Is oil a fossil fuel

I've been dimly aware of an argument that oil is not in fact made by a biological process for a couple of years now, but I've never really given it much thought - it all seemed a bit hare-brained to me.

But now, via the Englishman, comes an article in Science which seems to support the theory.

Our findings illustrate that the abiotic synthesis of hydrocarbons in nature may occur in the presence of ultramafic rocks, water, and moderate amounts of heat.

If this is right, then oil is not a fossil fuel at all, and another prop has been kicked out from under the global warmers' feet. Interesting times. 

Comments

[John East]

On first appraisal it might be thought a good thing if oil turns out to be far more plentiful in the bowels of the earth, but bear in mind that conventional wisdom - peak oil followed by oil shortages - might guarantee a sensible market mechanism via price to ration oil in the future. I could live that.
In the absence of the market controlling oil usage, as might be the case with more plentiful abiotic oil, the socialists and greenies will happily step in to take control. Giving more power to these ideological control freaks would not be such a good idea.

[David Duff]

One advantage of a high oil price is that it encourages the search for new energy sources and the quicker that happens the better for all of us.

As to the main story, Warren Meyer over at Coyoteblog is a little more cautious:

"My sense is that we may now say a fraction of oil is abiogenic, but are a long way from saying that any serious percentage is of non-fossil sources."

http://www.coyoteblog.com/coyote_blog/2008/02/fuel-without-th.html

Still, we can all hope!

[Bishop Hill]

THanks for that link David. I wonder what the evidence is for a biogenic basis for oil. IIRC there isn't actually any.

This being the case, the temptation would certainly be to have a stronger conclusion than that of Coyote Blog.

[DWMF]

Yup. Where do you think the methane atmosphere on Jupiter came from? Must've been trillions of dinosaurs breathing it out. :-P

In fact, most of the hydrocarbons in the earth's crust were originally at the same time as 99% of the hydrocarbons in the solar system. In the early stages of the accretion disk that evolved into the planets. High temperatures and pressures would have polymerized the methane into longer chain molecues.