This is an appeal to organic chemists and physicists to educate

[whistle]

...and perhaps explain the feasibility of a long term energy solution.

A number of years ago I visited Disney World Orlando and at Epcot Center sponsored by Exxon, they showed a 20 minute movie on where crude oil originated from In essence the propaganda message was that vegetation and animal life from 60 to 100 million years ago following their natural death and life cycles were subjected to the natural forces of the earth's movements including heat, pressure and chemical changes left huge deposits of what was to become the sources of today's pools crude oil reserves around the world.

Now for my question to the experts. In the last 150 years or so when the industrialized world discovered the many uses of oil and natural gas, as well as other fossil fuels (coal), the have been depleting these deposits at an ever increasing rate. When we discovered the severe toll such depletion practices had on other natural resources such as timber and fertile land, water, wildlife, fish, etc., we found ways to replenish and restock what was taken away.

Why can we not do something similar with oil. If in fact the oil deposits are the result of long term decay and transformation of dead vegetation and animals, why could we not replace the depleted oil well chambers with ground up soup or starter slurry of dead vegetation and animals, sewage sludge and whatever else nature has used in the past and then seal these up for future generations to use. We could also implement conservation measures to extend the long term uses of fossil fuels from their 50 to 75 year horizon that we are now following to ensure that for hundreds if not thousands of years, future generations will have available this precious and vital commodity for their use while the replacement pools are naturally converting transforming what we have installed?

I realize my idea may be somewhat simplistic, but as outdoor amateur gardener, I know that this practice has paid off for the production of replacement top soil and natural fertilizer with compost piles and barrels. Could not the same concept on a grander industrialized scale be employed to replenish what we have used in crude oil?

[mhr]

1. Steady State - We Have 34 Years Of Conventional Oil Left

Consensus On Remaining Oil - 1 Trillion Barrels - 1,000,000,000,000

Daily World Oil Consumption - 80 Million Barrels/Day - 80,000,000

Time Remaining - Remaining Oil/Daily Consumption - 34 Years

The situation is worse than you think.

Any questions?

[whistle]

2. Just my original one in the post.....

....replenish and recharge the empty oil caverns with organic material for future generations, is it possible?

[htuttle]

3. No

As I understand it, the conditions to produce oil from organic matter geologically were kind of a one time thing. It involved organic matter trapped without oxygen being subjected to particular heat and pressure for a long time. The organic matter in the empty oil cavern wouldn't get a chance to turn into oil -- it would just rot and turn into compost.

That's why oil deposits are very rare compared to the amount of organic matter that has decomposed on earth since the Carboniferous era (when most oil was 'produced').

[whistle]

4. I see, so being that rare, and virtually irreplaceable, who then....

...are we encouraged to just burn it up for a one time displacement of going from here to there?

[Ready4Change]

5. Good question.

I've heard that, in one science fiction story, two aliens are discussing this "human" species they have been studying. The first alien mentions that these humans have access to that most precious and rare of resources, ie: petrochemicals.

The second alien asks why are they rare and what they are good for?

The first replies that oil is so rare because first a planet must have wildly abundant life forms. It must also have very active technonic plates, so that huge amounts dead plant matter can be shoved deep beneath the surface, to be cooked under heat and high temperatures for eons. Then the planets plates must be pourous enough for the end product to oooze up and pool in pockets near the surface, so that it can be collected and used.

He goes on to mention what they are good for. Amazing fertilizers, medical advances, irreplacable substances for all sorts of purposes. Then the first alien starts laughing.

The second alien asks why he is laughing.

The first replies that here is this primative species, these humans, and they have been granted this amazing boon of nature, access to this precious material with which they could raise themselves from their backwards ways and join the galactic society as an advanced species in their own right. And what do they do with this resource?

They burn it. With some of it they make roads, and the rest they burn. A valuable resource that should last them many thousands of years, and they look set on wasting it within a century.

The two aliens look at the surface of the world and its "humans", and despair at that race ever becoming truly advanced.

[Xithras]

6. There's a one problem with your theory

Contrary to the Disney cartoons, there are no large caverns underground filled with lakes of oil that we drain away. Oilfields are simply areas where the rock is saturated with oil, much like groundwater saturates the rock under most of the continents. When we pump oil, we're actually draining the rock through cracks and fissures, not opening up a large underground chamber. To exacerbate the problem, removing the oil causes the ground above to settle and the fissures to close up as they run dry.

What you're left with, when the pumping is done, is solid rock. There's nowhere to pump the sludge at that point.

[seriousstan]

7. Very simple, it takes more energy to make oil than the oil would produce.

The amount of resources required to duplicate the temperatures, pressures and duplictae the rest of the conditions would require more energy than is contained in the oil you would produce.