“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 1982
My own layman’s view — as we all surely believe — has always been that oil and gas were derived through the natural and long decomposition of organic detritus. Therefore I’ve always believed that oil is a finite resource and that it will eventually run out. But recently - and after much hard searching out of the facts, my view has changed. If the Russian view that oil and gas are continuously formed or replaced from a physical/chemical thermodynamic process that continously regenerates oil from ultra-deep locations(>9,000 metres), then the inference here is that oil may, perhaps, not be a finite resource — and that there is plenty of it.
Oil and Gas Origins - Biogenic or Abiotic ?
Do oil and gas originate from the biological decomposition of organic material (biogenic) or do they originate simply through a natural physical and chemical thermodynamic process involving just heat and pressure (abiotic) ?
It is notable that the whole of Hubbert’s Theory of Peak Oil rests completely on the assumption that oil is biogenic in origin. Therefore oil is a finite resource. Simply everyone believes this, because everyone believes that this is a proven fact. I have also read that this Biogenic Theory directly contradicts and offends the Second Law of Thermodynamics. I became suspicious, so I searched all over the internet for substantiative proof — and particularly the research articles in Google Scholar.
Evidence for The Biogenic Theory
- In 1757 Russian Scientist, Mikhailo Lomonosov put forward a hypothesis and suggested that oil came from biological detritus.
The normal geologists view is that all oil and gas formation is biogenic. So I began with Wikipedia which indeed puts forth and recognised the theories of both Biogenic and Abiotic oil and gas origin. And although there has been clear, modern Russian research evidence cited for the theory of Abiotic Oil formation - oddly - there were no proper citations or references for the Biogenic theory on Wikipedia. I searched the internet including Google Scholar and there seems to be no ‘absolute proof’ from direct modern research for the Biogenic Theory of oil and gas formation. This theory — for want of a better word — seems to be greatly ‘assumed’ by geologists throughout geological research.
Evidence for the Abiotic Theory
I am certainly surprised to admit that there is such a large body of research on this theory — and all mainly Russian in origin. But this modern research — which is very detailed, seems to have been generally and surprisingly ignored by the West.
- An Article called Dismissal of the Claims of a Biological Connection to Biogenic Oil by J F Kenney. This is a detailed and scientifically rigourous paper which sets sets out to disprove all the various “fuzzy” assumptions for the Theory of Biogenic Oil. This was the article that completely convinced me of the truth of Abiotic Oil Formation.
- In the ‘Introduction’ and ‘Scientific Publications’ section of GasResources.net there are many bona fide Russian research articles.
“ABSTRACT: For almost a century, various predictions have been made that the human race is imminently going to run out of available petroleum. The passing of time has proven all those predictions to have been utterly wrong. It is pointed out here how all predictions have
depended fundamentally upon anarchaic hypothesis from the 18th century that petroleum somehow (miraculously) evolve from biological detritus, and is accordingly limited in abundance. That hypothesis has been replaced during the past forty years by the modern Russian-Ukrainian theory of deep, abiotic petroleum origins which has established that petroleum is a primordial material erupted from great depth. Therefore, petroleum abundances are limited by little more than the quantities of its constituents as were incorporated into the Earth at the time of its formation; and its availability depends upon technological development and exploration competence.”
- A Russian Book - ‘ Advanced Drilling Solutions’ detailing deep and ultra-deep oil drilling technology beyond the Earth’s crust and sedimentary layers to depths of over 40,000 ft’.
Apparent Disinformation and Prejudicial Judgement of the Abiotic Theory
It is peculiar that there is so little Western acknowledgement or research verification concerning the utra-deep Russian Abiotic Oil formation theory. Surely this is suspicious and bears investigating — even if you don’t believe the theory — because this would certainly remove the geopolitical effects and problems of the current thinking on oil — that it is running out. Concerning this theory, I have also found some evidence of plagiarism, disinformation and misrepresentation of research data regarding the Russian Abiotic Theory by fairly eminent western scientists and western news resources :
Conclusions
In the end, I tend to agree with Richard Heinberg in that Oil and Gas formation is probably both biogenic as well as abiotic as I have no reason to believe otherwise. And if this is the case, why are people saying that we are running out of oil ? — Since the abiotic theory of oil maintains that there is a huge, untapped amount of oil already deep within the Earth’s mantle.
See my follow-up article Deep Oil, Deep Power and Deep Pockets in answer to the above question.
