Abiotische olie

Eerder schreef ik dat de door velen gevreesde fossiele brandstoffenpiek op zijn minst nog wel enkele tientallen jaren zal uitblijven. Recente gigantische gasvondsten in Engeland lijken dat weer eens te bevestigen.

Een meer fundamentele kwestie is of olie uitsluitend van fossiele (dierlijke en plantaardige) oorsprong is. Dat wordt reeds decennialang door wetenschappers betwijfeld.

In Rusland meende men al lange tijd zeker te weten dat er abiotische olie bestaat. En de wetenschappelijke literatuur daarover is uitgebreid. Deze is echter uitsluitend in het Russisch – dus voor de meeste westerlingen ontoegankelijk.

In het Westen heerst er traditioneel grote scepcis m.b.t. abiotische olie. Verhalen over abiotische olie worden vaak naar het land der fabelen verwezen. De dominante opvatting is dat olie van biotische oorsprong is en schaars. En volgens deze opvatting zal olie zal in de nabije toekomst nog schaarser worden. Dit legitimeert de handhaving van een relatief hoog prijsniveau.

Maar recent onderzoek van een aantal wetenschappers o.l.v. Vladimir Kutcherov aan het Koninklijk Technologisch Instituut in Stockholm heeft aangetond dat resten van dieren en planten niet noodzakelijk zijn om olie en aardgas te maken.

ScienceDaily bericht daarover:

Researchers at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Stockholm have managed to prove that fossils from animals and plants are not necessary for crude oil and natural gas to be generated. The findings are revolutionary since this means, on the one hand, that it will be much easier to find these sources of energy and, on the other hand, that they can be found all over the globe. “Using our research we can even say where oil could be found in Sweden,” says Vladimir Kutcherov, a professor at the Division of Energy Technology at KTH.

Together with two research colleagues, Vladimir Kutcherov has simulated the process involving pressure and heat that occurs naturally in the inner layers of the earth, the process that generates hydrocarbon, the primary component in oil and natural gas. According to Vladimir Kutcherov, the findings are a clear indication that the oil supply is not about to end, which researchers and experts in the field have long feared. He adds that there is no way that fossil oil, with the help of gravity or other forces, could have seeped down to a depth of 10.5 kilometers in the state of Texas, for example, which is rich in oil deposits.

As Vladimir Kutcherov sees it, this is further proof, alongside his own research findings, of the genesis of these energy sources – that they can be created in other ways than via fossils. This has long been a matter of lively discussion among scientists....

Vladimir Kutcherov, Anton Kolesnikov, en Alexander Goncharov's research work was recently published in the scientific journal Nature Geoscience.

Lees verder hier.

Ook uit andere delen van de wereld, komen er signalen dat het mogelijk bestaan van abiotische olie serieus dient te worden genomen.

Onder de titel, 'Abiotic Oil a Theory Worth Exploring', schreef Gregg Laskoski onlangs op de website 'U.S.News, Politics':

It's our nature to sort, divide, and classify. We label ourselves to identify political leanings, religious beliefs, the food we enjoy, and the sports teams we cheer. The oil industry too has its own distinct labels which include the "Peak Oil" theorists, those who believe the world is fast depleting the finite supply of fossil fuel; and the pragmatists, those who recognize that engineering and technological advances in oil drilling and extraction continuously identify new reserves that make oil plentiful.

And there's a third group you may not know. These people are deeply interested in oil and its origins, but their advocacy of "abiotic theory" has many dismissing them as heretics, frauds, or idealists. They hold that oil can be derived from hydrocarbons that existed eons ago in massive pools deep within the earth's core. That source of hydrocarbons seeps up through the earth's layers and slowly replenishes oil sources. In other words, it turns the fossil-fuel paradigm upside down.

Perhaps the breakthrough for this theory came when Chris Cooper's story appeared April 16, 1999, in The Wall Street Journal about an oil field called Eugene Island. Here's an excerpt: Production at the oil field, deep in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Louisiana, was supposed to have declined years ago. And for a while, it behaved like any normal field: Following its 1973 discovery, Eugene Island 330's output peaked at about 15,000 barrels a day. By 1989, production had slowed to about 4,000 barrels a day. Then suddenly—some say almost inexplicably—Eugene Island's fortunes reversed.

The field, operated by PennzEnergy Co., is now producing 13,000 barrels a day, and probable reserves have rocketed to more than 400 million barrels from 60 million. Stranger still, scientists studying the field say the crude coming out of the pipe is of a geological age quite different from the oil that gushed 10 years ago. ...

Thomas Gold, a respected astronomer and professor emeritus at Cornell University in Ithaca, NY, has held for years that oil is actually a renewable, primordial syrup continually manufactured by the Earth under ultrahot conditions and tremendous pressures. As this substance migrates toward the surface, it is attacked by bacteria, making it appear to have an organic origin dating back to the dinosaurs, he says. All of which has led some scientists to a radical theory: Eugene Island is rapidly refilling itself, perhaps from some continuous source miles below the Earth's surface. That, they say, raises the tantalizing possibility that oil may not be the limited resource it is assumed to be.

Lees verder hier.

Dit zou natuurlijk goed nieuws moeten zijn. Hoe komt het dan toch dat ik zo'n knagend gevoel heb dat deze boodschap door schaarsteprofeten van diverse pluimage niet met gejuich zal worden begroet?

PS,

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