Oil In Your Backyard

THERE MAY BE OIL IN YOUR BACK YARD DON'T SELL YOUR MINERAL RIGHTS! Yes, you may be standing over a substantial fossil fuel deposit at this moment. Well, maybe it's not in the form you can use in your car, but how about crude oil, natural gas, coal, oil shale or even diamonds, all of them examples of fossilized carbon. It has been estimated (1) that if all the fossilized carbon on earth were evenly distributed, there would be about 1-1/2 pounds of it under every square inch of the earth's surface. How do we know this? The story begins very early in the earth's history, perhaps shortly after it cooled down sufficiently to have liquid water on its surface. The atmosphere was completely different from what we experience today. It was more like that of our sister planet, Venus (2), that is, it consisted of over 90 percent carbon dioxide, a substantial amount of sulfur dioxide, about one percent nitrogen, and the total atmospheric pressure was about 90 times what we experience today, or over 1300 p.s.i. (pounds per square inch). The gases in this ancient atmosphere resulted from volcanic out-gassing, probably in about the same proportions that we observe from today's volcanoes. Perhaps you noticed a lack of molecular oxygen, the stuff we breathe and need for life, in this ancient air. Just as on Venus and other planets of our solar system, our earth started out without any molecular oxygen. This substance is highly reactive and forms stable compounds with most other elements, in particular iron, the most common element of the earth as a whole. The surface of Mars we know to be covered with iron oxide, and its atmosphere contains no molecular oxygen. Perhaps the earth's surface looked like that at one time. By some miracle, life form(s) got their start in this thick awful atmosphere and thrived by using photosynthesis. As we recall from high school biology, some bacteria and plants use photosynthesis to generate molecular oxygen and carbohydrates from water and carbon dioxide as a first step. Carbohydrates would be a fossil fuel, but they are liable to be quickly reduced to hydrocarbons such as methane by anaerobic life forms (life that thrives in the absence of molecular oxygen). Over time, the remains of these ancient life forms accumulated and were buried by sediments to great depths. The molecular oxygen became a minor constituent in the ancient high pressure atmosphere, probably less than one percent. In time, other life forms developed that used carbon dioxide from the air or water to form calcium carbonate skeletons or shells, even as clams do today. This process does not generate molecular oxygen, but on a great scale it was able absorb almost all of the carbon dioxide in the ancient atmosphere, and we find its result today as enormous deposits of carbonate rocks, such as limestone, in some places over two miles thick. Today, all that is left of the carbon dioxide of that ancient atmosphere is 0.035 percent, while the nitrogen has increased to 79 percent from its original one percent, and the molecular oxygen has gone from zero to 21 percent. Of course, the total pressure of the Earth's atmosphere has decreased markedly over time, from roughly 1300 p.s.i. to the present day value of 14.7 p.s.i.. Since we know almost exactly the total amount of molecular oxygen we have in our atmosphere, and the ratio of fossil carbon to molecular oxygen as 0.375/1, we can easily calculate the amount of still buried fossil carbon on earth. It is a huge number (3) best appreciated by considering it in comparison to the amount of fossil carbon used on earth in the last 150 years. During that period the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has risen by 105 parts per million (ppm). Assuming that this increase was due to human activity, I calculate that it only

amounts to 0.03 percent of the fossil carbon still extant. These numbers indicate that actual fossil fuel reserves are far larger than current estimates, especially for hydrocarbons such as oil and natural gas. When I tried to introduce this theory, some 25 years ago, to the geologists at the major oil company where I spent my professional scientific career, I received no response. However, geologists required over 50 years to become convinced of “continental drift” (4), now known as “tectonic plate theory“, and I decided they were suffering from NIH, the “not invented here” syndrome. Since then, I have been puzzling why oil and gas companies around the world have been unable to find these reserves, even by accident. I have concluded that since these deposits are much older than conventionally accepted, that they should also be much deeper in the earth's crust, and perhaps beyond current drilling technology. A corollary of this concept recently occurred to me, that in fact, most if not all of the oil and gas deposits we currently exploit are merely leakages from the primary reserves buried much deeper. This would explain why concentrations of oil and gas are found randomly distributed around the world. Many of these leaks have resealed over time, and the relatively shallow secondary reservoirs have become depleted after long time production, but some, as in Saudi Arabia, appear to be still keeping up with the production rate. Consider that, until quite recently, most oil deposits were found where oil had leaked to the surface of the earth. This suggests to me that the most likely place to find new oil is where oil was produced before, but only to drill much deeper in order to penetrate the primary reservoir. Ultra-deep drilling and production is very expensive and has to compete with very low oil production costs in Saudi Arabia (about $2/barrel). Commercial companies have been loath to take the risks involved. It may take some form of government incentive, justified by national energy independence, to encourage private industry to establish the technology for, and the potential of, this vast energy resource literally beneath our feet. Perhaps we should put our tax dollars into exploring the subsurface of our own planet rather than putting a man on Mars. The bottom line is that man will eventually tap this hidden resource, and the world will continue to have abundant carbon fossil fuel for many generations to come. Footnotes: #1)Alan E. Thompson, “Global Strategies Forum”, see website http://www.wfs.org/thompson03.htm 2) “Atmosphere of Venus”, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmosphere_of_Venus 3)Total Fossil Carbon = 5 x 10exp14 tons 4) “Continental Drift”, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental_drift Postscript: The lack of water on our sister planet Venus has puzzled scientists ever since the first planetary probe. Inasmuch as “Life” has transformed the atmosphere and surface of the earth so dramatically, I believe it will inevitably also be shown to be the savior of the abundant liquid water we enjoy.

Russell Reinhard PhD. Pennsylvania State Univ. Chemistry 1961

[email protected] 07/23/09 11:14:08 AM