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.
The issue with China’s restrictions on RE export started with the Japanese arresting a fishing boat and holding the captain and boat because of fishing in waters around a disputed island (Taiwan, Japan and ML China claim it). China upped the ante by stating they would stop exports of strategic raw materials to Japan, among them RE metals. The rest was a reaction by US and others who suddenly, it seems, realized that such resources could be denied them. There are good resources of RE in California as mentioned, but also in Utah and elsewhere. Certainly Canada has resources that may rival China’s. Check out Thor Lake deposit in the Northwest Territories where a huge deposit contains several percent RE and especially the most valuable ‘heavy RE’ which are the most strategic. One other element that commonly occurs with RE is Thorium which has been lately promoted for nuclear energy without weapons grade byproducts. Thor lake has plenty of this stuff too. We were once called the Blue-eyed Arabs of the North by US politicians when Canadian oil companies raised prices from the 3 or 4 dollars a barrel (remember those days?) after the ME oil embargo of 1974. We may yet be renamed the Blue-eyed Mandarins of the North when RE output begins at a higher price than now.
As a past mining engineer and geologist, I’m certain new deposits of the REE will be discovered when it is in the economic interests of exploration and mining companies to find them. All it takes is freeing the land from excessive regulations.
“Quite obviously the massive Alberta tar sand deposit is migrated hydrocarbons.”
Yes migrated from the west to the east horizontally, more like squeezed like toothpaste from a tube. Not up from the mantle (some 35km of rock).
Also kerogen contains lipids, chemically identical and related to animal lipids.
“Doug, it is quite obvious you have not read Thomas Gold’s book and the 100s of papers concerning this issue, nor are you aware of the scientific issues concerning how the planet’s atmosphere and oceans formed. ”
The original paper I posted throughly debunks Gold’s theory: http://static.scribd.com/docs/j79lhbgbjbqrb.pdf
Abstract: The two theories of abiogenic formation of hydrocarbons, the Russian-Ukrainian theory of deep, abiotic petroleum
origins and Thomas Gold’s deep gas theory, have been considered in some detail. Whilst the Russian-Ukrainian theory
was portrayed as being scientifically rigorous in contrast to the biogenic theory which was thought to be littered with invalid
assumptions, this applies only to the formation of the higher hydrocarbons from methane in the upper mantle. In most other
aspects, in particular the influence of the oxidation state of the mantle on the abundance of methane, this rigour is lacking
especially when judged against modern criteria as opposed to the level of understanding in the 1950s to 1980s when this theory
was at its peak. Thomas Gold’s theory involves degassing of methane from the mantle and the formation of higher hydrocarbons
from methane in the upper layers of the Earth’s crust. However, formation of higher hydrocarbons in the upper layers
of the Earth’s crust occurs only as a result of Fischer-Tropsch-type reactions in the presence of hydrogen gas but is otherwise
not possible on thermodynamic grounds. This theory is therefore invalid. Both theories have been overtaken by the
increasingly sophisticated understanding of the modes of formation of hydrocarbon deposits in nature.
It is a mistake to say that the enviro-mentalists don’t understand the economic havoc they create. They precisely understand; that is their objective. They are followers of the evil Canadian Maurice Strong who famously said that industrial civilisation must end.
We may get to the point where the only way of saving the world will be for industrial civilization to collapse.
I can’t understand the alarmism about REE to be honest. They are an oxy-moron because they aren’t rare. In Australia we have been burying them as waste from mineral sands operations (in the monazite) for ages. We also have a mine on the books in Western Australia that would be only too happy to fire up if REE demand starts to rise.
Lynas Corp – Mt Weld mine
http://www.lynascorp.com/page.asp?category_id=2&page_id=3
So if we mine them in WA and send them to Malaysia for processing I think everyone should be able to sleep well, right? Note Lynas’ comment about the company:
“Lynas is set to provide the first source of supply of Rare Earths outside of China when it comes into production in the third quarter of next year. We believe this timeframe puts us well ahead of our competitors.”
So there must be other ex-China operations being developed.
Evidence is mounting that petroleum is abiogenic in origin
Sure, why not.
Alkaline earths + carbon + heat and pressure -> group IIa carbides
+ water -> acetylenes
polymerization -> aromatic + aliphatic hydrocarbons
It appears the search for commercial hydrocarbons will over rule your concerns as to validity of the abiogenic origin of commercial hydrocarbons. The paper that is alleged to debunk the abiogenic origin does not address the technical issue raised by Kenney.
This statement is from the debunking paper is not scientific “However, formation of higher hydrocarbons in the upper layers of the Earth’s crust occurs only as a result of Fischer-Tropsch-type reactions in the presence of hydrogen gas but is otherwise not possible on thermodynamic grounds.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fischer%E2%80%93Tropsch_process
The Fisher-Tropsch process occurs at high temperatures (higher than the silly graph which someone provided a link to with the comment that the silly graph proves their point) and in the presence of a catalyst. The reaction Kenney speaks of occurs at high pressures.
http://sp.lyellcollection.org/cgi/content/abstract/214/1/83
Oil and gas production from basement reservoirs: examples from Indonesia, USA and Venezuela
“Basement rocks are important oil and gas reservoirs in various areas of the world. Such reservoirs include fractured or weathered granites, quartzites, or metamorphics. In South America, basement reservoirs occur in Venezuela and Brazil. In North Africa, basement oil and gas production occurs in Morocco, Libya, Algeria and Egypt. Significant basement reservoirs occur in the West Siberia basin as well as in China. In the USA, basement-derived oil production occurs in a number of areas, including California (Wilmington and Edison fields), Kansas (El Dorado and Orth fields) and Texas (Apco field). In Southeast Asia, basement reservoirs are the main contributor of oil production in Vietnam. In Indonesia, to date oil and gas production from basement rocks has been minimal. However, the recent large gas discovery in pre-Tertiary fractured granites in southern Sumatra has led to a focusing of exploration in Indonesia for basement reservoirs.”
The evolution of multi-component systems at high pressures: VI. The thermodynamic stability of the hydrogen–carbon system: The genesis of hydrocarbons and the origin of petroleum, By Kenney, Kutcherov, Bendeliani, and Alekseev
Perhaps if you read Kennedy’s paper and responded with a scientific response.
http://www.pnas.org/cgi/reprint/99/17/10976
“The theoretical analyses establish that the normal alkanes, the homologous hydrocarbon group of lowest chemical potential, evolve only at pressures greater than approx. 30 kbar, excepting only the lightest, methane. The pressure of 30 kbar corresponds to depths of approx.100 km. For experimental verification of the predictions of the theoretical analysis, a special high-pressure apparatus has been designed that permits investigations at pressures to 50 kbar and temperatures to 1,500°C and also allows rapid cooling while maintaining high pressures. The high-pressure genesis of petroleum hydrocarbons has been demonstrated using only the reagents solid iron oxide, FeO, and marble, CaCO3, 99.9% pure and wet with triple distilled water.”
The expression in the second line of Eq. 2 states further that for any circumstance for which the Affinity does not vanish, there exists a generalized thermodynamic force that drives the system toward equilibrium. The constraints of this expression assure that an apple, having disconnected from its bough, does not fall, say, half way to the ground and there stop (a phenomenon not prohibited by the first law) but must continue to fall until the ground. These constraints force a chemically reactive system to evolve always toward the state of lowest thermodynamic Affinity.
From NASA
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/cassini/media/cassini-20080213.html
The semantic argument is really a deflection. nature makes oil, hydrocarbons in many ways.
The point is resources are not scarce only price driven.
one 500,000 barrel train in Alberta cost USd 10 billion. At the prices obatined at the time, its already paid for. To build more is a simple business decision and how to hide the cost write down.
Discussion is healthy but should be focused on solutions not semantics.
William, in the book, Oil 101, that California example of oil in “basement” rock, what ever that means, was from migration from another source, which has been identified. So too with the others. The oil dosen’t, can’t, form in magma.
You do realise that you are now doing is what the AGW dogmatists are doing. Attempting to defend a belief in spite of contradictory evidence presented to you.
Best you find an oil geologist and ask them.
FTA: 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.
I don’t agree. I think that they know exactly what they are doing and that that is exactly what they want.
William, some references for you:
http://www.osti.gov/energycitations/product.biblio.jsp?osti_id=7052010
http://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/0016703794900299
Methane produced in the mantle from recycled carbonate rock at subduction zones:
http://www.pnas.org/content/101/39/14023.full
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6V66-48C8KPM-1BP&_user=10&_coverDate=11%2F30%2F1989&_rdoc=1&_fmt=high&_orig=search&_origin=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_searchStrId=1483361937&_rerunOrigin=scholar.google&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=cb211fcd1f9d946d1c2b1ca4a4537c07&searchtype=a
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6V66-4894GG0-37&_user=10&_coverDate=06%2F30%2F1977&_rdoc=1&_fmt=high&_orig=search&_origin=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_searchStrId=1483365677&_rerunOrigin=google&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=714f986fe017bc4c447b607a194b5b8f&searchtype=a
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6VCP-48B007B-9&_user=10&_coverDate=12%2F31%2F1977&_rdoc=1&_fmt=high&_orig=search&_origin=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_searchStrId=1483365951&_rerunOrigin=scholar.google&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=62471af8fbcf42d4efd6733378d5be02&searchtype=a
One last:
DOI: 10.1306/A663388C-16C0-11D7-8645000102C1865D
Relation Between Petroleum and Source Rock
Dietrich H. Welte (2)
AAPG Bulletin
Volume 49 (1965)
The relations between petroleum and source rocks can be understood only if we know the important geochemical and geological data of both systems. Therefore, in the first two sections, the latest results of oil and sediment research are discussed. The third section deals with migration, which may be interpreted as the connecting link between crude oils and their source rocks. In the light of the data presented, it is then shown that oil genesis and migration are very closely related to the development of a basin and that one source rock can deliver a whole series of different crude oils. At the beginning of this series are the heavy petroleums and at the end the light ones. This development is basically the result of the progressive thermal degradation of the organic mater al, which was finely disseminated throughout the source rocks.
http://search.datapages.com/data/doi/10.1306/A663388C-16C0-11D7-8645000102C1865D
Jrwakefield said:
“Note ORGANIC. Shales are formed from thick mud/clay deposits with lots of marine organisms living in it. The NG got there by decomposition of the organisms, trapped in the rock matrix because it cannot escape the rock. The big problem with gas from shale is that the depletion drop off rate is very fast. Within 6 years 80% drop in production, compared to 20 to 30 years for a convensional field.”
Using capital letters does not booster a scientific argument. The abiogenic deep hydrocarbon source theory is a paradigm shift that affects the economics, the amount of available hydrocarbons, and the regions where new very large hydrocarbon deposits will be found.
These companies are not planning to spend $3 billion of private funds to construct LNG export facilities, if there was an expected 80% drop in production in 6 years.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/bc-emerges-as-major-natural-gas-player/article1247539/
“Now, his proposed $3-billion Kitimat liquid natural gas project has the backing of some of the biggest names in the business – including the world’s largest gas importer, Korea Gas Corp., and U.S. gas producers EOG Resources Inc. and Apache Corp. , two key players in the Horn River….”
“…the change from an import to an export facility is emblematic of the changing B.C. economy and the province’s emerging role as a significant gas producer on a global scale.”
“…British Columbia currently produces 2.5 billion cubic feet of gas a day – less than a quarter of rival Alberta’s output – but the potential at Horn River alone is huge. Companies such as Apache, EOG and EnCana Corp. believe Horn River itself could eventually produce more than four billion cubic feet a day, similar to what is generated at a giant field in Texas called the Barnett Shale…”
“Beyond Horn River, northeastern B.C. appears to be rich with gas trapped in barely porous rock.” (my comment: barely porous rock that has immense amounts of CH4 under very high pressure in it.)
I noticed you did not comment on the Sloan Deep Carbon Workshop. The finding of very large commercial hydrocarbon in basement rock boosters the deep carbon source theory. Look at all of the observations and construct a theory/mechanism. I have quoted specific papers and observational data on the origin and evolution of the planet’s atmosphere and the planet’s oceans that supports a deep source for hydrocarbon.
The comment that the deep source hydrocarbon theory is somehow related to the AGW distortion is not scientific. Each scientific theory must be evaluated based on the observational evidence and logic. It appear you have not read Kenney’s paper. Kenney’s paper contains fundamental scientific theoretical and experimental data that supports the abiogenic theory.
I do not mine, if we agree to disagree, however, the recent commercial and scientific evidence all supports the abiogenic theory. What is or is not the source of the hydrocarbons, is very important as we must determine a policy that is based on fact not a myth. I fully support practical conservation and practical thoughtful environmental protection.
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.”
For those interested in abiotic genesis of hydrocarbons:
From here: http://www.gasresources.net/index.htm
Modern petroleum science, – or what is called often the modern Russian-Ukrainian theory of deep, abiotic petroleum origins, – is an extensive body of knowledge which has been recorded in thousands of articles published in the mainstream, Russian-language scientific journals, and in many books and monographs. However, effectively nothing of modern petroleum science has been published in the U.S.A., and this body of knowledge remains largely unknown in the English-speaking world. For reason of this circumstance, a brief introduction to modern Russian petroleum science has been written separately, and is offered together with a brief indication of some of its immediate economic consequences.
The unfamiliarity with the Russian-language scientific literature has been further worsened by the bizarre circumstance that modern Russian petroleum science has been subject to the most extensive attempt at plagiarism in the history of modern science. This particular aspect of the history of this body of knowledge is taken up in the section dealing with the political and sociological essays.
Jr Wakefield:
William has done a remarkable job of trying to draw your attention to an enthalpy problem with the biogenic hypothesis, highlighted in the very PNAS paper that you refuse to address.
Several people have mentioned the same paper here, in fact.
quote:
============
The spontaneous genesis of hydrocarbons that comprise natural petroleum have been analyzed by chemical thermodynamic-stability theory. The constraints imposed on chemical evolution by the second law of thermodynamics are briefly reviewed, and the effective prohibition of transformation, in the regime of temperatures and pressures characteristic of the near-surface crust of the Earth, of biological molecules into hydrocarbon molecules heavier than methane is recognized.
[…]
The scientific problem of the genesis of hydrocarbons of natural petroleum, and consequentially of the origin of natural petroleum deposits, regrettably has been one too much neglected by competent physicists and chemists; the subject has been obscured by diverse, unscientific hypotheses, typically connected with the rococo hypothesis (1) that highly reduced hydrocarbon molecules of high chemical potentials might somehow evolve from highly oxidized biotic molecules of low chemical potential.
============
Also, regarding Titan:
“Crude oil minus the sulfur is a decent estimate of what the haze is…”
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/071011-titan-drizzle.html
It is always in the interest of the supplier to pretend there isn’t much around.
There was a reason why Shell closed the most profitable and efficient refinery at Bakersfield in the U.S.
This REE mini-crisis reminds me of the very rare element (?) “unobtainium” from the film “Avatar”. Maybe the humans in the film had to go to Alpha Centauri for it because the Chinese locked up all the Um on earth.
Just a random thought before bedtime. (yawn)
William says: “The high-pressure genesis of petroleum hydrocarbons has been demonstrated using only the reagents solid iron oxide, FeO, and marble, CaCO3, 99.9% pure and wet with triple distilled water.”
Is not the marble originally of biologic origin?
On a related note, here’s an anecdote regarding a ‘basement reservoir’. I’ve seen samples of a very high gravity oil (looked like vegetable oil) produced from a shallow well at the margin of the Placerita Field located in the Newhall area of southern California. The well (one of several in the same area) was drilled into Pelona Schist, a foliated metamorphic rock which apparently acted as a good reservoir rock due to intense fracturing caused by its proximity to a nearby major fault. The twist is that the ‘basement reservoir’ schist was situated directly across the fault from hundreds of feet of Cenozoic sedimentary rocks. These sedimentary source rocks were located within the so called Ventura Basin, one of the world’s most prolific producers of petroleum in the early 20th century. The fault is known elsewhere in the field to have served as a trap, but was apparently leaky enough to allow a very light fraction to migrate across into the fractured schist. I don’t think it was of abiogenic origin, but the old timer that gave us the sample said he would cut it 50/50 with gasoline to run his old pickup and my friend claims to have run his lawnmower on it!
redneck says:
October 3, 2010 at 9:32 am
The NASA press release, uses the headline “Titan’s Surface Organics Surpass Oil Reserves on Earth”.
That may be where the Grey Lensman obtained his info.
“Several hundred lakes and seas have been observed, with each of several dozen estimated to contain more hydrocarbon liquid than Earth’s oil and gas reserves. The dark dunes that run along the equator contain a volume of organics several hundred times larger than Earth’s coal reserves. “
The release also states that “liquid hydrocarbons in the form of methane and ethane are present on the moon’s surface, and tholins probably make up its dunes.“The press release could have been better written, but that is what NASA put out.
Ray says:
“Maybe it is about time we think of recycling the rare earth metals from all electronics junk.”
This is already being done in third world countries; it should be done here as well.
I haven’t read all the comments here, so I’m not sure if anyone has pointed this out yet. One of the best widely-known facts that supports abiotic-origin for complex hydrocarbons is Saturn’s moon Titan. It’s atmosphere has 1.4% Methane composition. This is a huge percentage amount when compared to the Earth. Now unless that planet has a thriving (albeit alien) ecosystem that gives off methane at a regular rate, the only explanation is that there are geological processes that create it. The reason for this is that Methane will decompose over a period of time into other compounds, so the only way for Methane to exist in such huge percentages on Titan is for some consistent process to exist there. So the question is, do you think there’s a bunch of alien life on Titan? Or do you think it’s likely that the correct conditions exist there to create methane geologically? No one knows for sure, but either answer is acceptable until we land/orbit there for a significant period of time.
William says:
October 3, 2010 at 6:54 pm
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I thought I’d let this die, but you offered up these very good examples William. I was responsible for those wells in South Sumatra being drilled. One of the primary reasons my client participated was the good organic source rock surrounding the basement rock.
I wrote “The Petroleum Geology and Future Exploration Potential of Indonesia” in which I showed how to locate organic source rocks in Indonesian lacustrian basins using seismic amplitudes. Over twenty oil companies bought the report.
Perhaps the largest field reservoired in fractured granite would be Bach Ho, offshore Viet Nam. I have a very nice seismic line from the Russians, showing that the granite horst is surrounded by organic shales. Very much like the California example, they all tie right back to a biotic source rock.
oops! lost Williams examples. Try again:
William says:
“In Southeast Asia, basement reservoirs are the main contributor of oil production in Vietnam. In Indonesia, to date oil and gas production from basement rocks has been minimal. However, the recent large gas discovery in pre-Tertiary fractured granites in southern Sumatra has led to a focusing of exploration in Indonesia for basement reservoirs.”
First Shale Gas:
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/5868
http://www.energybulletin.net/node/49342
http://www.aspousa.org/index.php/2009/08/lessons-from-the-barnett-shale-suggest-caution-in-other-shale-plays/
Abiotic Oil:
I have no problem with hydrocarbons in the mantle. Subducting carbonate rock would be the source of that. But this process producing oil formations is a different matter. For one, oil deposits in the Atlantic cannot be from subduction zones, it’s a spreading ridge, and the oil deposits are in sedimentary layers, which can only be long after the rift has widened.
The question I would have is if abiotic oil is true, how come not one spent deposit is refilling? The US peaked in production in the 1970’s and has been in decline ever since. Alaska is in decline and so is the North Sea. Cantarell is on its death bed (look up the geology of that, formed 65myo when it was hit with the meteor). Ghawar is in its last stages of life as they pump in more sea water than they get back in oil.
No oil has been found in the Canadian Shield. Every oil deposit that is tapped has been shown to have a biological source rock. Some oil has migrated, some have not (see the Bakken deposit for in situ oil, it’s not possible for the oil to have seeped into it.).
I would ask which fields of oil that have been found can definitavely be shown to be abioitic mantel derived.
This article claims the the current dominate theory of oil’s origin is that is is formed from the detritus of marine microorganisms settling of the bottom of warm, shallow seas, which sediments were eventually subducted into the planet’s interior.
I note that this and the abiotic theory are not mutually exclusive, conceivably both have produced oil which we’ve tapped.
Even if you restrict to the abiotic theory, it means that oil has been being generated for some 3.5 billion years, continuously, not from just one period in the planet’s existence.