you Lisa
complained, on 05.08, i.a.:

>Look Rolf, I don't really need all the pages about the plausibility
>of gov / industry lies, etc. 

>[I asked about the *cosmic source* of *fossil fuels*, what that
>scenario is, how it might have happened.]

And that I needed to write about too; on this point you were right.

>Meanwhile, you are attaching far too much political baggage 
>and suspicion to the hypothesis of biological origin.

And after I did write something without very much "political
baggage" in it but mainly on the technical/scientific issues, you
then wrote that this wasn't enough either - right again! Now you
want some "political baggage", about the "plausibility of gov / 
industry lies, etc", again, isn't that what you meant on 15.08 by:

>One of my points is that even if you were correct about "cosmic
>petroleum" you would still need to answer all these other 
>questions, in order to make sense.

Yes, I agree, I do have to answer all these other questions in
order to make sense. And those questions were precisely the
ones I concentrated on trying to answer in those earlier postings
of mine. So I'll, for the moment, refer you to those postings, Lisa. 
But there are also many things in this connection which need to
be covered more in detail, or to be viewed from some other
aspects. And to these, I'll return as soon as I can, with some 
replies which will then not be parts of the present series.

Not only is this whole complex of questions very important, the
"establishment" and its muppets are also quite rabidly fanatical
in their efforts of trying to prevent people from seeing through 
those massive smokescreens in which they're engulfing it. They
absolutely don't like people even to say: "Look, what have we
here? Could it perhaps be a smokescreen?" And it's really not
that easy to clear them all away. A good start, at least, lies in
keeping a healthily suspiciuos mind. 

(Or being, as rumour has it that some have been saying, one of 
those "paranoid people" who "inevitably are attracted to" that 
Marxism list which also goes under the name of "M1". If that is
taken to mean: "Mind state one - thy name is: Always suspicious,
always questioning", I think it's really a constructive designation.) 


Rolf M.

[Continued in part 6/8]



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