Are we running out of fossil fuels? - peak oil theory

[EddieWalker]

Just another story on why oil prices keep going up.

Shell: No Beaufort Sea drilling in Arctic for 2011 - Yahoo! Finance

It's not the lack of oil, it's the government regulations and often politically motivated restrictions against allowing anybody to get to the oil and bring it to market.

Eddie

 

[Bison]

You might want to do some reading about how oil was formed. The information is all out there for us to read about but in a nutshell petroleum was formed mostly by decaying plant matter which was buried under tremendous pressures inside the earth. This has been studied extensively by geologists that don't just pull this stuff out of their arse. I need to read more about it myself.

These are just theory's,there was no one present to see it happen.
How do you burry forests and plant matter in quantitys big enough and so deep in the earth to form these immense amounts of oil.
BTW,where is the salt domes coming from that they seem to find in a lot of fields,Out of tree's!?

Coal yes,oil...no,i don't buy it.

 

[mmurphy]

I have heard on "Coast to Coast" a.m., that the Russians have drilled deep enough that the crude they found does not contain carbon.
That said, almost sounds scary they drill that deep.

 

[RichZ]

Bison, the plant matter that oil is made out of wasn't forests, but layers of algae on the ocean floor. The layers were miles thick formed over millions of years.

 

[inveresk]

More bad news about reserves.

WikiLeaks cables: Saudi Arabia cannot pump enough oil to keep a lid on prices | Business | The Guardian

 

[tulenutn2o]

I have heard on "Coast to Coast" a.m., that the Russians have drilled deep enough that the crude they found does not contain carbon.
That said, almost sounds scary they drill that deep.

Uh-huh. I got some ocean front property in Arizona.

 

[houstonscott]

The answer is no. It is estimated that we have enough oil for about 2000 more years. Oil is the future of energy, get use to it, it's natural and clean.

HS

 

[LMTC]

Bison, the plant matter that oil is made out of wasn't forests, but layers of algae on the ocean floor. The layers were miles thick formed over millions of years.

Again, theory. Not something that can be tested and verified by experiment. Even a small scale experiment would include assumptions of the conditions at the time, something we simply cannot "know" with absolute certainty. True hard core observational science just doesn't apply with things that happened, or supposedly happened, when no one was around to observe.

 

[Bison]

Bison, the plant matter that oil is made out of wasn't forests, but layers of algae on the ocean floor. The layers were miles thick formed over millions of years.

If that where the case then there should be mile thick layers of algae as an ongoing process as well on the ocean floor today as well.

No such thing today but a couple yards of mud and matter.
That pokes a hole in that algae therory does it!

 

[EddieWalker]

Bison, the plant matter that oil is made out of wasn't forests, but layers of algae on the ocean floor. The layers were miles thick formed over millions of years.

I would be curious as to what formed that much algae and why it hasn't happened again or why it isn't ongoing today?

Because it's only a theory that has never been proven or any evidence of it discovered, it does make it hard to comprehend that decaying algae is capable of turning into oil. Then how that oil gets forced thousands of feet into the core of the planet in some places, and left at the surface in other places. How it ended up in the middle of vast deserts and in the middle of huge contenents. How it is found along the equator in warm climates and near the poles, in freezing climates.

The carbon that is found in oil seems to me to be misleading because there does't seem to be any way to explain how it's related to anything organic. And why it isn't being formed on a continual basis if it is from organic life, which is still present and ongoing.

Is oil finite? If it is organic in origin, why doesn't this process continue today?

Eddie