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Thomas Gold (1920-2004), Cornell astronomer and brilliant scientific gadfly.

The Abiogenic Theory of Petroleum Formation

Editor's Note: If we bust the myths about global warming and fossil fuels - the growing scarcity of our oil supply, and can replant lots of trees, by Freeman Dyson's estimates, a trillion, to remove all the carbon dioxide from the atmosphere now, with a lot more needed by 2050, as India, China, Brazil, etc. industrialize; then we only have to worry about methane from gas flares, and the melting of the tundra permafrost to prevent humanity from reaching the "tipping-point" of our destruction.

The Earth will undoubtedly survive, but we won't. Global Warming must be addressed by all governments, NGO's, citizen activists, and corporations. Drilling Isn't Safe. (Neil Zusman, 2010-11-14.)

Deep within the earth's crust there exists a second biosphere, composed of very primitive heat-loving bacteria and containing perhaps more living matter than is present on the earth's surface...

...Gold joins the deep hot biosphere argument to another, perhaps even more controversial theory for which he has marshalled evidence: that so-called fossil fuels originate not from compressed biological matter at all but from deep within the earth, present there since the planet's formation, long before our oxygen-rich surface biosphere came into existence.

The pattern of petroleum deposits and the mix of elements associated with them around the world, the dramatic results of a Swedish drilling project (1990) in non-sedimentary rock, and indications that some petroleum reserves are refilling - this is some of the evidence that supports Gold's thesis and cannot be adequately accounted for by conventional theories.

The implications of Gold's views are no less far-reaching than the theories behind them. The deep hot biosphere and deep-earth gas theories shed light on the nature of earthquakes, they suggest that reservoirs of petroleum and certain metal ores are much vaster (though not necessarily more accessible) than generally claimed, and they help to answer two of the most profound mysteries of the biological sciences: the origins of life on earth and the prospects of extraterrestrial life.

Did life develop from the deep hot biosphere? Are Mars and other planets as lifeless as they seem, or might they too be found to contain deep hot biospheres, if only scientists would look below the surface. --from the book jacket, 1999 edition.

Chapter 4. Evidence for Deep-Earth Gas

Chapter 5. Resolving the Petroleum Paradox

Chapter 6. The Siljan Experiment

Schematic image showing how the deep-earth gas theory would account for the helium association with methane (p. 76). Perhaps drilling deeper would make hydraulic fracturing and mountain-top removal unnecessary.

Gold's book has a Foreword by Freeman Dyson who is among the signatories of a letter to the UN criticizing the IPCC. He has argued against the ostracization of scientists whose views depart from the acknowledged mainstream of scientific opinion on climate change, stating that "heretics" have historically been an important force in driving scientific progress."

Heretics who question the dogmas are needed... I am proud to be a heretic. The world always needs heretics to challenge the prevailing orthodoxies."

See: Nicholas Davidoff. NYT. 2009. "The Civil Heretic".

See: Freeman Dyson. Heretical Thoughts About Science and Society. Edge | The Third Culture. Aug. 8, 2007.

See: Kellesidis, V.C. (2009). Challenges for very deep oil and gas drilling-will there ever be a depth limit? Athens, Greece: 3rd AMIREG International Conference (2009): Assessing the Footprint of Resource Utilization and Hazardous Waste Management.

Of course, we find oil ‘where it is’, where it has remained for ages, but how was it formed? Current belief is that oil is of biotic origin, through accumulation of organic matter (plankton, single cell organisms that floated on ocean surface) and sedimentation followed by burial. For large periods organic material has been under very high pressures and temperatures, in the range of 130-150 degrees C, in a ‘cooking pot’ and gradually transformed to petroleum.

Because of its lower density, it has migrated upwards and some surfaced and was lost, while some has hit non-permeable layers (the seal) and accumulated in the porous sedimentary rocks creating the world’s oil and gas fields.

There is, however, another school of thought, not very well known until recent years, which is gaining, though, momentum. It is the theory of abiotic (or abiogenic) origin of petroleum, that hydrocarbons have been formed in the depths of earth by reduction of CO2 and H2 gases in the presence of metal catalysts (Gold and Soter, 1980; Kenney, 1994; Krayushkin et al., 1994; Glasby, 2006; Wikipedia, 2009).

The consequences of course of such a theory, if true, could be extraordinary, as earth’s mantle becomes the inexhaustible provider of the cheapest energy source on earth...

Alexandrovich Kudryavtsev (Kudryavtsev, 1951) was the first to start the theory of abiotic generation of hydrocarbons, in what has become the modern Russian-Ukrainian theory of abyssal, abiotic petroleum (Kropotkin, 1986; Kenney et al., 2002). However, Abbas (1996) starts the history as early as 1877 by Mendeleev and provides a good overview as well as pros and cons about the two points of view.

See: Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology. Beautiful Ontario Lacus: Cassini’s Guided Tour.

Ontario Lacus, the largest lake in the southern hemisphere of Saturn’s moon Titan, turns out to be a perfect exotic vacation spot, provided you can handle the frosty, subzero temperatures and enjoy soaking in liquid hydrocarbon.

See these articles:

During last year's presidential campaign, Richard B. Cheney acknowledged that the oil-field supply corporation he headed, Halliburton Co., did business with Libya and Iran through foreign subsidiaries. But he insisted that he had imposed a "firm policy" against trading with Iraq.

"Iraq's different," he said...

Cheney has offered contradictory accounts of how much he knew about Halliburton's dealings with Iraq. In a July 30, 2000, interview on ABC-TV's "This Week," he denied that Halliburton or its subsidiaries traded with Baghdad.

"I had a firm policy that we wouldn't do anything in Iraq, even arrangements that were supposedly legal," he said. "We've not done any business in Iraq since U.N. sanctions were imposed on Iraq in 1990, and I had a standing policy that I wouldn't do that."

Cheney modified his response in an interview on the same program three weeks later, after he was informed that a Halliburton spokesman had acknowledged that Dresser Rand and Ingersoll Dresser Pump traded with Iraq. He said he was unaware that the subsidiaries were doing business with the Iraqi regime when Halliburton purchased Dresser Industries in September 1998.

See: Halliburton on Fracking Resource Guide.

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See: FCPA Blog | UK Court Won't Block Telser Extradition

See: Fracking Resource Guide | Halliburton (updated)

See: Crimes against nature: how George W. Bush and his corporate pals are plundering the country and high-jacking our democracy

See: Halliburton's Interests Assisted by White House - Los Angeles Times

See: U.S. Worldwide Military Bases

Click for the article here.

"...Environmental issues surrounding the development of CBM resources in the Powder River Basin and elsewhere have provoked conflict among mineral leaseholders, owners of the surface estates, and the public at large.

Citizen suits under the Clean Water Act and the Safe Drinking Water Act, and private tort actions, complicate the development of CBM resources. Despite geographic and geologic differences among areas in which CBM resources have been developed, the core environmental issues are consistent:

(1) Groundwater table drawdown due to pumping large quantities of groundwater.

(2) Disposal of large volumes of produced water.

(3) Methane contamination of shallow groundwater.

(4) Noise pollution from compressors and other sources.

(5) Air pollution from compressor exhaust gases, methane leakage, and dust.

(6) Surface disturbance from construction of roads, pipelines, and other facilities.

In CBM production, water is produced in large volumes and must be disposed of.

Because waters produced from coalbeds are often fresh, and subsurface disposal is expensive, disposal to surface drainages, wherever possible, carries a strong economic incentive.

Such disposal may erode soils and sediments, change microclimate, create unsustainable aquatic habitats, or salinize soils."

The Integrated Petroleum Environmental Consortium (IPEC) is a consortium of the University of Tulsa, the University of Oklahoma, Oklahoma State University and the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville.

Funded by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Office of Research and Development, the mission of IPEC is to increase the competitiveness of the domestic petroleum industry through a reduction in the costs of compliance with U.S. environmental regulations.

History of hydraulic fracturing | criticism of the 2004 EPA study.

I am writing on behalf of the Oil and Gas Accountability Project to provide an impartial analysis of the adequacy of the actions proposed in the subject report. I am a practicing hydrogeologist; I spent 32 years at the U.S. Geological Survey in both management and research positions. I left the USGS in 1995 to become a consultant. I have published more than 100 papers in the refereed scientific literature on various groundwater problems. My resume is attached to this comment.

Coal-bed methane is an energy source that in many places in the United States is associated with underground sources of drinking water (USDW). In some places the coal beds are the best aquifers in the area. In these places the development of CBM is incompatible with the continued use of the coal beds as an aquifer.

There is a direct conflict between national/state energy policy and the preservation of USDW. For example, in the Powder River Basin of Wyoming and Montana the Bureau of Land Management predicts, in their Final Environmental Impact Statement for CBM, that the development will lower the water levels in the coal measures by 600 to 800 feet over much of the basin.

This will make unusable several thousand private water wells that are completed in the coal beds. The law favors the development of the methane over the continued use of the coal beds as aquifers—in this case the best aquifers in the area.

...EPA discounted problems associated with hydraulic fractures based upon a limited sample of identified problems. They relied upon citizen reports almost exclusively. There were no independent surveys, no independent field investigation or other well sampling. The EPA exercise is incomplete at best.

...EPA seems caught up in the conflict between the National Energy Policy of the Bush Administration and the EPA mandate to protect USDW.

Letter written by Hydrology expert, John D, Bredehoeft, to Joan Harrigan-Farrelly: Chief Underground Injection Control, Prevention Program Office of Ground Water and Drinking Water Environmental Protection Agency.

RE: EPA draft study report:Evaluation of Impacts to Underground Sources of Drinking Water by Hydraulic Fracturing of Coalbed Methane Reservoirs: Subject: Federal Register August 28, 2002, Volume 67, Number 10, Pages55249-55251 (water Docket Id no. w-01-09-11).

See also: Bredehoeft, J. (2003). " From Models to Performance Assessment: The Conceptualization Problem." Ground Water, Vol. 41, No.5 pp 571-577.