Hydrocarbons are inexhaustible?

Danilo Anton

Prologue of the book "Gas and Petroleum: inexhaustible?"

The issue of oil is constantly on the front pages of the newspapers.

It is considered the most valuable resource in our contemporary civilization energy resource hungry.

Oil and its derivatives are essential to move cars, airplanes, thermoelectric plants and plastics industries. Its economic importance is indisputable.

Geopolitical interests have generated instability in several producing countries leading to conflicts and wars on the one hand, and on the other, sustained variation in prices. Sharp increases during the period 1970-1980 (from U$S 10 to U$S 100), decreasing in the 1980s and increasing again in the first decade of the 21^st century. During the last two years a sudden retreat of the price took place and by November 2015 it has reached 40 U$S per barrel.

One of the main arguments for the price increase in the 1970s was based on the widespread belief that the genesis of oil and other hydrocarbons was biological in nature, and therefore oil fields will be restricted exclusively to the sedimentary basins of the world.

Most scientists assume that it is in these basins which have accumulated plants and/or fossil animals that gave rise to oil and natural gas.

So much so, that in the common vocabulary hydrocarbons are called "fossil fuels".

According to this reasoning stocks of oil and gas would be limited and would be, by definition, non-renewable resources.

The predicted relatively low volumes of hydrocarbons, their non-renewable nature and their widespread need, would explain and justify past and potential future price increases and their importance in the economy of many countries.

At present these premises are generally accepted and political strategies of states and business organizations are based on them.

It is the theory of biological origin or biogenic of  hydrocarbons.

However, with the currently available evidence, and based on the views of some astrophysicists and geologists, one can say that the belief that oil and gas have a fossil has a very weak scientific backing.

The substitute theory, which considers more adequately the data of reality sustains that oil, natural gas and carbonaceous ore formations have a mineral origin and their stocks are virtually inexhaustible.

It is the mineral or abiogenic theory on the origin of hydrocarbons.

According to this approach, the hydrocarbons are generated through processes of planetary degassing. These are processes by which the various compounds of carbon and hydrogen rise from the planet's interior and recombine in the upper mantle (adapting to new conditions of temperature and pressure) ascending into the Earth crust to accumulate in areas where this rise is obstructed (often in the sedimentary basins).

Some adherents of the mineral theory, particularly the Austrian astrophysicist Thomas Gold, argue that rising oil oxidizes in depth due to the action of certain bacteria (hyperthermal bacteria), forming water and carbon dioxide, and leaving behind reduced waste minerals (forming sometimes metallic ore).

These phenomena would occur in all planets of the solar system (and probably in other star systems) where temperature is appropriate. Therefore it would be reasonable to assume that this type of underground life would be the rule while the shallow life (as in the Earth) would be the exception.

Similarly, Gold says that the movements of hydrocarbonaceous fluids in depth and their surface emissions are causing the majority of seismic events and tsunamis (perhaps all).

In short, the integral and systemic theory developed by this Austrian astrophysicist radically rethinks, not only the beliefs about the origin of oil and other hydrocarbons, but the very foundations of geology and planetary astrophysics.

The book presented here aims to provide a synthesis of these ideas, framed in the new approaches about the nature of life and their distribution in space, developed by Fred Hoyle and other researchers from the Institute of Astrobiofísica of Cardiff, in order to introduce new evidence on an issue that until now has been considered unilaterally, and even dogmatic, by many scientists and academics, with significant implications in terms of the economy and society.

Danilo Anton