Oil: Fossil Fuel or Abiotic Fuel?

The following is based, to a large degree, on this website

Remember how I said I’d like to be wrong? Well I’ve been doing some reading, specifically from the people who use inverted commas for the phrase peak oil.

One of the more robust of the contradictory theories (most simply yell at and belittle people who feel that peak oil is a reality) is that there is no such thing as peak oil, because oil is a renewable resource. The theory goes that oil is made at high temperatures and pressures around the magma/crust boundary from rocks and is being made all the time.

It’s an intriguing theory. One which makes me sadder than it makes me happy. If this is the case then there will be more and more oil, which as I pointed out in my peak oil post is the catch 22. It’s the worst case scenario as it means business as usual. Peak oil provides a softer crash, from which it is easier for the survivors, and for all the non-human life on the planet, to continue. More oil means more carbon dioxide, which means worse climate change (if the abiotic oil theory is true then it means no end of carbon dioxide emissions, even after places like Bangladesh are consumed by rising sea levels). Catastrophic climate change is the hard crash, from which humans and non-humans will have the hardest time recovering.

If the West can continue drilling for and using oil, it will. Indefinitely. We are so addicted to the stuff for almost everything we do that without the stick of it running out there is no way we can wean ourselves off of it.

I would also like to put forward that the Iraq war makes a lot more sense if those in power believe that oil isn’t a fossil fuel, but instead an abiotic fuel. Using such vast amounts of oil and other things like lives to take and hold a dwindling resource never made much sense to me. Bush may look like a chimp. He may act like a chimp on TV. It may even be his highly successful election platform. However, I don’t believe he is as stupid as he makes out. I think he simply hit on a winning electoral strategy which fed the average US Joe’s need to feel superior to something. He gave them a presidential candidate which they could feel superior to and they lapped it up.

The term ‘renewable’ needs to be looked at as well. Many people believe that wood is a renewable resource, and it’s true to a certain point of use. If you use trees faster than they grow then it’s no longer a renewable resource as it will dwindle. If you use any resource faster than it is replaced then it’s not renewable any more. Claiming that oil is abiotic and thus continuous and renewable ignores the fact that if we use it faster than the Earth makes it then we will still reach the peak oil scenario. Empires have fallen throughout history because they reached peak wood, they exploited the trees around them at a faster rate than the trees could recover from, so they trees dwindled and their empire fell. We can do the same, even if oil is renewed through natural processes, even if they are fairly quick, in geological terms.

Another thing I picked up from reading about oil as an abiotic fuel was that the writer wanted to make me feel like billions of barrels were being generated every day. He used quite expansive phrases and was adamant on the point that peak oil is non-existent because the fuel isn’t a fossil fuel but instead a abiotic fuel, thus continuous. Funny use of the word, really. In my opinion one would only use the phrases ‘continuous’ if one wanted to place in the mind of the reader the impression that it is not only being made all the time, but in massive quantities. This raises a few questions for me:

• Why is there not more of it? I mean, why isn’t the entire planet ankle deep in the stuff? 4.5 billion years of being made at rates sufficient to match or exceed present day usage would surely mean the whole planet was oil by now?
• If it’s not being made at present day usage rates, then why do you claim that peak oil is a myth? The theory doesn’t rely on it being a fossil fuel, it relies on us using it faster than it’s being made.
• How do you explain the fact that the production of over 30 countries around the world has peaked? You site an example of a self filling oil well from the Gulf of Mexico called Eugene Island 330, but this is clearly a freak occurrence.

Focusing a little closer on Eugene Island 330, I’d accept the hypothesis that the field was incorrectly mapped, or had the majority of its volume at depths too deep to map accurately than that the area is spontaneously and suddenly starting to generate billions of barrels of oil. If the Gulf of Mexico isn’t just a black sludge of oil and crap (like plastic bags) then I think we can discount the theory that natural factors are causing billions of barrels of oil to be created. If natural factors were generating billions of barrels of oil in so short a time, why did they only just start? If they didn’t only just start then why is the Gulf not just a big pool of mostly oil? I feel it’s an important question to start off with, yet this guy, who speaks for pages and pages on the amazing nature of Eugene Island 330 doesn’t even once contemplate the reality of what he is suggesting. He suggests that the oil is being made deep in the ground and migrating up to the lake the oil drillers surveyed. I would suggest the oil was locked deep underground and is now able to force its way up because we have changed the pressures above it.

I would suggest that even though the field seems to be filling again, it will never exceed the 15,000 barrels per day (bpd) peak of production. I would even suggest that you wont see much more than the current 13,000 bpd it’s ‘currently’ making. This is due to the fact that I don’t accept that the oil is fresh generation, but hidden reserve. A lake of oil not detected, filling the empty space left by the lake of oil that was detected. Over-flowing into the sea as a result of instability caused by oil drillers.

The refilling oil well and the abiotic fuel theory in general doesn’t explain why America, as addicted to oil as it is, has not managed to make significant or sustained increases in its production since 1971. It doesn’t explain why there have been no new discoveries of any significance since the 1960’s. It doesn’t explain why so many countries, try as they might, can’t raise their production any more and are instead seeing it fall.

Now, I fully accept that DeBeers are suppressing the flow of diamonds (luxury, not essential) in order to increase the price of diamonds. I can accept that maybe Saudi Arabia might suppress the flow of its oil (globally essential product) in order to push up global prices. I can accept a few of these conspiracy theories. However, I can’t accept that every country in the world is in on it. There are only a few corporate oil giants, sure, but there are a lot of nationalised oil fields and national oil exploration. A few of them are even from oil-rich nations such as Venezuela who don’t like playing the normal game of oil-ball. I don’t accept that the thirty-year trend that we have been seeing is just down to corporations trying to squeeze that extra few million out of us.

America became a global super power on the back of insanely cheap oil and is losing a lot of ground due to the rising price of oil and its reluctance to pay that price. Many countries around the world want to be superpowers to protect themselves from America. Many of these countries have nationalised oil industries. Why wouldn’t they want to pump as much for themselves as they could, find as much for themselves as they could, and get on the fast-track for economic dominion? If American corporations have just decided that the American model of growth is no longer for them, why does this mean other countries are doing the same?

No, the abiotic fuel model might explain why there is so much oil in reserve, but it doesn’t allow for a business as usual approach and it certainly doesn’t debunk peak oil. It doesn’t matter if it’s fossil or abiotic, it’s running out and it’s going to be a long and bumpy road down the other side of the peak, more than enough to parallel the smooth and sleek ride up this side of the slope.