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  1. Naked Science Forum
  2. Non Life Sciences
  3. Geology, Palaeontology & Archaeology
  4. Oil : Fossil Fuel or Primordial Fuel
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Oil : Fossil Fuel or Primordial Fuel

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Offline dkv (OP)

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Oil : Fossil Fuel or Primordial Fuel
« on: 01/10/2007 15:34:57 »
Since the story of limited oil supply has been circulated there has been a regular increase in the Oil production...
The oil does not appear to finite... this is main assumption of Bio-fuel theory.
The prices have been increasing because oil consumption has been increasing at a faster rate than the oil field discovery.

What is the truth?
There has been no evidence so far to indicate that Oil is limited and therefore it is a consequence of Biological process.

And what geological purpose does oil serve?
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Offline Bored chemist

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Oil : Fossil Fuel or Primordial Fuel
« Reply #1 on: 01/10/2007 20:25:47 »
"There has been no evidence so far to indicate that Oil is limited and therefore it is a consequence of Biological process." Surely that's the wrong way round but please explain the fact that oil contains compounds like retene and phytane derivatives. These are readily produced by the degradation of plant derived materials but not from other sources.

My socks can serve a purpose (keeping my feet warm) because I am able to choose to use them for it.
In what sense can geology choose to use oil?
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Offline Ophiolite

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Oil : Fossil Fuel or Primordial Fuel
« Reply #2 on: 08/10/2007 08:35:21 »
Quote from: dkv on 01/10/2007 15:34:57
There has been no evidence so far to indicate that Oil is limited and therefore it is a consequence of Biological process.
There is abundant evidence. Oil field production falls away over period of months or years.
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another_someone

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Oil : Fossil Fuel or Primordial Fuel
« Reply #3 on: 08/10/2007 13:59:56 »
Quote from: dkv on 01/10/2007 15:34:57
Since the story of limited oil supply has been circulated there has been a regular increase in the Oil production...

Oil production has continued to increase because we have become ever more skilful at obtaining oil from reserves that previously we could not achieve.  This process will continue, as our technologies continue to improve, but there will nonetheless be a process of investing in ever more expensive technical solutions for ever less increment in production, while continuing to run out of oil from the cheaper oil fields.

It is likely that we will still have more than ample oil supplies for a very long time to come, but the cost of extracting that oil will become ever more expensive, so it will come to a point where it will no longer be cost effective to extract what is left of the available oil.

Quote from: dkv on 01/10/2007 15:34:57
The oil does not appear to finite... this is main assumption of Bio-fuel theory.
The prices have been increasing because oil consumption has been increasing at a faster rate than the oil field discovery.

What is the truth?
There has been no evidence so far to indicate that Oil is limited and therefore it is a consequence of Biological process.

Not sure whether the production of oil as a biological process, or a geological process, has any bearing on the supply of oil.  Whatever the process, there must be a process, and all processes have a finite limit on their capacity.

As you rightly say, the problem with oil consumption (but it does not only apply to oil) is that our consumption exceeds available supply - but it is not merely our ability to find new fields (this matter alone must ultimately be self limiting, because even if one took the extreme position of hypothesising that there was fresh oil to be found under every square metre of land on the planet, that is still a finite resource), but rather that we consume oil faster than it is produced by the processes that do produce the oil.  These processes have in the past, because of the long time they have been running, accumulated large historic reserves of oil, but even if the processes do continue to operate, the rate at which they operate would be very slow in order to build up similar reserves again.

The fact that individual oil fields do become exhausted is a clear indication that within the individual oil fields themselves, the rate of extraction exceeds any possible new production that is being undertaken within the field (and the fact that the fields do not recover quickly (i.e. not on time-scales we have observed within our lifetimes) after production ceases also indicates that the process of fresh oil production, if it is ongoing at all, must be at an extremely slow rate).
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