Now environmentalists say we need the minerals that they’ve been locking up for decades
Guest post by Paul Driessen
“China’s control of a key minerals market has US military thinkers and policy makers worried about access to materials that are essential for 21st-century technology like smartphones – and smart bombs,” the Wall Street Journal reports. Plus stealth fighter jets, digital cameras, computer hard drives – and wind turbine magnets, solar panels, hybrid and electric car batteries, compact fluorescent light bulbs, catalytic converters, and more.
China’s dominance in mining and processing 17 “rare earth” metals “has raised alarms in Washington,” says the Journal. These unique metallic elements have powerful magnetic properties that make them sine qua non for high-tech, miniaturized and renewable energy equipment.
China currently produces fully 97% of the world’s rare-earth oxides, the raw materials that can be refined into metals and blended into specialty alloys for defense, commercial and power-generation components. However, the Middle Kingdom has slashed its rare-earth oxide and metal exports.
Beijing claims to be motivated by environmental concerns – reflecting the fact that rare earths are present in very low concentrations, mountains of rock must be mined, crushed and processed to get usable metals, and every step in the process requires oil, gasoline or coal-based electricity. A more likely reason is that the Chinese want to manufacture the finished goods, thereby creating countless “green” factory jobs, paid for with US and EU taxpayer subsidies, channeled through GE, Siemens, Vestas and other “socially responsible” companies that then install the systems across Europe and the USA.
So here we are, long beholden to foreign powers for petroleum – and newly dependent on foreign powers for “green” energy. National security issues (direct defense needs and indirect dependency issues) once again rise to the fore, and the Defense Department, Government Accountability Office, House Science and Technology Committee and others are busily issuing reports, holding hearings and expressing consternation. Congressman Bart Gordon (D-TN) worries that the United States is being “held hostage.”
As well he should. However, the fault lies not in our stars, but in ourselves – or more precisely in our militant environmentalists.
Back in 1978, I ruined a perfectly pleasant hike in a RARE-II roadless area, by asking an impertinent question. “How do you defend prohibiting any kind of energy or mineral exploration in wilderness study areas?” I asked Assistant Secretary of Agriculture Rupert Cutler and Forest Service Chief John McGuire, “The 1964 Wilderness Act expressly allows and encourages those activities, so that Congress and the American people can make informed decisions about how to manage these lands, based on extensive information about both surface and subsurface values. How do you defend ignoring that provision?”
“I don’t think Congress should have enacted that provision,” Dr. Cutler replied.
“That may be your opinion,” I responded. “But Congress did enact it, and you are obligated by your oath of office to follow the law the way it was written, not the way you think it should have been written.”
“I think we’ve said enough to this guy,” Cutler said to Chief McGuire, and they walked away.
A couple months later, I asked the Denver Sierra Club wilderness coordinator a related question: “Why are you focusing so heavily on areas with the best energy and mineral potential? Isn’t that going to impact prices, jobs and national security?”
“Americans use too much energy, and they’re not going to change voluntarily,” he said. “The only way to make them change is to take the resources away. And the best way to do that is put them in wilderness.”
And every other restrictive land use category that arrogant, thoughtless activists, bureaucrats, judges and politicians can devise, he might have added. Which is how we got where we are today.
As of 1994, over 410 million acres were effectively off limits to mineral exploration and development, according to consulting geologist Courtland Lee, who prepared probably the last definitive analysis, published in The Professional Geologist. That’s 62% of the nation’s public lands – an area nearly equal to Arizona, Colorado, Montana, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming combined – primarily in Alaska and our eleven westernmost Lower 48 states. Today, sixteen years later, the situation is much worse – with millions more acres locked up in wilderness, park, preserve, wildlife refuge, wilderness study and other restrictive land use categories, or simply made unavailable by bureaucratic fiat or foot-dragging.
Due to forces unleashed by plate tectonics, these rugged lands contain some of the most highly mineralized mountain and desert areas in North America. They almost certainly hold dozens, perhaps hundreds, of world-class rare-earth deposits. The vast mineral wealth extracted from those areas since the mid-1850s portends what might still be there, to be discovered by modern prospecting gadgets and methods. But unless laws and attitudes change, we will never know.
How ironic. First eco-activists lock up the raw materials. Then they force-feed us “renewable energy standards” that require the very materials they’ve locked up, which we’ve never much needed until now. Thus China (and perhaps other countries a few years hence) will happily fill the breach, creating green jobs beyond our borders, selling us the finished components, and using our tax dollars to subsidize the imported wind turbines, solar panels and CFL bulbs that are driving energy costs through the roof.
Science historian James Burke became famous for chronicling the “Connections” between successions of past discoveries and achievements and various modern technologies. Unfortunately, today’s increasingly powerful and power-hungry activists, jurists, legislators and regulators cannot see the connection between their actions and the economic havoc they leave in their wake.
Of course, there is little incentive for them to do so. They know they will rarely be held accountable. Others may freeze jobless in the dark – but most of them will keep their jobs, perks, pensions, positions of power over our lives, economy and civil rights progress.
However, there are bright spots. The upcoming elections offer hope for a general House (and Senate) cleaning. A recent poll found that a third of all Americans don’t want to pay even $12 a year in higher energy costs, even to create “green” jobs or forestall Climate Armageddon. Many people are simply fed up – with Washington, and with constant assertions of imminent eco-catastrophes.
A steady stream of shale-gas discoveries in Europe and the United States suggests that we still have plentiful supplies of cheap natural gas. Evidence is mounting that petroleum is abiogenic in origin – and natural forces deep inside the Earth are constantly creating new hydrocarbons from elemental carbon and hydrogen. Both developments undermine a principle argument for pricey, land-intensive, intermittent wind and solar power: that we are running out of “fossil fuels.”
Just north of the Mojave Desert, near Mountain Pass, California, Molycorp is working to restart mining operations at the largest rare-earth deposit outside of China. They had been suspended in 2002, for economic, permitting and environmental reasons that have since been resolved. China’s Baotou Rare Earth Company was a happy beneficiary of the circumstances and US regulatory excesses.
Now there is hope that common sense will prevail at Mountain Pass, new processing methods will reduce costs and environmental impacts, and exploration may one day be permitted in areas locked up by Cutler & Company. Too many technologies depend on lanthanides to keep US deposits under lock and key.
Radical greens may not give a spotted owl hoot about military needs. But they may care enough about preserving their dream of a hydrocarbon-free future, while a few politicians may want to ensure that tens of billions in taxpayer subsidies for wind and solar power and electric cars don’t all head overseas.
___________
Paul Driessen is senior policy advisor for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (www.Cfact.org) and Congress of Racial Equality (www.CongressOfRacialEquality.org), and author of Eco-Imperialism: Green power – Black death. He has degrees in geology, ecology and environmental law.
Greens shackle national security – and renewable energy
Now environmentalists say we need the minerals that they’ve been locking up for decades
Paul Driessen
“China’s control of a key minerals market has US military thinkers and policy makers worried about access to materials that are essential for 21st-century technology like smartphones – and smart bombs,” the Wall Street Journal reports. Plus stealth fighter jets, digital cameras, computer hard drives – and wind turbine magnets, solar panels, hybrid and electric car batteries, compact fluorescent light bulbs, catalytic converters, and more.
China’s dominance in mining and processing 17 “rare earth” metals “has raised alarms in Washington,” says the Journal. These unique metallic elements have powerful magnetic properties that make them sine qua non for high-tech, miniaturized and renewable energy equipment.
China currently produces fully 97% of the world’s rare-earth oxides, the raw materials that can be refined into metals and blended into specialty alloys for defense, commercial and power-generation components. However, the Middle Kingdom has slashed its rare-earth oxide and metal exports.
Beijing claims to be motivated by environmental concerns – reflecting the fact that rare earths are present in very low concentrations, mountains of rock must be mined, crushed and processed to get usable metals, and every step in the process requires oil, gasoline or coal-based electricity. A more likely reason is that the Chinese want to manufacture the finished goods, thereby creating countless “green” factory jobs, paid for with US and EU taxpayer subsidies, channeled through GE, Siemens, Vestas and other “socially responsible” companies that then install the systems across Europe and the USA.
So here we are, long beholden to foreign powers for petroleum – and newly dependent on foreign powers for “green” energy. National security issues (direct defense needs and indirect dependency issues) once again rise to the fore, and the Defense Department, Government Accountability Office, House Science and Technology Committee and others are busily issuing reports, holding hearings and expressing consternation. Congressman Bart Gordon (D-TN) worries that the United States is being “held hostage.”
As well he should. However, the fault lies not in our stars, but in ourselves – or more precisely in our militant environmentalists.
Back in 1978, I ruined a perfectly pleasant hike in a RARE-II roadless area, by asking an impertinent question. “How do you defend prohibiting any kind of energy or mineral exploration in wilderness study areas?” I asked Assistant Secretary of Agriculture Rupert Cutler and Forest Service Chief John McGuire, “The 1964 Wilderness Act expressly allows and encourages those activities, so that Congress and the American people can make informed decisions about how to manage these lands, based on extensive information about both surface and subsurface values. How do you defend ignoring that provision?”
“I don’t think Congress should have enacted that provision,” Dr. Cutler replied.
“That may be your opinion,” I responded. “But Congress did enact it, and you are obligated by your oath of office to follow the law the way it was written, not the way you think it should have been written.”
“I think we’ve said enough to this guy,” Cutler said to Chief McGuire, and they walked away.
A couple months later, I asked the Denver Sierra Club wilderness coordinator a related question: “Why are you focusing so heavily on areas with the best energy and mineral potential? Isn’t that going to impact prices, jobs and national security?”
“Americans use too much energy, and they’re not going to change voluntarily,” he said. “The only way to make them change is to take the resources away. And the best way to do that is put them in wilderness.”
And every other restrictive land use category that arrogant, thoughtless activists, bureaucrats, judges and politicians can devise, he might have added. Which is how we got where we are today.
As of 1994, over 410 million acres were effectively off limits to mineral exploration and development, according to consulting geologist Courtland Lee, who prepared probably the last definitive analysis, published in The Professional Geologist. That’s 62% of the nation’s public lands – an area nearly equal to Arizona, Colorado, Montana, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming combined – primarily in Alaska and our eleven westernmost Lower 48 states. Today, sixteen years later, the situation is much worse – with millions more acres locked up in wilderness, park, preserve, wildlife refuge, wilderness study and other restrictive land use categories, or simply made unavailable by bureaucratic fiat or foot-dragging.
Due to forces unleashed by plate tectonics, these rugged lands contain some of the most highly mineralized mountain and desert areas in North America. They almost certainly hold dozens, perhaps hundreds, of world-class rare-earth deposits. The vast mineral wealth extracted from those areas since the mid-1850s portends what might still be there, to be discovered by modern prospecting gadgets and methods. But unless laws and attitudes change, we will never know.
How ironic. First eco-activists lock up the raw materials. Then they force-feed us “renewable energy standards” that require the very materials they’ve locked up, which we’ve never much needed until now. Thus China (and perhaps other countries a few years hence) will happily fill the breach, creating green jobs beyond our borders, selling us the finished components, and using our tax dollars to subsidize the imported wind turbines, solar panels and CFL bulbs that are driving energy costs through the roof.
Science historian James Burke became famous for chronicling the “Connections” between successions of past discoveries and achievements and various modern technologies. Unfortunately, today’s increasingly powerful and power-hungry activists, jurists, legislators and regulators cannot see the connection between their actions and the economic havoc they leave in their wake.
Of course, there is little incentive for them to do so. They know they will rarely be held accountable. Others may freeze jobless in the dark – but most of them will keep their jobs, perks, pensions, positions of power over our lives, economy and civil rights progress.
However, there are bright spots. The upcoming elections offer hope for a general House (and Senate) cleaning. A recent poll found that a third of all Americans don’t want to pay even $12 a year in higher energy costs, even to create “green” jobs or forestall Climate Armageddon. Many people are simply fed up – with Washington, and with constant assertions of imminent eco-catastrophes.
A steady stream of shale-gas discoveries in Europe and the United States suggests that we still have plentiful supplies of cheap natural gas. Evidence is mounting that petroleum is abiogenic in origin – and natural forces deep inside the Earth are constantly creating new hydrocarbons from elemental carbon and hydrogen. Both developments undermine a principle argument for pricey, land-intensive, intermittent wind and solar power: that we are running out of “fossil fuels.”
Just north of the Mojave Desert, near Mountain Pass, California, Molycorp is working to restart mining operations at the largest rare-earth deposit outside of China. They had been suspended in 2002, for economic, permitting and environmental reasons that have since been resolved. China’s Baotou Rare Earth Company was a happy beneficiary of the circumstances and US regulatory excesses.
Now there is hope that common sense will prevail at Mountain Pass, new processing methods will reduce costs and environmental impacts, and exploration may one day be permitted in areas locked up by Cutler & Company. Too many technologies depend on lanthanides to keep US deposits under lock and key.
Radical greens may not give a spotted owl hoot about military needs. But they may care enough about preserving their dream of a hydrocarbon-free future, while a few politicians may want to ensure that tens of billions in taxpayer subsidies for wind and solar power and electric cars don’t all head overseas.
___________
Paul Driessen is senior policy advisor for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (www.Cfact.org) and Congress of Racial Equality (www.CongressOfRacialEquality.org), and author of Eco-Imperialism: Green power – Black death. He has degrees in geology, ecology and environmental law.
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I have this vague recollection that the desert area set aside for “wilderness” at the behest of Diane Feinstein was an alternate source for some rare earth that her husband’s company was getting from China. I may not have that exactly correct. Does that jog any memories out there?
The “Blackbird” spy planes were built with titanium purchased from the USSR through a “front” company set up by the CIA.
http://www.amazon.com/Skunk-Works-Personal-Memoir-Lockheed/dp/0316743003
Draw your own conclusion.
Oh, baloney. Youtube or he never said it.
Actually, I’ll take a flier and doubt there was ever any conversation. Did this “Denver Sierra Club wilderness coordinator” have a name?
There’s lots of government-owned wilderness out west, and none of it has any oil – if it did the oil would have been pumped already.
Your whole post is incoherent.
Rare earths have what to do with fossil fuel? Nothing.
Kum Dollison says:
October 2, 2010 at 10:40 pm
Evidence is mounting that petroleum is abiogenic in origin – and natural forces deep inside the Earth are constantly creating new hydrocarbons from elemental carbon and hydrogen.
Yes, Links please. And, not the recently rediscovered papers of the two Russian Scientists back in 1959.
And, my final question is: When can we go back down there and “re-drill” the East Texas Oil Field. It peaked in the Early 70′s, and has been declining since, I believe.
This might interest you:
http://www.science-frontiers.com/sf124/sf124p10.htm
And these too:
http://sci.tech-archive.net/Archive/sci.geo.geology/2005-04/msg00020.html
http://www.scribd.com/doc/35642245/Eugene-Island-330
@Tom Fuller says: October 2, 2010 at 10:20 pm
China has well established mining connections with African & S American countries;
“The world’s largest mining companies have reportedly approached the UN and the World Bank to prevent China from freezing them out of Africa.” http://www.sawfnews.com/Business/32806.aspx
“China has been gaining an economic foothold in Latin America for about a decade, as the United States focused on other areas, establishing cultural and commercial ties in countries that supply the commodities it needs to maintain growth. Just as it has on the African continent, China is maneuvering in Latin America to secure the raw materials it needs to build roadways, railways and even cities.” http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN0143978920080102
China is not buying on the world market but securing its supply by investing in the countries with the ore deposits and controling the mining operations. IMO your optimism may be unfounded, certainly in the short term.
Leon said
quote
Good luck if you’re a businessman trying to fathom what today’s regulatory mood might be, when rulings are rendered on a case-by-case basis! Will some inept bureaucrat come in to work today hung over and render a ruling unfavorable to you after having ruled differently with one of your competitors?
Unquote
Talk about full circle, dont the Thompsons is Australia know all about that.
There is a fine line between being held hostage and selling out to hostage takers.
One is sheer stupidity, and the other is something else entirely.
Or, just maybe, they like how China is run, and want to impose that here.
But why answer the question? Just get rid of the vermin in November. They are bad news no matter what they have been up to. Our economy will surely benefit from the departure of the sequestarians.
These idiots sincerely believe that all forms of resource extraction are evil. They also think that water comes from a tap, and food from the grocery store.
I sometimes despair for grandchildren’s future. My only hope is that politicians that pander to these fools don’t really believe in this idiocy and will do the right thing when the time comes to choose between environmentalist votes and lives of the rest of us – thin stuff indeed.
“Americans use too much energy”
Who made that guy GOD? Where does he get the right to tell others how to live?
Would he accept being told how to live by….George Bush?
Thanks
JK
Abiogenic hydrocarbons is a lot like AGW and cold fusion. I would not count on it any time soon. I do know of some great shale gas and CBM plays on the auction block. The “rare earth” elements are that, rare but like most things, if the price is high enough ore grades do get discovered. Mr. Driessen makes many valid points. I would argue, if resources now recognized to be valuable, were locked up at time when they were not, it is as much the fault of capital flight and sometimes shoddy work by miners, as environmental activism. Responsibility for the situation Driessen describes must be shared. Like all political, social and natural science questions, this is a complex issue that unfortunately has only complex answers. It is a lot like this climate business in more ways then we may think at first glance.
Doug in Seattle says:
October 3, 2010 at 12:19 am
These idiots sincerely believe that all forms of resource extraction are evil. They also think that water comes from a tap, and food from the grocery store.
I sometimes despair for grandchildren’s future. My only hope is that politicians that pander to these fools don’t really believe in this idiocy and will do the right thing when the time comes to choose between environmentalist votes and lives of the rest of us – thin stuff indeed.
Yes, but you do realize —do you not— that the only way to get rid of them is for one hell of a tragic event to happen wherein THEY get to exercise their belief system, and in the process manage to die-off, leaving the rest of us to pick up the pieces and carry on as before.
THEY speak of ‘culling’ the human ‘herd.’
Well, would it not be a most appropriate — and fitting turn of events wherein they get to exercise their political thoughts, and end up dying instead of the rest of us?
Grey Lensman says:
October 2, 2010 at 11:01 pm
“Lots of dead dinosaurs on Titan. How did the oil get there?”
Really? Oil on Titan. References please. Remember methane does not count as oil.
So abiogenic oil eh? hmmmm evidence?
and what’s CORE – http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Congress_of_Racial_Equality – fascinating
Wouldn’t be a mining prospectus would it?
Duncan – scepticism is good but I don’t think that scathing and speculative dismissiveness has a lot going for it. The connection between rare minerals and fossil fuels? The amount of fossil fuels required to discover, remove and supply . . .
This long titled paper is interesting. The authors assert that chemical thermal dynamic analysis can be used to determine whether a chemical reaction will or will not occur, at a specific temperature and pressure. (This is basic advanced chemical analysis.) They assert that using chemical thermal dynamic analysis, that it can be shown that long chain hydrocarbon molecules (that constitute crude oil) will not spontaneously be formed, except at great pressures (at depths greater than 100 km). Then they perform an experiment that produces long chain hydrocarbons using a diamond anvil that can recreate the pressure at great depths.
http://www.pnas.org/cgi/reprint/99/17/10976
As most are aware the moon was formed by a Mars sized object that struck the early earth. That impact removed light elements from the earth’s crust. The earth’s mantel has very low concentrations of light elements such as hydrogen and carbon. Where then is the source of hydrogen and carbon to form the planet’s atmosphere and the oceans. The thin veneer hypothesis posits that the planet’s atmosphere was formed after the big splat by the late impact of comets. The earth’s atmosphere’s composition however does not match that of comets. It was therefore hypothesized that the comets which formed the earth’s atmosphere came from a cloud from a different proto-star that happened to be in the vicinity of the solar system at its time of formation. The alternative theory (to explain the origin of the earth’s oceans and atmosphere) which past and recent analysis supports is correct, is the deep hydrocarbon hypothesis that has the core of the earth as the source of the hydrocarbon.
The deep hydrocarbon hypothesis is more than just what is the source of hydrocarbons that formed natural gas and crude oil.
Sloan Deep Carbon Workshop (Sponsored by the US department of Energy)
https://www.gl.ciw.edu/workshops/sloan_deep_carbon_workshop_may_2008
From a paper that was presented at the Sloan Deep Carbon workshop.
“To date, consideration of the global carbon cycle has focused primarily on near-surface (i.e., relatively low-pressure and temperature) phenomena, with the tacit assumption that oceans, atmosphere and shallow surface environments represent an essentially closed system with respect to biologically available carbon. However, recent data and theoretical analyses from a variety of sources suggest that this assumption may be false. Experimental discoveries of facile high-pressure and temperature organic synthesis and complex interactions between organic molecules and minerals, field observations of deep microbial ecosystems and of anomalies in petroleum geochemistry, and theoretical models of lower crust and upper mantle carbon sources and sinks demand a careful reappraisal of the deep carbon cycle.”
The abiogenic theory of the formation of crude oil and natural gas has commercial implications.
The abiogenic formation of natural gas explains why Qatar a small peninsula in the Middle East has 15% percent of the planet’s “natural gas”. The Arabian Peninsula is located at the intersection of three crustal plains. The Russian have used very deep drilling techniques to find “natural gas” (CH4).
“Qatar also known as the State of Qatar or locally Dawlat Qaṭar, is an Arab country, known officially as an emirate, in the Middle East, occupying the small Qatar Peninsula on the northeasterly coast of the much larger Arabian Peninsula. It is bordered by Saudi Arabia to the south; otherwise, the Persian Gulf surrounds the state. A strait of the Persian Gulf separates Qatar from the nearby island nation of Bahrain.”
http://www.eia.doe.gov/cabs/Qatar/NaturalGas.html
“Qatar’s proven natural gas reserves stood at approximately 890 trillion cubic feet (Tcf) as of January 1, 2009. Qatar holds almost 15 percent of total world natural gas reserves and is the third-largest in the world behind Russia and Iran. The majority of Qatar’s natural gas is located in the massive offshore North Field, the world’s largest non-associated natural gas field. The North Field is a geologic extension of Iran’s South Pars field, which holds an additional 450 Tcf of recoverable natural gas reserves.”
WTF says:
October 2, 2010 at 9:56 pm
Links please. I have a 20 year old bet to settle!
For hints see some publications of J. F. Kenney.
There are also hydrocarbon fluid inclusions in diamonds and diamondoids, tiny fragments of diamond lattice can be refined from crude oil. Spontaneous formation of diamond structure is not favored at low pressure, it happens deep in the mantle (~50 kbar, 150 km).
crosspatch says:
October 2, 2010 at 10:00 pm
Good post.
We have the ability to develope inexpensive and abundant energy and resources, and we would do it with greater conservation then China. In a now global economy, if we do not, someone else will, often with far greater cost to Gia (and to the US and european economies) then if we develope our own resources.
We need these elements so the mobile phones owned by environmentalists will keep working.
China is not the only source. America was a big producer, before being shut down by- you guessed it, environmentalists. Nigeria produces some, by bucket and spade so much development needed. Australia has some and probably a lot if exploration was increased. Canada and Russia must have some as it would seem that they are found in the ancient cratons of the planet.
If you are interested in the abiogenic theory of the formation of crude oil, natural gas, the oceans, and the atmosphere, I would highly recommend Thomas Gold’s “The Deep Hot Biosphere : The Myth of Fossil Fuels”.
http://www.amazon.com/Deep-Hot-Biosphere-Fossil-Fuels/dp/0387952535
The following is an excerpt from Thomas Gold’s book the Deep Hot Biosphere which that outlines some of the observations which supports an abiogenic origin (non-biological, primeval origin), for petroleum, natural gas, as well the source of the hydrogen to form the planet’s oceans.
” (1) Petroleum and methane are found frequently in geographic patterns of long lines or arcs, which are related more to deep-seated large-scale structural features of the crust, than to the smaller scale patchwork of the sedimentary deposits.
(2) Hydrocarbon-rich areas tend to be hydrocarbon-rich at many different levels, corresponding to quite different geological epochs, and extending down to the crystalline basement that underlies the sediment. An invasion of an area by hydrocarbon fluids from below could better account for this than the chance of successive deposition.
(3) Some petroleum from deeper and hotter levels almost completely lack the biological evidence. Optical activity and the odd-even carbon number effect are sometimes totally absent, and it would be difficult to suppose that such a thorough destruction of the biological molecules had occurred as would be required to account for this, yet leaving the bulk substance quite similar to other crude oils.
(4) Methane is found in many locations where a biogenic origin is improbable or where biological deposits seem inadequate: in great ocean rifts in the absence of any substantial sediments; in fissures in igneous and metamorphic rocks, even at great depth; in active volcanic regions, even where there is a minimum of sediments; and there are massive amounts of methane hydrates (methane-water ice combinations) in permafrost and ocean deposits, where it is doubtful that an adequate quantity and distribution of biological source material is present.
(5) The hydrocarbon deposits of a large area often show common chemical or isotopic features, quite independent of the varied composition or the geological ages of the formations in which they are found. Such chemical signatures may be seen in the abundance ratios of some minor constituents such as traces of certain metals that are carried in petroleum; or a common tendency may be seen in the ratio of isotopes of some elements, or in the abundance ratio of some of the different molecules that make up petroleum. Thus a chemical analysis of a sample of petroleum could often allow the general area of its origin to be identified, even though quite different formations in that area may be producing petroleum. For example a crude oil from anywhere in the Middle East can be distinguished from an oil originating in any part of South America, or from the oils of West Africa; almost any of the oils from California can be distinguished from that of other regions by the carbon isotope ratio.”
Just for the record Rare Earth Elements (REEs) are, relatively speaking, not that rare. Anyone interested in this topic should check out Reimann and Caritat, 1998, Chemical Elements in the Environment, Springer-Verlag. This volume synthesizes work by others on the abundance of most elements. For those unable to find this reference I would point out that for all REEs, with the exception of Pm (promethium), their average crustal abundances from three studies are recorded . All REEs, except Pm, are more common than such elements as gold, silver and mercury. Some such as La, which is used as a cracking agent in refineries, Ce which is used in pollution control systems, and Nd, the element used to make light weight magnets, are more common in the crust than lead and depending on the study are more common than copper (Wedepohl 1995).
As Dennis Nickols P. Geol points out above if the price goes up ore grades will be found.
IMHO the current situation with the Chinese is similar to OPEC back in the seventies. As OPEC put the boots to the industrialised world by raising oil prices explorers went to work and found new sources of oil. So although some, like National Geographic Magazine, predicted in the seventies that oil would reach over $200/bbl before the year 2000 this never occurred. The Chinese through restricting the supply of REEs have created the conditions by which their monopoly will be broken.
I suspect within 5-10 years time the Chinese will no longer hold a monopoly on REEs and their prices in real terms will have declined.
Gee I wonder if Paul Ehrlich and John Holdren are up for a bet.
OMG, don’t let this abiotic thing resurface! We had a go at it a while back, and it was an awkward exchange, in which the true believers did not know the basics of petroleum geology or production, but did not let that get in their way. Perhaps Ric Werme with his excellent archiving can dredge it up, though like a stinking black shale it would be more pleasant to leave it buried.
Ok, in respect for the good science seen on this board, I’ll do a blurb:
I find this belief amazing in light of the fact that the most successful trend in hydrocarbon exploration is drilling horizontal wells and frac’ing the heck out of organic shales. Huge reserves of natural gas have been established, and a fair bit of oil too. These wells drill exactly where the biotic theory would tell one to drill, and exactly where deep abiotic hydrocarbons would never be able to migrate into. The proof is in the production—one theory has reversed our declining gas reserves dramatically, one has only piqued the interest of some internet posters.
Yea there is such a thing a abiotic methane. I can tell you though, from 25 years of looking for and finding oil, that most is clearly biotic in origin.
There are complex trace long chain molecules, known as biomarkers present in the oil. They are basically fossils on a molecular level. We can trace these biomarkers directly to the source rock, and often trace then directly to the organism, and determine the age, environment of deposition of the organic matter.
I can show you side by side basins in Indonesia, one with a layer of organic rich black shale deposited in a lake 35 million years ago, and full of the fossil remains of the algea bottriococcus. The other basin lacks the organic rich layer.
Surprise! the basin with the organic layer is full of oil, and the oil is full of the same long chain hydrocarbons as the bottriococus remains. The other basin is barren.
How did those deep mantle hydrocarbons know to only migrate into the basin with the algal rich rock?
As far as fields recharging themselves, this phenomenon is perfectly compatible with organic sources. Producing the oil in a field only removes about 30% of the oil in place, but it reduces the pressure and induces more oil to migrate in from the source rocks. Even without a mass of fractured horizontal boreholes, the hydrocarbons will migrate toward the depleted area, and in some fields, this happens in a human time scale. Often it does not even have to come very far. My wife has done research ito oil charged microporosity and found many large field have oil in micropores which does not get produced in the first extraction. Deplete the fluids in the large pores, and some will move out and become producible.
Anyway, enough on the subject. It the risk of sounding condescending, one should read some basic texts on Petroleum Geology, Petroleum Geochemistry, and Hydrocarbon Production, prior to deciding an entire body of science, which continues to be successfully applied, is faulty.
Doug says:
October 3, 2010 at 3:38 am
Thanks for pointing that out Doug. The believers in the abiotic origin of oil need to given a good healthy dose of facts to get them back on track.
Doug says:
October 3, 2010 at 3:38 am
“Anyway, enough on the subject. It the risk of sounding condescending, one should read some basic texts on Petroleum Geology, Petroleum Geochemistry, and Hydrocarbon Production, prior to deciding an entire body of science, which continues to be successfully applied, is faulty.”
See Doug, this is one reason that the AGW establishment cheeses people off. It dismisses all contrarian arguments and seeks to shut down debate. I’m not saying I want that debate, and if I did, I’m not sure this would be the place for it. What I am saying is that you are behaving, in principle, little differently from those you probably abhor when they speak out on AGW.
Besides, doing what you are doing only serves to pique interest and so is counterproductive. And yes, it does make you sound condescending though I’m sure you aren’t.
Doug
I would humbly suggest that there is more than one way to crack and egg.
That should be
“an egg”
plus one method does not invalidate the other