Date: Sun, 23 Feb 1997 12:18:31 +0100 (MET)
Subject: M-G: UNITE! Info #28en: 7/8 Chemical fuels, not "fossil", I.


UNITE! Info #28en: 7/8 Chemical fuels, not "fossil", I.
[Posted: 23.02.97]

[Continued from part 6/8]


(7) Why the chemical fuels are NOT "fossil"  [Posted: 24.08.96]


Subtitle of today's episode, which continues in posting (8) -
part 7/8:

Mission: IMPOSSIBLE, or:

Discussion with Bruce Hamilton, Defender of "Dino Dinner"
Theory (and Author of "Automotive Gasoline FAQ")

[This means that my original plan of continuing with first an
account of the now killed deep gas venture in Sweden and
then details, point by point, on the 10 points of proof I
enumerated in posting (1) will be further deferred. Or you
could say there's now a concentration on what I called
"Point =A49": That objections to the cosmic, abiotic or deep-
earth-gas theory can be quite satisfactorily met.]


Hello Bruce,

You wrote on 20.08.96 i.a.:

>So... Rolf, your mission - should you choose to accept it, is to
>repudiate the evidence presented in the following sources,
>which I have already referenced once in response to one of
>your earlier, messy crossposts.

Yes, I'll gladly accept that mission, Bruce. Otherwise, there of
course wouldn't be much of an episode. And it seems that that TV
series must be re-running at full speed down there with you at the
antipodes too, just as it is here in Sweden - they're even playing
the creepy theme tune on the radio. It also perhaps is just fitting
in this context that New Zealand and Sweden happen to be each
others' exact geographical antipodes!? (Another cheer for this
Net thing!)

And I do apologize for not responding to your earlier posting with
objections (on 11.08, before I started this series). There were
other replies, and I thought I was responding indirectly to you too
with some of my postings. Anyway, I'll repair that now, and I
appreciate the opportunity to discuss these matters directly with
someone who obviously knows something about oil (etc) - which I do
only to the small extent of those few sources I mentioned in my
posting (1).

Nevertheless, I hold that it's *your* mission that will turn out to
be IMPOSSIBLE, Bruce, if we assume that you'll be defending that
theory you say you believe in so far: The "established" one of the
"dino dinner" or "fossil" origins of (at least) oil and natural gas
- and at least some of its advocates mean it to cover coal too.

In reality, as this series is intended to show - as clearly as I can
do this with my absolutely non-expert knowledge - oil, gas and coal
all in the main stem from methane which has been and is seeping up
>from the earth's mantle, which since the earth's formation has
contained vast amounts of this the simplest of the hydrocarbons,
and this (for those political reasons I mentioned) today publicly
quite unknown fact means that all those three chemical fuels are
present (and recoverable) on earth in just enormous quantities -
"we" will not run out of them even if we try our damndest to do so,
before they become quite outdated in comparison to nuclear energy.

And thank you for those sources you mentioned. I couldn't find the
two books, but I've located and read all the rather recent six
magazine articles, which brings me perhaps a little up to date on
what more public discussion there is - "disappointing", I found, and
indirectly really bearing out that which I'm saying. (See below.)

Am I "obsessed" on this subject and/or having "a closed mind" on it?
No. At least I'm doing my best not to. But such things are better
judged by others. I hold that it's the "establishment" that's
"obsessed" with its in reality long-since-refuted "dino dinner"
theory and is having a very closed mind on that indeed. Probably,
some people will just go on and on calling the chemical fuels
"fossil" even after the main facts about them have long become
common knowledge, just as the term "ether" as a "medium" for
radio waves stayed on for decades after it was clearly proved
that there is no such "ether".

And today's "dino dinner" theory has a much stronger "political
motivation" for it than did ever that "ether" theory, so it's an
open question when people in general will not any longer get that
evil-smelling brew served on their "consciousness tables" every
morning. In that little Net discussion I've been in on so far too,
it's "dino dinner" people who've shown some "obsession" and
not me the (amateur) "cosmic" or "deep-earth-gasser", I'd like
to argue on that point. But I'll not comment further on that
subject but go on to "the main course": The facts of the case.


YOUR OBJECTIONS SO FAR

(And please raise others if you have them.)


A) The presence of certain obviously bio-origin molecules in
at least some of that oil and natural gas that is being recovered.

In your postings (both 11.08 and 20.08) you quoted from your
own Automotive Gasoline FAQ, i.a.:

>There are various biogenic marker chemicals (such as
>isoprenoids from terpenes, porphyrins and aromatics from
>natural pigments, pristane and phytane from the hydrolysis of
>chlorophyll, and normal alkanes from waxes), whose size and
>shape can not be explained by known geological processes [2].

But, as I already wrote in a posting before starting this series,
"Reply (2) to Lisa R. re 'fossil' fuels" on 09.08, my source
Bergstroem (Sweden, 1985) on his p. 10 points out concerning
this:

"If a Jumbo Jet holds five passengers from China, this doesn't
necessarily mean that all its passengers are from China".

A deep truth, don't you think? He continues: "Since there is oil
in deposit rock formations of sedimentary origins, this oil -
irrespective of its origin - will come into contact with chemical
compounds of biological origins which there are in the
sedimentary rock formations. The oil then functions as a solvent
and picks up some organic compounds."

Bergstroem also goes a little further into this, on p. 11:

"The amount of porphyrins" (one of the substances you
mentioned, and I understand they more or less certainly have
their origins in chlorophyll molecules which have gotten their
central magnesium atom replaced with a vanadine or nickel
atom, thus clearly have bio-origins) "in crude oil is very small.
In addition to porphyrins, crude oil may contain a number of
other complex compounds which have often been thought to
indicate a biological origin. Many such compounds however
have also been found in rock meteorites which have fallen
down on earth from space, and in this case a biological
origin must be very unlikely."

Thus, only small amounts of those porphyrins. And some of
those other "passengers" thought to be "Chinese" may not
even be so. (I don't know which ones, if any, of the other
substances you referred to Bergstroem was talking about here.)

Gold and Soter, in that June 1980 Scientific American article
I've also quoted from, wrote on this:

"It is also often said that the presence of porphyrins and other
molecular residues of living organisms in many" [NB they
didn't say "all"] "oil formations is proof that all the oil was
derived from the decay of organic sediments. Many
sedimentary rocks however are rich in biological residues. If
such a rock is invaded from below by nonbiological oil and is
left to soak for a few million years at elevated pressures and
temperatures, the oil would surely become contaminated with
biological substances derived from sediments." (p. 132)

They continued with what I've already quoted in my (4):

"The British chemist Sir Robert Robinson has written that 'it
cannot be too strongly emphasized that petroleum does not
present the composition picture expected of modified biogenic
products, and all the arguments from the constituents of ancient
oils fit equally well, or better, with the concept of a prim-
ordial hydrocarbon mixture to which bioproducts have been added.'"

And further:

"Indeed, we do not believe that any of the evidence usually
invoked in favour of an exclusively biological origin for
petroleum is compelling. The picture we favour is of a dual
origin, with some hydrocarbons derived from buried organic
sediments and a probably much larger" [NB!] "amount added
to those hydrocarbons by augmentation from a stream of
non-biological methane." (pp. 132-133)

And that's the logical and only reasonable explanation too,
as I think all must see once the knowledge of that enormous
methane reservoir in the earth's mantle (more than 10-50 km
down) seeps into their minds. But the "dino dinner" theory
advocates just keep ignoring that, don't they, and are arguing,
because of the fact that in some (not all) of the Jumbo Jets
there are a few passengers who seem to be Chinese, which in only
some of the cases is a correct assumption too, that *practically
all* the passengers on *every one* of those Jumbo Jets,
figuratively speaking, are Chinese. How's that for logic?


B) (If I understood you correctly:) "Even Thomas Gold, the
internationally best-known advocate of the abiotic theory, no
longer claims that all fossil fuels are abiotic but now only
says that methane is."

Do you mean to say he has changed his mind on that? I'm not
certain you do, but on 20.08 you hinted at that, I think:

>Note that even Thomas Gold doesn't now claim all fossil fuels
>are abiotic, only methane, and I supplied the following
>references to his work in my earlier post.

Out of those magazine articles you mentioned (all of which I
found), none was by Gold, and the only references to his work
that a couple of them contained were some very indirect ones.

What he and Soter wrote in 1980 on oil as well as on natural gas
(most of which, some 90%, I understand, consists of methane), was
- and I continue the above article quote where I left off, p. 133:

"Although methane is usually assumed to be chemically unactive,
it may well be able to polymerize into crude oil under suitable
conditions of temperature, pressure and catalytic action
(including perhaps microbial action). If such a process does
occur, an ascending stream of methane could slowly augment
an existing deposit of biological material and enlarge it to a
commercially valuable deposit of petroleum. The process need
not be very efficient; even if most of the gas is not captured but
goes on to escape at the surface, a modest flow persisting over
geologic periods of time could still be responsible for the large
masses of hydrocarbons found in the commercial deposits."

"The chemical augmentation of hydrocarbon deposits would
have a positive feedback, because the larger the deposit
became the more probable the capture of a rising molecule of
methane would become. Such a mechanism might help to
explain why the few largest petroleum fields are so vast
compared with all the rest. Of the many thousands of
commercial oil fields, 33 (25 of them in the Middle East)
contain about half of the world's known recoverable crude oil."

And this was written 16 years ago. Since then, as I've pointed
out, much oil and natural gas has been found at such depths
and in such rock formations which exclude their being "fossil".

Did I misunderstand you, Bruce? Or did you really mean to say
that Gold later has changed his mind and no longer thinks that
oil can be formed abiotically? If so, what points to this?

I'd like to add here that obviously, according to later findings,
it's microbial action that turns methane into oil. I quote from
one of those papers I got as an oil (or gas) company shareholder,
"Evaluation of the Pumping Operation in the Gravberg-1 Well"
[the first of the two exploratory deep wells here] "during April-
July, 1990" (by Tord Lindbo et al.), p. 28:

"The presence of bacteria at depth is a prerequisite if oil is
present in the formation. Without bacteria, any migrating
methane cannot be transformed to oil. The temperature at 6 km
is about 100 dgr C which is consistent with the lower limit for
the believed generation of oil."

In fact a total of 15 m3 of oil was pumped up from that well, most
of it definitely *not* stemming from some contamination, and it
did contain bacteria. (This fact "belongs" under my "Point =A41".)


C) You further quoted from your FAQ:

>The presence of optical activity and the carbon isotopic
>ratios also indicate a biological origin.

This contains two objections to the abiotic, cosmic or deep-
earth-gas theory. I'll take the first one first: Presence of
optical activity, meaning, such substances which turn the plane
of polarized light. These are "normally" associated with life.
But if they are only present in small quantities - I don't know
what percentage of the oil they at most may represent - then in
the first place, Bergstroem's simile of the "few Chinese" among
the "Jumbo Jet passengers" might apply here too. And directly on
this subject, that author also wrote (in 1985, on p. 11):

"As one argument for a biological origin, also the fact that
oil in younger deposits usually contains more of optically
active substances than does oil in older deposits has been
pointed at. It is possible that this fact simply mirrors a
greater richness in organic substances of younger rock
formations."

"Finally, perhaps a Brask note [reservation] should be inserted:
Probably nobody can guarantee with complete certainty that
optically active compounds must have a biological origin. It is
now possible to produce optically active compounds in
laboratories. Preliminary reports on the Murchinson meteorite
(which fell down in 1969 in Victoria, Australia)" [or next door to
you, Bruce - at least, as seen from here] "claim that optically
active substances have been found, and at least the presence
of amino acids" [likewise earlier thought to exist more or less
only in connection with life] "has been confirmed".

So this objection is quite weak too, easy to counter.


D) The second thing in the above quote from you: The carbon
isotopic ratios.

Here too I'll first of all counter with some '85 Bergstroem (p. 11):

"The amounts relation between the two carbon isotopes 12C and
13C (carbon 12 and carbon 13) has also been used as a piece
of circumstantial evidence in favour of a biological origin. 13C
makes up only about 1% of the total amount of carbon. The
interesting thing is that 12C is enriched somewhat in biological
processes, and thus, 13C is represented in a somewhat smaller
proportion still in biologically formed molecules. A similar
distortion is found in methane emerging from fissures in the sea
floor at the East Pacific Ridge, where new parts of the earth crust
are being formed by magma surging upwards from the earth's mantle.
Also in general there are considerable variations, which it has not
yet been possible to explain. We therefore do not know what these
readings mean."

Equally inconclusive did Gold and Soter in 1980 hold this to be:

"The small differences in the proportion of the heavy isotope of
carbon (carbon 13) among hydrocarbons of different origins tell
a complex story that requires much further study. No one has any
firm evidence on the diverse gas regimes more than a few
kilometres below the surface or on the quantity or frequency of
the various gases that emerge." (Sc. Am., June 1980, p. 137)

Well, if there wasn't any such firm evidence then, there is at
least some such today, namely, for instance, on the isotopic
composition of the carbon in those - admittedly "non-commercial"
- amounts of natural gas which were found very deep down in the
granite in Sweden, in that Gravberg-1 well I mentioned before. I
quote from another paper on this, "The Deep Gas Project -
Commercial Evaluation", November 1989, p. 14:

"The highest concentrations of methane were found in connection
with the dolerite intrusions which are also associated with the
high amplitude seismic reflectors." "...[The] methane has a carbon
isotope ratio, del C13, of -10 to -20 (relative to PDB) which is
clearly outside the range for biogenic gas."

So in this case, precisely the isotopic ratio contributed towards
showing that this was NON-"fossil" gas. What measurements of
this ratio may in recent years have been made in other deep
deposits of oil and gas too I don't know. But it seems clear
enough, Bruce, that the "dino dinner" people by no means are "helped" by
that isotope ratio factor either, since it in reality jumps back and
slaps their theory in the face like a boomerang.

[Continued in posting (8) - part 8/8]





 



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