04-25-2012, 12:44 AM
Oil coming from dinosaurs is one of those fake stories they tell school children, like George Washington cut down the cherry tree or that he had wooden teeth. The majority of it comes from microscopic organisms in an aquatic environment, mainly algae which was probably more abundant millions of years ago when the earth was warmer.
But regardless of whether or not it is still being produced, we're mining millions of years worth of stored carbon and releasing it into the environment.
Oddly enough, one of the top contenders right now for an oil replacement is from the same micro organisms, except extracting it in real time which is carbon neutral because they remove as much carbon dioxide during their life span as they release when the bio diesel is burned. You can google algae diesel or whatever they are calling it. They experimented with it in the 70's but the dept of energy determined it would take too much land to make it feasible but current efforts are based on growing it vertically instead of horizontally so the real estate issue is not a problem, and in the 70's they didn't have bioengineering to tweak the algae to produce more oil. This is one of those things that is being produced right now, not something from a science fiction novel, but of course the cost is so astronomically high that its only used as a proof-of-concept. If they can get the price down, and when the price of oil goes up, you'll see vertical algae farms surrounding the windmills.
But regardless of whether or not it is still being produced, we're mining millions of years worth of stored carbon and releasing it into the environment.
Oddly enough, one of the top contenders right now for an oil replacement is from the same micro organisms, except extracting it in real time which is carbon neutral because they remove as much carbon dioxide during their life span as they release when the bio diesel is burned. You can google algae diesel or whatever they are calling it. They experimented with it in the 70's but the dept of energy determined it would take too much land to make it feasible but current efforts are based on growing it vertically instead of horizontally so the real estate issue is not a problem, and in the 70's they didn't have bioengineering to tweak the algae to produce more oil. This is one of those things that is being produced right now, not something from a science fiction novel, but of course the cost is so astronomically high that its only used as a proof-of-concept. If they can get the price down, and when the price of oil goes up, you'll see vertical algae farms surrounding the windmills.