Has anyone ever head of a wingnut theory that oil is still being produced

[Jackpine Radical]

in nature somehow, and we will never run out? My favorite right-wing loony dropped that one on me earlier this evening, & I'm wondering f this is something he's picking up from Rush & the other Talking Rectums on the McLamestream Media.

[Taverner]

1. There's the whole idea that Fossil Fuels don't come from fossils, but through geology

There was even a DU'er advocating this madness

[Lost-in-FL]

2. Now, that's rich.

[Taverner]

5. Love that Venn Diagram

Too true

[Rage for Order]

3. It is still being produced

Give it a couple hundred million years. You'll see

[dems_rightnow]

7. The laugh will be on us then!

Till then, let's do something different.

[Jackpine Radical]

9. Well, yes, of course. But I somehow suspect

that oil consumption may be slightly outpacing the rate of "oilification" of vegetable matter.

[Rage for Order]

10. Why'd you have to start nitpicking???

You and your damn negativity! :rofl:

[Jackpine Radical]

11. Because it's my job. Ever since Spiro Agnew, I have self-identified as

a nattering nabob of negativity. At least the nattering and negativity parts. I never really made it to nabob.

[jakem]

33. but you have to have a goal-

[varkam]

4. I think that there's actually some science behind it, but it is not...

being produced at a rate that equals or exceeds the rate at which we consume it. I'll ask my father - he's a geologist in the oil business.

[alfredo]

37. I think they are confusing oil seeping into played out oil fields

with oil being produced.

[Tindalos]

6. Depends on how long you're willing to wait.

I guess, if you were really, really patient...

[some guy]

8. supposedly comes from Stalinist Russia

search for Stalin + Russia + abiotic oil.

Happy reading :hi:

on edit: you can also just search abiotic oil

[BlueJac]

12. OIl is not produced, it is pumped out of the earth! WTF?

Do people think we make oil?? Excuse me, when it is gone we can not make or "produce" anymore. This is unreal thinking!!!

[Jackpine Radical]

13. What part of "wingnut theory" are you having trouble with?

[Subdivisions]

31. Umm...the actual pumping of oil out of the earth is referred to as "production". n/t

[Captain Sensible]

35. Something has to produce it before we can pump it!!!!!!!!!!! nt

[ColbertWatcher]

14. Honestly, I think Stephen Colbert said that.

Seriously, I don't remember which episode (I'm really behind on the summaries), but I know he has.

[OnyxCollie]

15. Kinda like the same way meat grows maggots when it's left out. nt

[Jackpine Radical]

18. Spontaneous generation. Yeah. I like that.

[Sanctified]

16. This is not so much a wingnut theory, my wife went to school in Japan and was taught this. n/t

[vixengrl]

17. I think it goes like this:

At the center of the world, which is hollow, is the Petroleum tree, which was planted by God on or about the fifth day. He in his infinite wisdom expected the humans to drill into it someday, which is why he made it before men, and put it underground. Yea, put in in the very firmament, where it sank.

The petroleum tree branches out all under the span of the globe, but the branches are usually located where the hearts of men are hardened, so there shall be wars and rumors of wars, or whatever works. But it's war over God's own Petroleum tree--so it's holy. It also branches out in really inconvenient places, like under the sea. But drilling under the sea for it will be like tapping a keg--because yea verily, the results of the neverending flow will be immediate, for the tree representeth the power and the glory of the wishful-thinking--pretty much, amen.

And lo, the tree is that which makes petroleum as its fruit, so it is renewable. For it is written, "By their fruits shall ye know them" and we have tasted of the fruit of the Petroleum Tree, and found it good.

The heathen will call the fruit of the Petroleum tree "fossil fuel" for they are heathen, and believeth in fossils, and think that the earth was very old, but that the supply of oil be finite. But the true believer knows that the world is young, and the tree is old, and the fuel is forever and ever, heating the mansions in heaven of the faithful, and fueling the furnace of those that disbelieveth in the Petroleum tree. For they are the suckage, and fall into the iniquities of solar and wind-powered heresies. Which are renewable and do not come from God, or a Commodities market. For these renewable enegies speak of independence, and not fealty to the Lord of the Petroleum tree.


For in it's trunk the Petroleum tree burneth, and that with a mighty fire. And out of the burning mouth, it spake thus:

You have been weighed in the balance, and found wanting--that is demand. Although I am everflowing, there is still only so much of me to go around. So I visit you with plagues of high pump prices and home heating costs, for I am Supply. And for those that yield unto me, I will make their cup runneth over with gas cards. And those that serveth me best, will experience record profits. But woe be unto him who purchases a Hybrid. For his car will be ridiculed.

And inflate thee not thy tires, for my name's sake. For every drop of mine is sacred. But all must be consumed.

And though you could conserve--thou shalt not, for mine is the Way, and the Energy, and the thing making your chariot go, m-f'er.



Or something like that.

[Jackpine Radical]

19. Y'know, I hate to see something like this go to waste. Let's start a religion.

[vixengrl]

20. The religion of the Petroleum tree scares me a little--

not because I think it would become influential, but because I think it already is. There are people speculating on the energy market right now who do not buy into the idea that there will ever be "peak oil" or that another technology could ever take the place of the combustible chemical engines (good Jah almighty--how last, last century is that?) that drive us right now. And they would rather block something better than lose their shirts--when they could just as easily seek the better resource. It's their thinking, the "Petroreligion", that damns them and us to this cycle.

The same minds love the country-side rape of coal, and thrill to the notion of the cooling towers of the nuclear plant and flirtation with Chernobyl--all commodity. All centralized in industry hands. All oblivious to environmental danger. All market baron and willing consumer, putting in his chit to get central air and night-time lighting...but not ever being in control of his own power. How does anyone prefer a nuclear plant in their backyard to a wind farm? Who would be more happy subscribing fully to the "grid" by paying their light bill--than making others' light bill less by having solar panels plugged into the grid, and even having surplus? And imagine a day when you pull into the parking lot of your employer--and there's a jack at every parking spot for you to juice up your hybrid. And it's cheap enough it's a pay deduction you barely feel. Power provided by the local solar concern. Every business of course converted. And the utilities companies still getting their dime for access and maintenance of the power lines.

(Disclaimer: My father was a lineman for a public utility. Therefore, I am a trifle dotty about energy.)

My religion would involve making public utilities really public again, and rock and roll. And probably something to do with sticking it to the man. I'm like that.

[Sal Minella]

21. I thought vixengrl just did (start a religion). How much more of an oracle could anyone want?

[vixengrl]

23. I try not to start religions

when I can help it.

:evilgrin:

[Jackpine Radical]

24. Why not?

Lots of religions have a world-tree. As a Dane who overdosed on the elder Edda in childhood, my personal choice is Yggdrasil. I imagine there is material there that we could, uh, drill down to.

Religions are very profitable (prophetable?). Why the hell not?

[vixengrl]

29. Because in this religion, thems that have the oil--

will have the gold. I'm not soliciting contributions from Exxon to rock a cathedral--I bet the collection plate would be full of slippery pennies that smelled like crude and washed-up fish. Unless...

We could bilk the oil companies into thinking we signed off on and after-the-fact absolved them through our new Book (The Book of The Oil Testament.) We'd let them contribute to us, while engaging in simple charity, like making sure oil compny employees in Brownsville could get their kids living in a couple dozen miles from the refinery, covered for all their asthma and such. We'd tend to the poor, bankrupt, pensionless refugees of failed (Enron) energy concerns. But secretly:

We'd be deep in the pockets of IBEW and other unions.

We'd be converting people to solar, one household at a time.

We'd sink money into GM opening a solar/gas hybrid operation in Flint, MI.

We'd have lawyers represent the Western Shoshone in re: Yucca, and revisit the Dineh in re: their being shuffled off their land for the coal concern.

We'd mandate "juicing stations" in car parks.

It wouldn't be a religion-it would be a campaign itself!

[Jackpine Radical]

30. I kinda like that...

But where's the part about where we ourselves get obscenely wealthy, a la Robertson, Moon, L. Ron Hubbard, etc.?

[proud patriot]

25. Now that better be a DUzy

:rofl:

[tannybogus]

22. It's a geological process.

I'm sure it is being formed somewhere. However, it won't suddenly appear in huge amounts.

Mother Nature can't keep up with us.:yoiks:

[OffWithTheirHeads]

26. Are you guys just stupid?

Here is how oil is produced. An "Idea" is presented to Bush. The Bush brain, intent on self preservation, produces something similar to antibodies called "antithought. These chemicals react to help dissolve what remains of Bushes brain and reduce it to " oily substances" in his shorts, thereby producing new sources of oil for our country! Fuel crisis solved!

[Jackpine Radical]

27. You can't believe how glad I am you explained that to us.

Christ, is the whole board as drunk as I am?

[dsotm-wywh]

28. It actually is still being produced by the Earth but...

they won't be able to drill for it for millions of years and therefore isn't really going to make much of a dent on gas prices. Maybe a quarter or so.

[jakem]

34. QUICK< BUy OIL OPTIONS!!! THUS IS HUGH!!!

[SidDithers]

32. Its the Abiotic Oil theory...

and there have even been DU'ers supporting the idea.

Sid

Edit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenic_petroleum_origin

Sid

[seasat]

36. Yep they claim it's not based on biological material but science doesn't back it up.

Plants take up CO2 in different isotopic ratios than occurs in the atmosphere. Solar energy creates several both the standard carbon 12 and a few carbon 13 isotopes. Both are stable so unlike C14 they won't degrade over geological time. Plants take up the lighter Carbon 12 in greater proportion than the Carbon 13. Since plant life is the main source of primary production for terrestrial life, all plants and animals end up with this ratio. What this means, in regard to oil, is that if it the result of some unknown geochemical process that doesn't involve biological material, it will not have the lower isotopic ratio. Oil does however have this ratio so it is from terrestrial biological origin and doesn't spontaneous occur like the abiotic oil wingnuts believe it does.

[ileus]

38. seepage from surrounding layers yes, recovering not so much...

A friend I know has a gas well on his property. It normally runs 75psi or something like that, one time the regulator was knocked off by his horse and they didn't discover it until the pressure was at 7. The fixed the valve and over the years it's recovered back to the 75 psi.

Of course this isn't to be confused with oil wells but some of the same theory still applies. His gas well was abandoned back in the 60's because it had stopped producing. He fuels two homes completely off this well...one lucky man that's for sure.