[Paleopsych] LRC: George Crispin: Are We Running Out of Oil?

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George Crispin: Are We Running Out of Oil?
http://www.lewrockwell.com/crispin/crispin12.html
5.5.3

    It is a complicated subject, but now I am familiar with the two
    theories of the origin of petroleum, the conventional one that assumes
    that oil is biogenic, originating as plant and animal matter and the
    other, that it is abiogenic, it or its raw material having been formed
    with the earth when it was formed 4.5 billion years ago.

    My learning curve began several years ago with a short article that
    described the oil field beneath the Eugene 330 oil platform in the
    Gulf of Mexico. I lost the clipping but did not forget the story of a
    dried up oil well that was refilling itself. This spring when I found
    a new discussion of Eugene 330, essentially describing the same
    conditions, my original conclusions of a mantle filled with or
    manufacturing petroleum were reinforced, leading to the conclusion
    that the worlds supply of oil was essentially limitless But by now the
    Peak Oil people were out in force and desperate to prove that we are
    due to run out of oil soon, and must prepare ourselves for war and/or
    starvation. This led me to:
        * C. Maurice and C. Smithson, Doomsday Mythology: "Every ten or
        fifteen years since the late 1800s (when we began using petroleum)
        experts have predicted that oil reserves would last only ten more
            years. These experts have predicted nine of the last zero
                            oil-reserve exhaustions."
      * Sheik Yamani, one time oil minister to Saudi Arabia, who stated in
         a speech to Europeans, "The stone age ended, but not because of
          any lack or stones. Undoubtedly the oil age will end the same
                                      way."
        * Jean Whelan, a geochemist and senior researcher with the Woods
         Hole Oceanographic Institute assigned to study the Eugene field.
        Becoming familiar with the phenomenon, she said " . . .. I believe
          there is a huge system of oil just migrating deep underground"
         * Dr. Thomas Golds book [9]The Deep Hot Biosphere, in which he
        theorizes that our oil or the methane from which it could evolve,
        was formed 4.5 billion years ago when the earth began, that it is
         not a fossil fuel but picks up traces of fossils as it works its
         way upwards. This theory leaves the earth with a huge supply of
         oil unlike the fossil theory, which assumes oil to be the result
                  of a one-time dying off of animals and plants.
        * The Russian Ukrainian Deep Abiotic Theory (except for Dr Gold,
         virtually unknown in the West) has long gone beyond theory, the
         Russians having brought in several fields producing abiotic oil
        using super deep drilling technology. By 1946 their production had
        dropped off. Now, they, along with Saudi Arabia and ourselves are
         one of the three largest producers in the world. This, plus our
             oil shale, and Canadas tar sands, plus as yet unimagined
         technologies, plus the fact that oil is only a part of the total
         energy picture make it seem highly unlikely the world will ever
                                 run out of oil.

    One clincher in the debate is that Peak Oil writings are terribly
    muddled. The other is the suspicion that its adherents seem to fall
    into Professor Kuhns description of people who cannot accept anything
    outside their conventional world, people who cannot be scientifically
    critical, whose every belief must fit their current paradigm.

    George Crispin [[10]send him mail] is a retired businessman who heads
    a Catholic homeschooling cooperative in Auburn, Alabama.

    [11]George Crispin Archives

References

    9. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0387985468/lewrockwell/
   10. mailto:crispin73 at charter.net
   11. http://www.lewrockwell.com/crispin/crispin-arch.html