Much of the knowledge that each of us retains actually consists of a collection of assumptions. Life is too short for every person to follow every fact through to rigorous proof. It is for this reason that an open mind is so important. We base our conclusions on the best information available, but we must always be ready to alter our assumptions on the basis of new information. Doubt, however, need not dominate our lives. On one occasion, I was told that a conclusion I had reached was wrong and that additional information was available. Further, I was told that if I would travel 2000 miles and participate in a closed, secretive meeting with people who were not permitted otherwise to individually discuss the facts with me, these additional truths would be revealed. As would be expected, the demanded arrangement reinforced my original conclusion. If there really were new information, it could be imparted by free individuals communicating by telephone or letter. In rigorous science, assumptions cannot always be avoided, but they need to be clearly stated in each instance. Perhaps the most remarkable occurrence of assumptions in science concerned Sir Isaac Newton's second law of mechanics. Newton wrote, "The change of momentum is proportional to the motive force impressed; and is made in the direction of the right line in which that force is impressed.'' As Newton defined momentum: "The quantity of momentum is the measure of the same, arising from the velocity and quantity of matter conjointly.'' In the symbolic representation of calculus: F = d (mv) / dt. Newton did not know whether or not mass is constant, so he put it inside the differential. He did not assume that it is constant. During the following 200 years, however, physicists found it convenient to assume that mass is constant. It became customary to write: F = [m] [d (v) / dt] or F = ma, where only the velocity and acceleration, d (v) / dt, were assumed to vary. Albert Einstein put an end to this when he demonstrated that mass is not constant - a finding that has been widely and erroneously reported as Einstein having found that Newton was in error. It was, in fact, the physics community after Newton that made the erroneous assumption. Newton's law, as he stated it, allows for variable mass. One modern assumption that has worried me for many years, for several reasons, is contained in the term "fossil fuels'' which is widely used to refer to coal, oil, and natural gas. It is so universally assumed that these substances are entirely derived from the decomposition of previously living plants and animals that "fossil'' is used in their shorthand name. You may have noticed that, in
Hydrocarbons are very widely distributed. They are found in the atmospheres of giant gaseous planets, on asteroids, on interplanetary dust grains, and in meteorites. They are believed to exist deep in the earth where great pressures and temperatures actually increase their stability. They may be the source of carbon in diamond, which forms at pressures reached only at depths of 100 miles or more in the Earth.
Since hydrocarbons are less dense than rock, they rise toward the surface. In volcanic regions, they are partially oxidized by rocks, but in nonvolcanic regions, there is less oxidation. Methane is, therefore, most abundant in nonvolcanic regions. The estimated amount of methane hydrate exceeds the total for all coal, oil, and other natural gas.
Commercial helium is produced from oil and gas wells, since this is the only place that helium is found in sufficient quantities for commercial extraction. Gold suggests that helium, which is formed by radioactive decay of uranium and thorium, is pumped to the Earth's surface and concentrated by hydrocarbons rising from their places of origin deep in the Earth. He quotes Mendeleev, who concluded that petroleum is formed nonbiologically, very deep in the Earth.
Gold also quotes Sir Robert Robinson as writing, "Actually it cannot be too strongly emphasized that petroleum does not present the composition picture expected from modified biogenic products, and all the arguments from the constituents of ancient oils fit equally well, or better, with the conception of a primordial hydrocarbon mixture to which bio-products have been added.'' Gold's hypothesis, summarized in Figure 1, is that hydrocarbons are formed by ordinary chemical processes in a region where they are very thermodynamically stable, deep in the earth. They then rise upward. Near the surface, they pass through a region in which temperatures and pressures permit microbial life and where oxides of iron and sulfur provide the oxygen needed for life. These microbes are the source of the biological compounds that have led to the belief that petroleum is fossil in origin.
Gold discusses this hypothesis in the context of the search for life on other planets. He points out that this search should not be limited to planetary surfaces, which are generally very hostile environments. If hydrocarbons are of nonbiological origin, then pools of hydrocarbons below the surfaces of planets may be the most universal and most promising environment in which to look for life.
At the San Diego meeting, S. S. Penner estimated that all of the energy required for a world population of 10 billion people could be provided for 1,000 years by means of known reserves of coal, oil, and natural gas alone. (See
Access to Energy 24, No. 11, pp 1-2, July 1997.) Allowing for the lower, gradually rising current population and the use of other energy sources as well, the reserve is much greater than 1,000 years. Moreover, there is some research which indicates that current oil fields are refilling from oil and gas fields below them. (See Access to Energy 23, No. 3, p 4, November 1995.) In any case, it is obvious that the occasional shortages of hydrocarbons during this century have been politically caused and that, given world reserves, any shortages arising for many centuries (probably millennia) in the future will also not be caused by inadequate supplies.This has been implicitly admitted by the enemies of technology and their mentors, who advocate "reducing'' world population by an order of magnitude by limiting technology. (Is it not wonderful that semantics so facilely obscures impolite words like "murder'' and "genocide''?) This is the reason that they shifted the focus of their efforts against hydrocarbons from the myth that we are running out of hydrocarbons to the new myths of global cooling and, now, global warming.
The notion that hydrocarbon use must be reduced because of diminishing supply rested on two tenets - very small known reserves and the "fossil'' fuel hypothesis, which implies very slow ongoing production and minimal undiscovered reserves. The free market has destroyed the first of these two tenets for at least the next 1,000 years. If research destroys the "fossil'' idea, even our very distant descendants will not be limited. (Given the rate of technological advance, they will also likely be able to make any petroleum they need by other means.)
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Vol. 25, No. 1
Newsletter: Access to Energy Newsletter Archive Volume: Issues Issue/No.: Vol. 25, No. 1 Date: September 01, 1997 02:39 PM Title: Earth, Physics, and Chemistry
Copyright © 2004 - Access to Energy Newsletter Archive
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