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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Ray says:
October 2, 2010 at 10:24 pm
Certainly it must cost more to raze a mountain and process the ore than process every single piece of electronics that goes to the dumps. At some point some people were doing it for the gold in the old computers. Maybe it is about time we think of recycling the rare earth metals from all electronics junk.
=================================
Not necessarily. Also, the use of these materials is growing rapidly, due in large part to the push for EV’s and other “environmentally friendly” technology, so even if you did recycle it all it would only amount to a small fraction of the demand. It’s a real conundrum for the true believers. The problem is that they typically can’t see beyond the end of their pointy little noses, which is why we are constantly assailed by daily “save the planet/whale/walrus/owl/snaildarter…………” fads. They simply cannot comprehend that there are consequences to rationing (which is what they are trying to do ), that may not fit into their neat little Utopian agenda.
Redneck,
In New Zealand the Government’s mineral regulators now class methane as “petroleum”, and in order to produce it you now need a petroleum mining permit. In addition to explore for it you need a petroleum exploration permit.
So is methane a form of petroleum? Depends on who you ask!
Keep in mind that we do not burn crude oil in our cars and planes, we burn a product that is made by breaking down and re-combining hydrocarbons from crude oil. However, other sources of hydrocarbons can also be used such as coal, agricultural wastes and sewage sludge. The only issue is the cost of the finished fuel product.
The truth is that we are awash in hydrocarbon resources. In a free market, that is free to also use suitable conversion technologies, the concept of “peak oil” is shown to be a fraud and a useful agenda driver as opposed to a meaningful truth about the availability of motor vehicle fuels.
The US has been shut down by environmentalists? Stop looking at your belly button. The last time I looked the US military didn’t seem to be short of supplies, other than maybe taxpayer’s money.
China is doing what any smart country needing to grow its economy would do. Identify key markets, attempt to establish a monopoly, secure raw materials. Reminds me of Britian, the US, …
Michael Larkin says:{October 3, 2010 at 3:55 am}
“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.”
I think Doug speaks of time proven science and applications of that science whereas AGW is based on projections of incomplete models. Quite a difference.
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.
——————————————–
And there is a bigger chunk of evidence that oil is biological in origin.
Abiogenic petroloeum seems like wishful thinking by the sounds of things.
Anyone have an idea of the stable state of Carbon and hydrogen at deep subsurface temperature and pressures. Is it methane or graphite? In other words what does the chemical thermodynamics say?
So let’s get this rare earth thing right. The Chinese mine their Rare Earths then sell them to you as cheap finished products. Can’t see that this is a problem from a national security perspective. On the other hand the USA conserves it’s untapped reserves, maybe.
Global Warming — The Current Status: The Science, the Scandal, the Prospects for a Treaty
Speaker/Performer: Richard Muller, Professor, Dept. of Physics, UC Berkeley
Abstract:
Recent events in the field of climate change have confused both the public and many “experts.” I will try to elucidate what has been happening. Two out of three climate groups show no global warming for the past 13 years. What does that mean? Why does the third group (led by Jim Hansen) disagree? Why was there no treaty at Copenhagen? (It wasn’t political, but technical!) Why do we hear so little about the Copenhagen follow-up meeting, this December in Cancun? What really happened in the Climategate scandal? How serious are the mistakes that embarrassed the IPCC (e.g. their claim that the Himalayas might melt in a few decades, subsequently retracted)? How reliable are the predictions of future global warming?
Rob R says:
October 3, 2010 at 4:35 am
How the New Zealand government chooses to classify methane for the purposes of exploration permitting is of little consequence regarding theories on the abiogenic origin of petroleum. What I really want to know is what is Grey Lensman’s source or reference for his statement at 11:01 indicating the presence of oil on Titan. Maybe you can help out.
Duncan (12:00am) says that rare earths metals (REMs) have nothing to do with fossil fuels.
Well, Duncan, we’re told we must switch to “green” technologies to curtail our use of such fuels. But the viability of many “green” technologies – especially electric cars, low energy light bulbs and windmills – depends largely on rare earth metals. So, if supplies are curtailed, we may be forced to burn fossil fuels after all. (And we may find those lovely iPhones etc. are no longer available.)
Get it?
Note the arrogance of the Sierra Club, Assistant Secretary of Agriculture and the Forest Service Chief with the attitude they can force the American people into submission to their plans and the rogue attitude of those holding government office ignoring their oaths of office and the law. Congress passed those laws and the laws are a result of representation. If government officials can ignore the laws then the will of the people mean nothing. How do they get away with this, because our elected representatives allow it. And we elect them.
Grey Lensman says:
October 3, 2010 at 4:08 am
> I would humbly suggest that there is more than one way to crack an egg.
This is sort of a loaded question, but presumably there are petroleum sources (discounting methane!) that lack biogenic markers. The loaded part is that if all the petroleum geologists are looking for biotic source and not looking for abiotic sources, the sample will be well skewed toward biotic sources. I seem to recall from past discussions that some of the deep wells in the Gulf of Mexico or Brasil may have been claimed to be abiotic. Fuzzy memory.
Begin with this paper or this one (press release here).
More info and older papers here (intro) or here (technical).
“Americans use too much energy, and they’re not going to change voluntarily. 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.”
Control. Coerce. Don’t give people a choice. Your “betters” believe they have the moral authority to put you in a plantation shack and demand that you do their bidding, yet you’ll notice that they never seems to put themselves in a shack or make real personal sacrifices for the cause. Stop listening to them. They are morally and intellectually bankrupt.
Another name for oil is hydrocarbons, for good reason.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/09/100921144133.htm
This clearly tells us the Universe has different ways of making oil or if you like hydrocarbons.
As we can make bio-diesel we also make syncrude (South African process). So it seems very possible that here conventional full spectrum crude is made both bio and non bio.
Polarisation only has limited uses. Its best to keep and open mind. Thats how Russia found some very deep oil.
May not matter – superatom ensembles should be able to replace rare earths. No good as structural materials – the strength to weight ratios would be terrible, but fine for low strength applications and catalysts.
How can a country with a mere 30% of the world’s coal reserves not be energy independent? And who knows how much oil reserves, the last time we updated our reserves was in the 70s using 70s technology.
Or with some of the most advanced nuclear technology on earth.
Makes no sense does it. Unless of course you are a leftist.
Is it just me thinking that, assuming there is at least some justification for declaring areas wilderness (ignoring the costs) – they’re nice to have – then perhaps the solution to mining in wilderness areas is to spend a bit extra and do it without showing anything above ground? If we have to, it is not beyond our abilities to hollow out a mountain and support it from the inside, all without a sign on the outside to show we were ever there.
The really important ‘resource’ that is genuinely protected by wilderness zoning is the old growth forest that idiots want to cut down and use for timber.
Doug says:
October 3, 2010 at 3:38 am
Oh dear, a challenge. In truth, my archiving and searching skills are overrated. Generally I use the search box at the top of the page, though it only matches the content of the post, not the comments. There are no posts referencing abiotic! Next comes Google, and searching for |site:wattsupwiththat.com abiotic| yeilds dozens of references.
Clearly Doug needs to spend more of his life here. 🙂
Some that struck my fancy, I haven’t read too closely, this is one controversy I’m mostly happy to leave to others, sorted by date:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/07/27/penn-and-teller-on-carbon-credits/#comment-28233 Leon Brozyna says:
July 29, 2008 at 10:40 am
As well, check out a more in-depth look at the resurrected theory of the abiotic origins of oil at:
http://www.gasresources.net/index.htm
Now if (and that’s a mighty big if) this idea holds water, then oil will never run out as it’s being continuously created. Just some fascinating thinking for the geology community.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/11/07/truly-inconvenient-truths-about-climate-change-being-ignored-ipccs-pachauri-says-warming-is-taking-place-at-a-much-faster-rate/#comment-56862
Terry Ward says:
November 13, 2008 at 9:53 am
Experiment has shown the abiotic hypothesis to hold water 😉 A google search of-
“Laboratory-pure solid marble (CaCO3), iron oxide (FeO), wet with triple-distilled water, are subjected to pressures up to 50 kbar and temperatures to 2000 C. With no contribution of either hydrocarbons or biological detritus, the CaCO3-FeO-H2O system spontaneously generates, at the high pressures predicted theoretically, the suite of hydrocarbons characteristic of natural petroleum.”
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/03/04/scientists-locate-apparent-hydrothermal-vents-off-antarctica/#comment-336497
James F. Evans says:
March 5, 2010 at 8:59 am
[Note a couple comments in brackets]
Here is an abstract of a scientific paper that concisely spells out abiotic oil formation processes (link below):
http://www.searchanddiscovery.com/documents/2006/06088houston_abs/abstracts/keith.htm
Serpentinization is common on the ocean floor along fracture zones (Lost City), beneath conventional petroleum in rifts due to sedimentary burial (Gulf of Mexico) or thrust loading (Roan Trough), and at the top of flat subducting oceanic crust (Eocene beneath UT, CO, WY).
…
If hydrogen-stable (mainly thermogenic methane) peridotite-sourced brines rise into shelf carbonate sequence, they may form magnesian or quartz alkalic hydrothermal dolomite (HTD) and thermogenic gas. If the brines breech the hydrosphere they may produce “white smokers” (tuffa vent mounds/pinnacle reefs) along faults and enrich shales with exhalative metal and hydrocarbon. Petroleum condensate typically forms in reservoirs between the HTD zone and seep sites at the top of the lithosphere.
[I may have completely messed up the context, but subduction zones have sediment and various biotic remains. Perhaps this is talking about high temperature conversion?]
To note: Rare earth minerals (those that are rare in the shallow crust but more plentiful in the deep crust and upper mantel are found in oil deposits, but not in the surrounding shallow crust in which the oil deposit is lodged.
[Hey! I’m on topic! Yay!]
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/03/31/new-paper-agw-sooners-stake-your-drill-baby-drill-ice-free-claims-now/#comment-358292
James F. Evans says:
April 1, 2010 at 12:42 pm
The best currently available science is overwhelming that complex hydrocarbons (oil) and most natural gas is abiotic.
There is little scientific evidence and no constrained chemical reaction process that explaines the so-called “fossil” theory that organic detritus becomes complex, high chemical potential energy, hydrocarbons.
[James again. I recommend Doug and James do not get together to discuss the subject over a beer!]
———————————-
Aha! The thread Doug refers to appears to be http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/05/15/natural-petroleum-seeps-release-equivalent-of-eight-to-80-exxon-valdez-oil-spills/ – found by adding Brasil as a search term.
Doug states: “The deep stuff in Brazil produces because inspite of being deep, the vitrinite reflectance is below 2.2, tmax below 500C, and is within the oil window.”
This is a meaningless statement meant to look authoritive, but in all my discussions and research have never seen that justification offered for the temperature of the oil.
[It gets uglier. I can see why Doug doesn’t spend much time here.]
———————
Hmm, I wonder if I should add a section on “other controversies” to http://home.comcast.net/~ewerme/wuwt/index.html to have convenient pointers to discourage rehashing old arguments. I don’t know, I’d have to mention things like CO₂ frost and a couple banned topics, it would distract from WUWT’s goals. I could do that in a separate page, I could call it dont-go-there.html. Might be worthwhile.
Michael Larkin says:
October 3, 2010 at 3:55 am
“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.”
Mike— I agree this is the wrong forum in which to debate the origin of producible hydrocarbons, but I disagree that I dismiss contrarian arguments without cause. I merely value informed debate over ideology. In the AWG field, I regularly read Realclimate. I find their arguments well presented but generally unconvincing.
I believe it is unproductive to debate with those who have read Thomas Gold’s “The Deep Hot Biosphere : The Myth of Fossil Fuels” and made up their minds without reading and understanding more of the vast body of research on the subject. Gold’s ideas makes a nice story, well presented, as is the information at Realclimate but it does not lead to discoveries of oil and gas. Looking for organic source rocks does.
I understand the Rothschilds, house of orange (Dutch royal family) and others funded the russian revolution and Hitler, who is to say who is behind this destructive scam, it seems the same ideoligy is behind enviro nazis, carbon credit scam and china, it must be vast sums of money that drive this. Politicaly look at the UK, the conservatives are gone , all 3 parties are socialist and lemming like, money again. The hope for a future is sites like this and movements like the tea party where actual conservative principles are held valid. A question for the “greens” if CO2 is so bad why do we squander rare earth metals and lots of heat to produce the ceramic honeycomb to produce catalytic converters that have to be fed with excess O2 and unburnt hydrocarbons to convert CO to large amounts of CO2? I get that back in the 1970s this cleaned up the poor fueling and ignition running of the day but today we have to corrupt the perfect running and economy of our cars to make the damn things work??
Doug have a go at explaining the Alberta Tar sands super concentration of bitumen which is equivalent to the Saudi super massive oil fields. What is your explanation for the super concentrated hydrocarbon fields? Try to explain why there are heavy metals in oil and that the same concentrations of heavy metals are found in fields that are geographically separated. (The point is the hydrocarbons moved deep earth and picked up the heavy metals and then moved to multiple porous formations that are graphically separated. There are no heavy metals in the porous sedimentary formations.) The source of the hydrocarbons is deep in the earth.
The movement of deep hydrocarbons through the mantel is the reason why other heavy metals such as concentrated deposits of gold are found with hydrocarbons residue.
Try to explain why tiny Qatar has 15% of the world’s “natural gas” reserves.
Try to explain how the atmosphere and the oceans formed on the planet (Do not forget the big splat issue. See my comment above.) or why the ocean is currently super saturated with CH4, or the massive CH4 deposits in the permafrost high latitude regions of the planet. Explain why deep CH4 has almost no C13.
Current research shows the planet loses significant amounts of H2O (The H2O dissociates in the atmosphere and the H2 is removed by the solar wind.) from the solar wind. If there was no source of new CH4 this would be a lifeless waterless planet.
I have researched this subject in depth. There is an interesting set of papers published by the API called “The Origin of Petroleum” which lists problem after problem (each problem is a paradox) which the organic theory cannot explain.
The source of the CH4 is deep earth. If you read Soviet papers and Soviet textbooks the standard model is deep earth as the source of petroleum. The Soviets complained that Thomas Gold did not give them credit for the discovery. The Soviets developed the technology for deep earth natural gas exploration and seem to be very, very, commercially successful.
Read Thomas Gold’s book as a starting point and then come back. What you personally believe is irrelevant. A scientific theory must explain all observations. The organic theory cannot. Current commercial exploration for “natural gas” is in fields that are clearly abiogenic source.
http://www.gasresources.net/VAKreplytBriggs.htm
The deep earth hypothesis can explain why Saudi Arabia has 25% of the planet’s oil reserves half of which is contained in only eight fields. Half of Saudi Arabia production comes from a single field the Ghawar.
Excerpt from this wikipedia article on Oil Reserves
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_reserves
“Saudi Arabia reports it has 262 gigabarrels of proven oil reserves (65 years of future production), around a quarter of proven, conventional world oil reserves. Although Saudi Arabia has around 80 oil and gas fields, more than half of its oil reserves are contained in only eight fields, and more than half its production comes from one field, the Ghawar field.”
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.
This is a Chinese ‘deflection’. THE largest REE mine in the world, which is in China, is an IRON mine. The Rare Earths come along as a byproduct. They are mining Iron as fast as they can…
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2010/09/25/are-rare-earths-rare/
“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. ”
Give me a break guys. This speculation has been put to rest:
Abiogenic Origin of Hydrocarbons: An Historical Overview
http://static.scribd.com/docs/j79lhbgbjbqrb.pdf
Oil is biological. So is the natural gas in those shale formations (that’s why they are blackish in colour — carbon)
Abiogenic hydrocarbons?
The search for hydrocarbons starts with geoscientists looking for a quality source rock. A good source rock consist of a high percentage of organic carbon. We can use the chemical ‘finger print’ to identify what type of organisms produced were pyrolyzed. Type1= fresh water algae, Type 2=Marine algae, and Type 3=terrestrial plant matter. The distribution of known hydrocarbons is strongly correlated with prolific source rocks that have been buried and are thermally mature, like the Kimmeridge Clay in the North Sea or Tuwaiq Mountain Formation in Saudi Arabia. I am not saying that abiogenic hydrocarbons do not exist. But, most of our oil and gas are clearly related to the organic matter of source rocks.
That is funny, some of you are hangry about China, because they are playing the capitalist game. Is’nt jealousy. China went farther then looking at there noze a couple of years ago by doing a survey of such ressources in there country, then went worlwide seeking for it. What they do , they buy the enterprise who owns the claims on these ressources – they’re paying big bucks to get them.
By the way, they don’t do that only on such rare ressources, they also buy most of the claims for wood, crop land, oil (of course), copper mines, gold mines, diamond mines.
Guess where they are picking all the $$$ to do so. By financing the debt from large countries like the US. If you want to see a big link between debt and financing – poor administrative and short term vision from large capitalist countries is allowing China to become the owner of the most precious ressources in the world. And China is ”only” playing our game (capitalism) – can we blame them ?
Having said that, while most of the US was debating (for the last 20-30 years) about not leaving the fossil fuel industry and to forget about new technologies (you know those greenes trying to create new batteries and electric motors you’re all laughing about), countries like China went forward in develloping them – now we’ll have to pay for it. Again, it’s the same short term view type that sent us in that situation.
If you try to stop that, you’ll be prevented from doing so by your own law of free market and anti protectionist laws that you (the US) supported all the way when it was about foreign fossil fuel. Now that you are on the other side of the fence, you find it not fair.