Exclusive Content > Editorials
Fossil Fuel is an Oxymoron
Smokin Joe:
--- Quote from: catfish1957 on May 03, 2023, 02:36:47 am ---I spent almost my entire career in this industry. Back then is was "petroleum" and "petrochemical".
Trying to think when the venacular of the term changed.
--- End quote ---
I think it was when 'they' started lumping all existing non-nuclear fuels together to try and replace them to "save the planet" for fun and profit, especially profit. Once emissions were cleaned up, they declared CO2 a pollutant, which is the product of respiration in any animal except anaerobes. So now, ANYTHING we burn to produce energy is either "biomass" or a "Fossil Fuel". The nonsense about oil being derived from dead dinosaurs didn't help clarify that.
Most likely, organisms concentrated the organic compounds (especially carbon) that go to produce hydrocarbons. In all the oil wells I have been involved with and examined samples from (some 300 or so), critters or algal mats are associated with the oil.
Even the modern shale plays have source beds high in organic carbon.
I won't say abiotic hydrocarbons are impossible, nor that they definitively do not exist, just that in 40 years I have yet to see a commercial accumulation not associated with dead organisms.
Smokin Joe:
--- Quote from: Bigun on May 03, 2023, 02:37:53 am ---I'm pretty sure that the things we (think we) fully understand are dwarfed by those we don't.
Whatever the processes that created in situ hydrocarbons on this planet, I see no reason at all to assume that those processes just stopped.
--- End quote ---
Yep. The more we learn, the less we know. Every answer brings more questions.
It is highly unlikely that the processes forming hydrocarbons have stopped, any more than the processes that build mountains or erode them away. It is likely that our consumption of those reserves has reached the point where it exceeds to formative processes output (and our ability to discover/produce those reserves). For now, we have enough, but we are wasting time imho, going down 'green' rabbit holes when we could and should be looking at alternate sources of energy, besides wind and solar as currently utilized, and we should be acknowledging that some energy sources are best suited for certain applications, while others do just fine for others.
One size does not fit all with current technology, nor have we progressed to the degree that there is a single form of energy which will meet all needs. Portability, storability, on demand usage, ability to refuel in a short time, and the ability to carry onboard power for more demanding applications are factors electricity has not met for major energy uses, so if we are to continue to function at even present levels, hydrocarbons are not going away as a fuel source, and definitely not as feed stocks for chemical applications or lubricants--without which the current 'renewable' energy industry cannot exist.
As for long term reliability, Hydropower, Nuclear, Coal, petroleum, are all proven resources. Wind and solar are subject to a plethora of weather and latitude related problems, and thus not reliable enough as a base source, especially without storage capabilities on a large scale.
The calculus of whether "renewables" will have a net gain in energy isn't being done without bias which mucks up the equation, and the long term effects are not known at scale. Mining operations more extensive than those at present may not be able to keep up with demand, have considerable environmental and humanitarian issues of their own, and the problem of waste from units which have reached the end of their service life has yet to be addressed at scale.
I see more problems than solutions in the long term as it sits, and those have yet to be added into the equation to decide if renewables are 'saving' the planet or actually doing more harm than more traditional fuels.
Unfortunately, the politics of control, profit motives (often profits derived from looting taxpayers for subsidies under the boot heel of arbitrary and capricious regulation rather than producing a better product cheaper), and corruption for political/pecuniary gain have tainted the data sets and discussion of the issue to where it is difficult at best to give an honest and frank appraisal of energy generation methodologies currently being presented as the way of the future.
But in the parlance of thousands of oilfield hands (and others), "If it ain't broke, don't fix it!".
Pilot and test projects might be in order, but the push toward full-blown dependence on unproven methods seems ill advised.
Mod2:
Moved to Exclusive Content; no cited article.
ChemEngrMBA:
--- Quote from: Bigun on May 03, 2023, 02:37:53 am ---I'm pretty sure that the things we (think we) fully understand are dwarfed by those we don't.
Whatever the processes that created in situ hydrocarbons on this planet, I see no reason at all to assume that those processes just stopped.
--- End quote ---
Please point out the location(s) where those processes continue. This will be news to the world. Don't assume. Point out the location(s).
ChemEngrMBA:
https://www.space.com/4968-titan-oil-earth.html
Titan Has More Oil Than Earth
By Space.com Staff
published February 13, 2008
An artist's imagination of hydrocarbon pools, icy and rocky terrain on the surface of Saturn's largest moon Titan.
Saturn's smoggy moon Titan has hundreds of times more natural gas and other liquid hydrocarbons than all the known oil and natural gas reserves on Earth, scientists said today.
The hydrocarbons rain from the sky on the miserable moon, collecting in vast deposits that form lakes and dunes. This much was known. But now the stuff has been quantified using observations from NASA's Cassini spacecraft.
"Titanis just covered in carbon-bearing material — it's a giant factory of organic chemicals," said Ralph Lorenz, a Cassini radar team member from the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. "This vast carbon inventory is an important window into the geology and climate history of Titan."
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