04-25-2012, 12:06 PM
World oil production peaked in 2005 (discoveries peaked in the 1970s), so it's all downhill from here. There's MAYBE 30 years of recoverable natural gas left, if we're willing to accept the environmental devastation that fracking causes. And willing to keep drilling madly, because the new gas wells deplete in 3-5 years. Not a pretty picture.
Oil isn't still being produced; that's just a fairy tale that the far right likes to tell so they don't have to admit what a predicament we're in. The oil (and coal) we're using now can be (and has been, approximately) dated. What hasn't ever been found is so called "abiotic" oil, but some people just won't stop believing in magic, no matter how much evidence is presented.
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/308/57...3.abstract
Rhenium-osmium (Re-Os) data from migrated hydrocarbons establish the timing of petroleum emplacement for the giant oil sand deposits of Alberta, Canada, at 112 ± 5.3 million years ago. This date does not support models that invoke oil generation and migration for these deposits in the Late Cretaceous. Most Re-Os data from a variety of deposits within the giant hydrocarbon system show similar characteristics, supporting the notion of a single source for these hydrocarbons. The Re-Os data disqualify Cretaceous rocks as the primary hydrocarbon source but suggest an origin from older source rocks. This approach should be applicable to dating oil deposits worldwide.
http://news.stanford.edu/pr/94/940804Arc4170.html
STANFORD -- The Jurassic (180 million to 140 million years ago) was a very good age for oil formation. So too was the Cretaceous (140 million to 65 million years ago). But, until now, oil industry experts have lacked a direct way to date their crude.
The method is not a very precise yardstick. Oils of any age can lack oleanane if flowering plants were not part of the material from which it formed. But lack of oleanane is a significant clue that the oil may have formed in the Jurassic or older times, before angiosperms evolved. If the compound is present in relatively small amounts, the crude is almost certainly Cretaceous or younger. If it contains large amounts of the organic substance, on the other hand, its pedigree most likely dates from the post-Cretaceous or Tertiary Age (65 million to 5 million years ago).
Oil isn't still being produced; that's just a fairy tale that the far right likes to tell so they don't have to admit what a predicament we're in. The oil (and coal) we're using now can be (and has been, approximately) dated. What hasn't ever been found is so called "abiotic" oil, but some people just won't stop believing in magic, no matter how much evidence is presented.
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/308/57...3.abstract
Rhenium-osmium (Re-Os) data from migrated hydrocarbons establish the timing of petroleum emplacement for the giant oil sand deposits of Alberta, Canada, at 112 ± 5.3 million years ago. This date does not support models that invoke oil generation and migration for these deposits in the Late Cretaceous. Most Re-Os data from a variety of deposits within the giant hydrocarbon system show similar characteristics, supporting the notion of a single source for these hydrocarbons. The Re-Os data disqualify Cretaceous rocks as the primary hydrocarbon source but suggest an origin from older source rocks. This approach should be applicable to dating oil deposits worldwide.
http://news.stanford.edu/pr/94/940804Arc4170.html
STANFORD -- The Jurassic (180 million to 140 million years ago) was a very good age for oil formation. So too was the Cretaceous (140 million to 65 million years ago). But, until now, oil industry experts have lacked a direct way to date their crude.
The method is not a very precise yardstick. Oils of any age can lack oleanane if flowering plants were not part of the material from which it formed. But lack of oleanane is a significant clue that the oil may have formed in the Jurassic or older times, before angiosperms evolved. If the compound is present in relatively small amounts, the crude is almost certainly Cretaceous or younger. If it contains large amounts of the organic substance, on the other hand, its pedigree most likely dates from the post-Cretaceous or Tertiary Age (65 million to 5 million years ago).