Astronomers Discover Complex Organic Matter in the Universe

HKU Astronomers Discover Complex Organic Matter in the Universe

 

  A spectrum from the Infrared Space Observatory superimposed on an image of the Orion Nebula where these complex organics are found.

 

 

 

A schematic structure of organic matter in the Universe. This typical structure is a mixture of ring-like (aromatic) and chainlike (aliphatic) chemical sites and contains about 100 carbon atoms.

   In today’s issue of the journal Nature, astronomers report that organic compounds of unexpected complexity exist throughout the Universe. The results suggest that complex organic compounds are not the sole domain of life but can be made naturally by stars.
   Prof. Sun Kwok and Dr. Yong Zhang of The University of Hong Kong show that an organic substance commonly found throughout the Universe contains a mixture of aromatic (ring-like) and aliphatic (chain-like) components. The compounds are so complex that their chemical structures resemble those of coal and petroleum. Since coal and oil are
remnants of ancient life, this type of organic matter was thought to arise only from living organisms. The team’s discovery suggests that complex organic compounds can be synthesized in space even when no life forms are present.
   The researchers investigated an unsolved phenomenon: a set of infrared emissions detected in stars, interstellar space, and galaxies. These spectral signatures are known as “Unidentified Infrared Emission features”. For over two decades, the most commonly accepted theory on the origin of these signatures has been that they come from simple organic molecules made of carbon and hydrogen atoms, called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) molecules.         

  From observations taken by the Infrared Space Observatory and the Spitzer Space Telescope, Kwok and Zhang showed that the astronomical spectra have features that cannot be explained by PAH molecules. Instead, the team proposes that the substances generating these infrared emissions have chemical structures that are much more complex. By analyzing spectra of star dust formed in exploding stars called novae, they show that stars are making these complex organic compounds on extremely short time scales of weeks.
   Not only are stars producing this complex organic matter, they are also ejecting it into the general interstellar space, the region between stars. The work supports an earlier idea proposed by Kwok that old stars are molecular factories capable of manufacturing organic compounds. “Our work has shown that stars have no problem making complex organic compounds under near-vacuum conditions,” says Kwok. “Theoretically, this is impossible, but observationally we can see it happening.”
   Most interestingly, this organic star dust is similar in structure to complex organic compounds found in meteorites. Since meteorites are remnants of the early Solar System, the findings raise the possibility that stars enriched the early Solar System with organic compounds. The early Earth was subjected to severe bombardments by comets and asteroids, which potentially could have carried organic star dust. Whether these delivered organic compounds played any role in the development of life on Earth remains an open question.

 

Source:http://www.scifac.hku.hk/file/news/1413/Eng_press_release_Organic_Matter_in_the_Universe_.pdf

Russian-Ukrainian theory of deep, abiotic petroleum

Russian-Ukrainian theory of deep, abiotic petroleum

Oil is NOT a fossil fuel

by Peter J. Morgan
    We all grew up believing that oil is a fossil fuel, and just about every day this ‘fact’ is mentioned in newspapers and on TV. However, let us not forget what Lenin said – “A lie told often enough becomes truth.” It was in 1757 that the great Russian scholar Mikhailo V. Lomonosov enunciated the hypothesis that oil might originate from biological detritus. The scientists who first rejected Lomonsov’s hypothesis, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, were the famous German naturalist and geologist Alexander von Humboldt and the French chemist and thermodynamicist Louis Joseph Gay-Lussac, who together enunciated the proposition that oil is a primordial material erupted from great depth, and is unconnected with any biological matter near the surface of the Earth.

    With the development of chemistry during the nineteenth century, and following particularly the enunciation of the second law of thermodynamics by Clausius in 1850, Lomonosov’s biological hypothesis came inevitably under attack. In science, a hypothesis is merely somebody’s attempt to explain something. It is merely that – an attempt. In the scientific method, a hypothesis is also an open invitation for somebody else to discredit it by using physical evidence to demonstrate that the hypothesis is flawed, or incorrect – that is how scientific knowledge is advanced. Einstein is reputed to have remarked that just one fact was all that was needed to invalidate his theory of relativity.
    
   The great French chemist Marcellin Berthelot particularly scorned the hypothesis of a biological origin for petroleum. Berthelot first carried out experiments involving, among others, a series of what are now referred to as Kolbe reactions and demonstrated the generation of petroleum by dissolving steel in strong acid. He produced the suite of n-alkanes and made it plain that such were generated in total absence of any “biological” molecule or process. Berthelot’s investigations were later extended and refined by other scientists, including Biasson and Sokolov, all of whom observed similar phenomena and likewise concluded that petroleum was unconnected to biological matter.
    
   During the last quarter of the nineteenth century, the great Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleev also examined and rejected Lomonosov’s hypothesis of a biological origin for petroleum. In contrast to Berthelot who had made no suggestion as to where or how petroleum might have come, Mendeleev stated clearly that petroleum is a primordial material which has erupted from great depth. With extraordinary perception, Mendeleev hypothesised the existence of geological structures which he called “deep faults,” and correctly identified such as the locus of weakness in the crust of the Earth via which petroleum would travel from the depths. After he made that hypothesis, Mendeleev was abusively criticised by the geologists of his time, for the notion of deep faults was then unknown. Today, of course, an understanding of plate tectonics would be unimaginable without recognition of deep faults.

    Soon after the end of World War II, the Soviet dictator, Stalin, realized that the then Soviet Union needed its own substantial oil reserves and production system if it was ever again called upon to defend itself against an attacker such as Hitler’s Germany. In 1947, the Soviet Union had, as its petroleum ‘experts’ then estimated, very limited petroleum reserves, of which the largest were the oil fields in the region of the Abseron Peninsula, near the Caspian city of Baku in what is now the independent country of Azerbaijan. At that time, the oil fields near Baku were considered to be “depleting” and “nearing exhaustion.” During World War II, the Soviets had occupied the two northern provinces of Iran, but in 1946, they were forced out by the British. By 1947, the Soviets realised that the American, British, and French were not going to allow them to operate in the Middle East, nor in the petroleum producing areas of Africa, nor Indonesia, nor Burma, nor Malaysia, nor anywhere in the Far East, nor in Latin America. The government of the Soviet Union recognised then that new petroleum reserves would have to be discovered and developed within the U.S.S.R.
    
   Stalin’s response was to set up a task force of top scientists and engineers in a project similar to the Manhattan Project – the top-secret US program to develop the atom bomb during WWII – and initially under the same secrecy, and charged them with the task of finding out what oil was, where it came from and how to find, recover and efficiently refine it.

   In 1951, the modern Russian-Ukrainian theory of deep, abiotic petroleum origins was first enunciated by Nikolai A. Kudryavtsev at the All-Union petroleum geology congress. Kudryavtsev analyzed the hypothesis of a biological origin of petroleum, and pointed out the failures of the claims then commonly put forth to support that hypothesis. Kudryavtsev was soon joined by numerous other Russian and Ukrainian geologists, among the first of whom were P. N. Kropotkin, K. A. Shakhvarstova, G. N. Dolenko, V. F. Linetskii, V. B. Porfir’yev, and K. A. Anikiev.
    
   During the first decade of its existence, the modern theory of petroleum origins was the subject of great contention and controversy. Between the years 1951 and 1965, with the leadership of Kudryavtsev and Porfir’yev, increasing numbers of geologists published articles demonstrating the failures and inconsistencies inherent in the old “biogenic origin” hypothesis. With the passing of the first decade of the modern theory, the failure of Lomonosov’s eighteenth century hypothesis of an origin of petroleum from biological detritus in the near-surface sediments had been thoroughly demonstrated, the hypothesis discredited, and the modern theory firmly established.
    
   An important point to be recognised is that the modern Russian-Ukrainian theory of abiotic petroleum origins was, initially, a geologists’ theory. Kudryavtsev, Kropotkin, Dolenko, Porfir’yev and the developers of the modern theory of petroleum were all geologists.
    
Their arguments were necessarily those of geologists, developed from many observations, and much data, organized into a pattern, and argued by persuasion.
By contrast, the practice of mainstream, predictive modern science, particularly physics and chemistry, involves a minimum of observation or data, and applies only a minimum of physical law, inevitably expressed with formal mathematics, and argued by compulsion. Such predictive proof of the geologists’ assertions for the modern Russian-Ukrainian theory of deep, abiotic petroleum origins had to wait almost a half century, for such required the development not only of modern quantum statistical mechanics, but also that of the techniques of many-body theory and the application of statistical geometry to the analysis of dense fluids, designated scaled particle theory.
    
   To recapitulate, Stalin’s team of scientists and engineers found that oil is not a ‘fossil fuel’ but is a natural product of planet Earth – the high-temperature, high-pressure continuous reaction between calcium carbonate and iron oxide – two of the most abundant compounds making up the Earth’s crust. This continuous reaction occurs at a depth of approximately 100 km at a pressure of approximately 50,000 atmospheres (5 GPa) and a temperature of approximately 1500°C, and will continue more or less until the ‘death’ of planet Earth in millions of years’ time. The high pressure, as well as centrifugal acceleration from the Earth’s rotation, causes oil to continuously seep up along fissures in the Earth’s crust into subterranean caverns, which we call oil fields. Oil is still being produced in great abundance, and is a sustainable resource – by the same definition that makes geothermal energy a sustainable resource. All we have to do is develop better geotechnical science to predict where it is and learn how to drill down deep enough to get to it. So far, the Russians have drilled to more than 13 km and found oil. In contrast, the deepest any Western oil company has drilled is around 4.5 km.
    
   A team consisting of Russian scientists and Dr J. F. Kenney, of Gas Resources Corporation, Houston, USA, have actually built a reactor vessel and proven that oil is produced from calcium carbonate and iron oxide, as detailed on the --
This is what Dr Kenney has to say about how he came to be involved:

“In the first instance, the articles on this” (his company’s website --) “are dedicated to the memory of Nikolai Alexandrovich Kudryavtsev, who first enunciated in 1951 what has become the modern Russian-Ukrainian theory of deep, abiotic petroleum origins. After Kudryavtsev, all the rest followed. Secondly, these articles are dedicated generally to the many geologists, geochemists, geophysicists, and petroleum engineers of the former U.S.S.R. who, during the past half century, developed modern petroleum science. By doing so, they raised their country from being, in 1946, a relatively petroleum-poor one, to the greatest petroleum producing and exporting nation in the world today. These articles are dedicated specifically to the late Academician Emmanuil Bogdanovich Chekaliuk, the greatest statistical thermodynamicist ever to have turned his formidable intellect to the problem of petroleum genesis. In the Summer of 1976, during the depths of the cold war and at immeasurable hazard, Academician Chekaliuk chose to respond, across a gulf of political hostility, to an unsolicited letter from an unknown American chief executive officer of a petroleum company headquartered in Houston, Texas. Thenafter and for almost fifteen years, Academician Chekaliuk was my teacher, my collaborator, and my friend. [JFK] 1. Kudryavtsev, N. A. (1951) Petroleum Economy [Neftianoye Khozyaistvo] 9, 17-29.”

   Needless to say, the last people to tell us the truth about oil will be the oil producers and oil companies, for they of course have a vested interest in perpetuating the myth that oil is a fossil fuel and that it will soon be exhausted, in order to ratchet up the price for as long as they can. And don’t look to the Russians to enlighten the world with the truth about oil either, for they are surely laughing now that the oil price is approaching $US150 a barrel.
    
   A US Public Service Radio interview with Dr Kenney may be heard on the --.
 
   Some may ask “How come all of this isn’t commonly known?” For the answer, one needs to consider what happened to Galileo when he first put forward the hypothesis that rather than the conventional wisdom that the sun revolved around the earth, the earth revolved around the sun. He was branded a heretic and locked up! You are invited to read an excellent article entitled “Cognitive Processes and the Suppression of Sound Scientific Ideas”, by J. Sacherman 1997, at --

       Some may say “Well, even if oil is a renewable resource, mankind should not burn it because the carbon dioxide so produced causes global warming.” My answer to that is that the idea that mankind’s production of carbon dioxide causes global warming is merely a hypothesis, and this has been thoroughly discredited by Prof. Robert Carter and numerous other scientists. You are invited to view a video of Prof. Robert Carter’s demolition of the “mankind’s production of carbon dioxide causes global warming” hypothesis -- where you will see Prof. Carter illustrate five examples of verifiable science that refute the hypothesis. Prof. Carter makes the point that truth in science is never decided by consensus, but if you prefer to believe the pronouncement by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that “2,500 scientists of the United Nation’s IPCC agree that humans are causing a climate crisis”, which is repeated ad nauseam by environmentalists, the press and governments around the world, including ours, then you are invited to read an article at -- where Tom Harris and John McLean tell the truth about this deception and point out that “an example of rampant misrepresentation of IPCC reports is the frequent assertion that ‘hundreds of IPCC scientists’ are known to support the following statement, arguably the most important of the WG I report, namely “Greenhouse gas forcing has very likely caused most of the observed global warming over the last 50 years.” In total, only 62 scientists reviewed the chapter in which this statement appears, the critical chapter 9, “Understanding and Attributing Climate Change”. Almost 60% of the comments received from the 62 expert reviewers of this critical chapter were rejected by the IPCC editors and 55 of the 62 expert reviewers had serious vested interest, leaving only seven expert reviewers who appear impartial. In my view, seven does not constitute “a consensus of the world’s scientists..” If it’s consensus you want before you decide on what the truth is, then follow the link to The National Post to read about the petition signed by more than 32,000 scientists, more than 9000 of whom hold PhDs. That’s consensus!

Oil Quotes

Oil Quotes

 Most part from: http://oilismastery.blogspot.com/

“Sigh. Why do people insist on perpetuating the myth that petroleum comes from dead plants and animals? The abiogenic origin of petroleum products is fairly established, and observable on other planets incapable of supporting life, yet with vast quantities of methane.”  --  Jere Krischel, 2010

“From the analysis of a ketchup stain on a tie can not be concluded that the tie would be made ​​from tomatoes.”  --  Peter Szatmari, geologist

“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe.” -- Albert Einstein,  physicist, cosmologist

“New ideas in science are not always right just because they are new. Nor are the old ideas always wrong just because they are old. A critical attitude is clearly required of every scientist.” -- Thomas Gold, 

astrophysicist, astronomer, cosmologist and geoscientist

“What they've been teaching us in school about oil coming from fossils is wrong.” -- C. Warren Hunt,  geologist

“Although the biogenic, organic model has been the one generally accepted by the petroleum industry almost since its birth, abiogenic, inorganic models recurrently emerge, proposed by geologists and, more often, chemists.” -- Peter Szatmari, geologist, 2011 

“The world is full of resources - the question is how we can apply technology to make then energy resources.” -- Robert Ryan, E&P manager, 2009 

“Recent theoretical and experimental evidence demonstrates the possibility that hydrocarbons may have formed in the depths of the earth. If the theory is substantiated further, then oil-depletion becomes a myth and the industry must be ready to face the new challenges of drilling even deeper, to the basement rock, where huge oil fields may await to be discovered, as White Tiger in Vietnam has proved.”  -- V.C. Kelessidis, Sethptember 2009

“There is no doubt that our research proves that crude oil and natural gas are generated without the involvement of fossils. All types of bedrock can serve as reservoirs of oil.” -- Vladimir A. Kutcherov, geologist, September 2009

“In the coal is found well preserved fossils of plants and animals, including saber-toothed tigers. It is thought that the coal was originally a thin liquid that surrounded and hardened around the fossils. So the fact that coal contains fossils does not necessarily mean that it is a fossil fuel.” -- M. Ragheb,  nuclear physicist, 2009

“... our planet may have enormous, inexhaustible resources of hydrocarbons.” -- Vladimir A. Kutcherov, geologist, August 2009

“We demonstrated the chemical transformation of methane to heavier saturated hydrocarbons such as ethane, butane and propane and its reversibility under the conditions of the upper Earth's mantle.” -- Alexander Goncharov, geologist, August 2009

“All major oil and gas provinces in the world are apparently associated with transtensive tectonic conditions, supporting the abiogenic theory of petroleum.” -- Karsten M. Storetvedt, geophysicist, August 2008

“The modern theory of the abiotic deep petroleum origins recognizes that petroleum is a primordial material of deep origin which has been erupted into the crust of the Earth. In short, petroleum is not a 'fossil fuel' and has no intrinsic connection with any biological detritus 'in the sediments'.” -- Vladimir A. Kutcherov, geologist, August 2008

“Ultra deep wells bring a range of  unexpectedness - basically [a] change of views of structures and geochemical processes in Earth.” -- Yuri Galant, geologist, August 2008

“It’s at least plausible that the 3.2 billion year old oil we found did in fact have an abiotic origin.”--Roger Buick, strobiologist/geoscientist, July 2008

“Our findings illustrate that the abiotic synthesis of hydrocarbons in nature may occur in the presence of ultramafic rocks, water, and moderate amounts of heat.” -- Giora K. Proskurowski, geochemist/oceanographer, February 2008

“Five propositions in Geology, namely Plate Tectonics, Constant Size Earth, Heat Engine Earth, Elastic Rebound, and the Organic Origin of Hydrocarbon Reserves are challenged as Myths because their potential truth is not confirmed by Observation, and/or Experiment, and/or Logic. In their place the Excess Mass Stress Tectonics - EMST, i.e., a Solid, Quantified, Growing and Radiating Earth and its implications, such as the Inorganic Origin of Hydrocarbons, claims to be a Comprehensive Proposition.” -- Stavros T. Tassos, seismologist/geoscientist, November 2007

“In the context of Excess Mass Stress Tectonics – EMST, hydrocarbons are energy sources produced abiotically through a process whereby hydrogen and carbon, but also oxygen, nitrogen, sulphur and trace-elements being formed in the Earth's core, rise through radial fracture trails in the solid and cold mantle to the Earth's surface. If their rise is blocked they compose bigger compounds, e.g., kerogen, that can transform by radiant heat in the upper 5 km or so of the Earth's interior, into gas, oil and coal, at temperatures <200, 100-50, and <50 ^oC, respectively. In the absence of trapping and/or above 200 ^oC, the temperature at which porphyrins are destroyed, they are released as methane gas, like in Titan today, and/or are fully oxidized to CO₂ and H₂O. Oil and gas reserves mature in basins adjacent to deformed precambrian shields and platforms, mostly during the last 200 m.y., when wide and deep oceans and a complex pattern of uplifts and sedimentary basins developed, thus providing the reservoirs and the structural and/or stratigraphic traps. They associate with moderate seismic and volcanic activity, free-air gravity, geoidal, and heat flow anomalies, and large igneous provinces, i.e., Excess Mass.” -- Stavros T. Tassos, seismologist/geoscientist, November 2007

“The paper presents a visual view of Expansion as opposed to Plate Tectonics. Superimposing oil and gas field locations on these visualized spreading zones may well indicate new areas for oil and gas discoveries to the professional.” -- Keith P. Wilson, geologist, November 2007

“The elemental distribution in the crude oil from all studied deposits does not match such of any known crustal rock.” -- Kirill S. Ivanov, geologist/geochemist, November 2007

“Generally in science, whenever new advances are made, old ideas should be re-examined in light of those advances. In the case of the abiotic origin of natural gas and petroleum, that is especially true, as the advances made pertaining to the processes operant during the formation of the solar system, and to the composition and dynamics of planet earth, all appear to greatly enhance the prognosis for those abiotic resources.” -- J. Marvin Herndon, geophysicist, September 2006

“Formation of higher hydrocarbons in the upper layers of the Earth's crust occurs only as the result of Fischer-Tropsch-type reactions in the presence of hydrogen gas but is otherwise not possible on thermodynamic grounds.” -- Geoffrey P. Glasby, geologist, 2006

“Examples of the occurance of abiogenically-derived hydrocarbons have been recorded.” -- Geoffrey P. Glasby, geologist, 2006

“It is possible to convert methane into a complex mixture of higher alkanes and alkenes at high pressures and temperatures but not carbohydrates, the fundamental building blocks of plants.” -- Geoffrey P. Glasby, geologist, 2006

“It is generally recognized that the first pre-biotic organic molecules on earth and elsewhere in the solar system must have been formed by abiogenic reactions.” -- Barbara Sherwood Lollar, geologist/geochemist, 2006

“Peak Oil theory is garbage as far as we’re concerned.” -- Robert W. Esser, geologist, 2006

“No one doubts that inorganic hydrocarbons may occur in association with hydrothermal systems.” -- Michael D. Lewan, geologist, 2005

“Abiogenic gasses are a clear fact. I can make them on the lab bench today.” -- Barbara Sherwood Lollar, geologist/geochemist, 2005

“We’ve barely tapped, from the exploration point of view, the hydrocarbon potential that’s out there on this planet.” -- Stanley B. Keith, geologist, 2005

“The methane is not that strongly fractionated but they still think it might be biological. At Lost City, you can't figure out if it's biological or not by the isotopes.” -- James F. Kasting, geoscientist, 2005

“This methane cannot be coming from living organisms.” -- Jean-Pierre Lebreton, astrophysicist, 2005

“In Galey's words, the only geologist who can ever really tell where oil is to be found goes by the name of  Dr. Drill.” -- Edwin Adkins, geologist, 2004

“An intriguing theory now permeating oil company research staffs suggests that crude oil may actually be a natural inorganic product, not a stepchild of unfathomable time and organic degradation. The theory suggests there may be huge, yet-to-be-discovered reserves of oil at depths that dwarf current world estimates.” -- Chris Bennett, environmental engineer, 2004

“Hydrocarbons can be re-defined as a “renewable” resource, rather than a finite one” (Gurney 1997).” -- Peter R. Odell, economist/geologist, 2004

“Enormous implications follow from oil and gas being renewable resources.” -- Peter R. Odell, economist/geologist, 2004

“Carbon fuels will dominate the 21st century's global energy economy.” -- Peter R. Odell, economist/geologist, 2004

“We're dealing with this giant flow-through system where the hydrocarbons are generating now, moving through the overlying strata now, building the reservoirs now and spilling out into the ocean now.”  -- Larry M. Cathles, geologist, 2003

“The subject of organic chemistry was wrongly taken by petroleum geologists long ago to mean chemistry of biologic origins. You can still have a book of organic chemistry that has nothing to do with organisms at all.” -- 

Thomas Gold, astrophysicist, astronomer, cosmologist, geoscientist, 2002

“I don't think anybody's arguing that gas couldn't be generated from the mantle.” -- Barry J. Katz, geologist, 2002

“I don't think anybody has ever doubted that there is an inorganic source of hydrocarbons.” -- Michael D. Lewan, geologist, 2002

“There has not been any 'debate' about the origin of hydrocarbons for over a century. Competent physicists, chemists, chemical engineers and men knowledgeable of thermodynamics have known that natural petroleum does not evolve from biological material since the last quarter of the 19th century.” -- Jack F. Kenney, geologist/geophysicist, 2002

“I do not know of any idea more likely to keep people impoverished than the idea that resources are natural, fixed, and finite.” -- Thomas R. DeGregori, economist, 2002

“Natural petroleum has no connection with biological matter.” -- Jack F. Kenney, geologist/geophysicist, 2001
“Geoscientists are limited only by their imagination, innovation and determination. In the coming decades there will be tremendous strides made in petroleum geology, geophysics and petroleum engineering. The challenge for all of us – whether we are geologists, geophysicists, engineers, independent explorationists, or company or government explorationists – is to devise new concepts and skills to explore in areas considered to be out of the question or impossible.” -- Michel T. Halbouty, geologist, 2000 


“These reservoirs are refilling with oil.” -- David Sibley, geologist, 1999  

“In my view, hydrocarbons are not biology reworked by geology (as the traditional view would hold) but rather geology reworked by biology. In other words, hydrocarbons are primordial, but as they upwell into the earth's outer crust, microbial life invades.” -- Thomas Gold, astrophysicist, astronomer, cosmologist, geoscientist,

“Even though the biogenic origin theory leads to many inconsistencies, it is nevertheless now impossible in the Western world to conduct any research in petroleum geology that implies a questioning of this accepted position.”  -- Thomas Gold, astrophysicist, astronomer, cosmologist, geoscientist, 1999

“The problem with the finite-resource theory is nicely illustrated by recent trends in oil production. There are 6,784 trillion fewer barrels of oil in the ground today than there were in 1981, the year in which relative oil scarcity was greatest. At first glance, then, one might think that the natural resource base has deteriorated. Yet oil is relatively more abundant today than it was 17 years ago.” -- Jerry Taylor, political scientist, 1998

“The industry will never run out of oil, not in 10,000 years. Some day, it may run out of customers. Every mineral industry is a perpetual tug-of-war, between diminishing returns and increasing knowledge.” -- Morris A. Adelman, economist, 1997

“Neither we, nor our grandchildren, nor their grandchildren will live to see the end of the oil era.” -- Karl-Heinz Schult-Bornemann, geologist, 1997

“And why do they believe that commodities will grow more scarce? For many people, the idea that resources are finite is at the source of this belief. But the idea of finiteness is a prejudice and it is not supported by available facts. Incredible as it may seem, the term 'finite' is not only inappropriate, it is downright misleading when applied to natural resources.” -- Julian L. Simon, economist, 1997

“The modern Russian-Ukrainian theory of deep, abiotic petroleum origins is not controversial nor presently a matter of academic debate. The period of debate about this extensive body of knowledge has been over for approximately two decades (Simakov 1986).” -- Jack F. Kenney, geologist/geophysicist, 1996

“We now have in our hands—really, in our libraries—the technology to feed, clothe, and supply energy to an ever-growing population for the next seven billion years.” -- Julian L. Simon, economist, 1995

“As he [John Galey] once said, the only geologist who could tell with certainty whether oil would be found was “Dr. Drill.” -- Daniel Yergin, political scientist, 1992

“The great oil shortage is like the horizon, always receding as one moves toward it.” -- Morris A. Adelman, economist, 1991

“Stable carbon isotopes are not a reliable criterion for distinguishing biogenic from non-biogenic petroleum.” -- A.A. Giardini (geologist) and Charles E. Melton (chemist), 1991


“... the fact that we find that oil and gas exist on the other planetary bodies, obviously not due to biology, is completely ignored.” --Thomas Gold, astronomer/astrophysicist/cosmologist /geoscientist, 1989

“I know that most men, including those at ease with problems of the greatest complexity, can seldom accept even the simplest and most obvious truth, if it be such as would obliged them to admit the falsity of conclusions which they have delighted in explaining to colleagues, which they have proudly taught to others, and which they have woven, thread by thread, into the fabric of their lives.” -- Thomas Gold, astronomer/astrophysicist/cosmologist /geoscientist, 1989

“The assumption of fixed, finite natural resources has caused many to make catastrophic predictions of resource exhaustion. Fortunately, where these prophecies have been sufficiently specific to be testable, the passage of time and events has falsified them.” -- Thomas R. DeGregori, economist, 1987

“Scientific consideration about the origin of hydrocarbons and practical results of geological investigations provide an understanding of the presence of enormous, inexhaustible resources of hydrocarbons.” -- Vladilen A. Krayushkin, geologist, 1986

“Every ten or fifteen years since the late 1800’s, 'experts' have predicted that oil reserves would last only ten more years. These experts have predicted nine out of the last zero oil-reserve exhaustions.” -- Charles Maurice (economist) and Charles W. Smithson (economist), 1984

“The general concept of petroleum formation by biogenic mechanisms has been firmly entrenched for a long time, but there has been no accumulation of convincing experimental evidence in support of this belief.” -- Charles E. Melton (chemist) and A.A. Giardini (geologist), 1983

“The suggestion that petroleum might have arisen from some transformation of squashed fish or biological detritus is surely the silliest notion to have been entertained by substantial numbers of persons over an extended period of time.” -- Fred Hoyle, cosmologist/astrophysicist, 1982

“I have gone to the best geologists and the best petroleum researchers, and I can give you the authoritative answer: No one knows [how biogenic origin is possible].” -- Edward Teller, physicist, 1979

“Next to nothing is known about the sources of the volatile components of magmas or how they are distributed and transported between the mantle and the shallow levels of the crust.” -- Howel Williams, geologist, 1979

“All giant oil fields are most logically explained by inorganic theory.” -- Vladimir B. Porfir'yev, geologist, 1974

“Ideas are the life blood of the science of petroleum.” -- Hollis D. Hedberg, geologist, 1969

“Statistical thermodynamic analysis has established clearly that hydrocarbon molecules which comprise petroleum require very high pressures for their spontaneous formation, comparable to the pressures required for the same of diamond. In that sense, hydrocarbon molecules are the high-pressure polymorphs of the reduced carbon system as is diamond of elemental carbon. Any notion which might suggest that hydrocarbon molecules spontaneously evolve in the regimes of temperature and pressure characterized by the near-surface of the Earth, which are the regimes of methane creation and hydrocarbon destruction, does not even deserve consideration.” -- Emmanuil B. Chekaliuk, geologist/physicist, 1968

“Geologists engaged in the search for oil and gas fields ought now to begin reappraising the facts at their disposal and analyzing them from positions of crustal fault tectonics.” -- Ivan I. Chebanenko, geologist, 1966

“The geologist played a secondary role to geophysics and has been playing a secondary role for a long time--in fact, because geophysics has been doing the thinking for him, the cranial substance of the geologist has been under constant sedation for over 35 years.” -- Michel T. Halbouty, geologist, 1966

“This sad state of affairs has not been brought on by lack of undiscovered oil in the ground--it is the result of a drastic decline in the industry's effort to locate undiscovered oil in the United States.” -- Michel T. Halbouty, geologist, 1966

“It is remarkable that in spite of its widespread occurence, its great economic importance, and the immense amount of fine research devoted to it, there perhaps still remain more incertainties concerning the origin of petroleum than that of any other occurring natural substance.” -- H. D. Hedberg, 1964

“Actually it cannot be too strongly emphasized that petroleum does not present the composition picture expected from modified biogenic products, and all the arguments from the constituents of ancient oils fit equally well, or better, with the conception of a primordial hydrocarbon mixture to which bio-products have been added.” -- Sir Robert Robinson, chemist, 1963


“Several times in the past we have thought we were running out of oil whereas actually we were only running out of ideas.” -- Parke A. Dickey, geologist, 1958

“The overwhelming preponderance of geological evidence compels the conclusion that crude oil and natural petroleum gas have no intrinsic connection with biological matter originating near the surface of the Earth. They are primordial materials which have been erupted from great depths.” -- Vladimir B. Porfir'yev, geologist, 1956

“Oil is found in the minds of men.” -- Wallace E. Pratt, geologist, 1952

“Oil is the creature of direct action of common earth forces on common earth materials.” -- Wallace E. Pratt, geologist, 1942

“When in 1915 the driller of a 'wild-cat' well reported granite at 1100 feet, or so, right in the middle of the state [Kansas], we were not only skeptical; we were indignant. We denied that the well had granite; and when the driller, under our supervision, bailed out of the well fragments of beautiful pink granite, we charged that he had planted the granite in there himself.” -- Wallace E. Pratt, geologist, 1942

“Resources are not; they become.” -- Erich W. Zimmerman, economist, 1933

“Frankly, there is no shortage of oil, simply a shortage of effort to get it out of the ground.” -- A.C. Bedford, geologist, 1917

“All the petroleum, natural gas, and bituminous fields or deposits cannot be regarded as anything else but the products of solfotaric volcanic emanations condensed and held in their passage upward in the porous tanks of all ages of the crust of the earth from the Archaean rocks to the Quaternary. Nothing is so simple and therefore nothing so natural as this origin, and we will see that it can be abundantly proven.” -- Eugene Coste, geologist, 1903

“Only Dr. Drill knows for sure.” -- John H. Galey, geologist, date unknown

“It is a singular and notable fact that, while most other branches of science have emancipated themselves from the trammels of metaphysical reasoning, the science of geology still remains imprisoned in 'a priori' theories.” -- Sir Henry H. Howorth, geologist, 1895

“It is obvious that the total amount of petroleum in the rocks underlying the surface ... is large beyond computation.” -- Edward Orton, geologist, 1888

“The origin of petroleum is unknown.” -- F.A. Genth, geologist, 1878

“The capital fact to note is that petroleum was born in the depths of the Earth, and it is only there that we must seek its origin.” -- Dmitri Mendeleyev, chemist, 1877

“It may be supposed that naphta was produced by the action of water penetrating through the crevices of the strata during the upheaval of mountain chains because water with iron carbide ought to give iron oxide and hydrocarbons.” -- Dmitri Mendeleyev, chemist, 1877

“Whether naphta was formed by organic matter is very doubtful, as it is found in the most ancient Silurian [Ordovician] strata which correspond with the epochs of the earth's existence when there was very little organic matter; it could not penetrate from the higher to the lower (more ancient) strata as it floats on water (and water penetrates through all strata).” -- Dmitri Mendeleyev, chemist, 1877

“Do these fuels result always and necessarily in one way from the decomposition of a pre-existing organic substance? Is it thus with the hydrocarbons so frequently observed in volcanic eruptions and emanations, and to which M. Ch. Sainte-Claire Deville has called attention in recent years? Finally, must one assign a parralel origin to carbonaceous matter and to hydrocarbons contained in certain meteorites, and which appear to have an origin foreign to our planet? These are questions on which the opinion of many distinguished geologists does not as yet appear to be fixed.” -- Marcellin Berthelot, chemist, 1866

“One can, then, conceive the production, by purely mineral means, of all natural hydrocarbons. The intervention of heat, of water, and of alkaline metals -- lastly, the tendency of hydrocarbons to unite together to form the more condensed material -- suffice to account for the formation of these curious compounds. Moreover, this formation will be continuous because the reactions which started it are renewed incessantly.” -- Marcellin Berthelot, chemist, 1866

“The hydrogen gas evolved from volcanoes, or from chasms in the earth during earthquakes, is generally combined with sulphur or carbon; it is probably formed by the decompostion of water, when it finds access to subterranean fire.” -- Robert Bakewell, geologist, 1813

“Petroleum is the product of a distillation from great depth and issues from the primitive rocks beneath which the forces of all volcanic action lie.” -- Alexander Von Humboldt, naturalist, 1804

“We cannot doubt of this distilling operation in the mineral regions, when we consider that in most places of the earth we find the evident effects of such distillation of oily substances in the naphta and petroleum that are constantly emitted along with water in certain springs. These oily substances are no other than such as may be procured, in a similar manner, from the fusible or inflammable coal strata; we have therefore every proof of this mineral operation that the nature of things admit of. We have also sufficient evidence that those fusible and inflammable coals, which have not been distilled to a caput mortuum, had been subjected to the operation of subterraneous heat, because we find those fusible coals subject to be injected with pyrites, as well as the more perfect coal.” -- James Hutton, naturalist, 1795

“Rock oil originates as tiny bodies of  animals buried in the sediments which,under the influence of increased temperature and  pressure acting during an unimaginably long period of time, transform into rock oil.” -- Mikhail Lomonossov, Russian scholar scientist, 1757

“At this stage you must admit that whatever is seen to be sentient is nevertheless composed of atoms that are insentient. The phenomena open to our observation do not contradict this conclusion or conflict with it. Rather they lead us by the hand and compel us to believe that the animate is born, as I maintain, of the insentient.” -- Titus Lucretius Carus, philosopher, 50 BC