How exactly do 'fossils'<BR>make 'fuel'?http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=474481 de 418/5/2008 19:0

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How exactly do 'fossils'make 'fuel'?

Posted: November 17, 20051:00 am Eastern

By Jerome R. Corsi

Editor's note: Craig Smith and Jerome Corsi will be on Gordon Liddy’sshow today at 11:00 a.m., EST.

Let's examine closely the alleged chemical processes by which decayingplants and dinosaurs are supposed to decay into "fossil fuel."Richard Heinberg, one of the core faculty of New College of California(Santa Rosa) the "peak-production" adherent who is author of "Powerdown: Options and Actions for a Post-Carbon World" tells us that"the assertion that all oil is abiotic requires extraordinary support,because it must overcome abundant evidence" that ties "specific oilaccumulations to specific biological origins through a chain of well-understood processes that have been demonstrated, in principle,under laboratory conditions." So, if what Heinberg asserts is true, weshould have no problem discovering the precise laboratory-provenformula under which ancient plant and animal life decay into

hydrocarbon

fuel. Today's WNDNews Highlights

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How exactly do 'fossils'<BR>make 'fuel'?http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=474482 de 418/5/2008 19:0

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Contact WNDWho's Who at WNDSpeakers and Talk ShowGuestsColumnists Seppo Korpela, of the Ohio State University Department of Mechanical

Engineering, gives usa precise description of the chemical processinvolved. He argues that fossil fuels form when "the early sedimentarylayers" at the bottom of a basin are deprived of oxygen such that theorganic matter in them did not decay, "as it does in the common settingof kitchen compost." Then, "

anaerobic

bacteria" can "go to work andturn the organic material into the substance

kerogen

. Kerogen can bethought of as immature oil." The term "anaerobic" refers to a processoccurring in the absence of oxygen. When kerogen is found at depths of between 6,000 and 13,000 feet, and when the temperature and pressureare "right," the kerogen "in the source rock will be cracked into oil. Thiszone is called the oil window. At depths greater than 13,000 ft.temperatures are so high that oil is cracked into gas."Kerogen, it turns out, is not a chemist's term. Kerogen is a loose,geological term (deriving from the ancient Greek word keros, meaningwax) that an industry oil glossary defines as follows:

Kerogen. The naturally occurring, solid, insoluble organicmaterial that occurs in source rocks and can yield oil uponheating.

Webster's Dictionary defines kerogen in a somewhat circular fashion:"bituminous material occurring in shale and yielding oil when heated."Yet, Webster's defines bitumen as "any of various mixtures of hydrocarbons (as tar) often together with their nonmetallic derivativesthat occur naturally or are obtained as residues after heat-refiningnaturally occurring substances (as petroleum)." Kerogen is not a termtypically found in chemistry textbooks or specifically used byprofessional chemists. Use of the term kerogen is generally a signal thatyou are dealing with a petroleum geologist or engineer, not a chemicalscientist.Ker Than, a staff writer for LiveScience.com, providesthe commonsense explanation for how kerogen is supposed to transform into "fossilfuel."

In the leading theory, dead organic material accumulateson the bottom of oceans, riverbeds or swamps, mixing withmud and sand. Over time, more sediment piles on top and the resulting heat and pressure transforms the organic layer into a dark and waxy substance known as kerogen. Left alone, the kerogen molecules eventually crack,breaking into shorter and lighter molecules composed almost solely of carbon and

hydrogen

atoms. Depending onhow liquid or gaseous this mixture is, it will turn into either petroleum or natural gas.

Chemical textbooks typically do not provide chemical formulae forkerogen. What we do find in chemical textbooks are many descriptionsof how hydrocarbons form when carbon and hydrogen atoms bond toeach other by the covalent bonds. So methane is CH4, the first memberof what becomes an alkane series, such that members having two-,three-, and four-carbon atoms are ethane, propane and butane,respectively. We have yet to find a chemistry textbook that refers to"kerogen" or describes any combination of ancient algae, tiny Mesozoic

sea animals

, or dinosaurs as necessary or sufficient ingredients in theformation of common saturated hydrocarbons such as methane, ethane,propane or butane. Methane is also commonly found on planets such asSaturn (and its moon Titan) where science has never recorded thepresence of living plants or animals.Sometimes chemistry textbooks revert to the common wisdom andprovide a loose verbal description of "natural gas" as having beenformed by "the anaerobic decay of plants and animals" (as we notedbefore, "anaerobic" refers to a process occurring in the absence of oxygen). The textbooks, however, fail to reference any laboratory

experiment

where this process has been demonstrated.The transformation from "kerogen" to "fossil fuels" appears to be more aCourt scolds city for'hostility' toward churchSuspects in Turkish attack accuse each otherStreet preacher set tochallenge powers that beGuv's son parties inhistoric landmark State falsely accuses 3,000of child abuseHomeschooling,homesteading mom joinsteamScientists debate cause of feared 'worms-under-skin'diseaseHeathrow passengers leftunchecked Today's WNDCommentary Highlights

Huffington and McCain- By Joseph FarahLove letter to a fool- By Pat BooneShould all 'gays' move toCalifornia?- By Jonathan FalwellThe United States of Fantasyland- By Star ParkerHappy 60th birthday,Israel!- By Ellis WashingtonCap McCain's hot air- By Henry LambA cure for heart trouble- By Greg LaurieBeware 'The Village'- By Patrice LewisObama's foreign aidcorrupts absolutely- By Donald Hank

How exactly do 'fossils'<BR>make 'fuel'?http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=47448de 418/5/2008 19:0

matter of faith, rather than an observed process that can be described ina precise chemical formula such that we can replicate in a laboratory theprocess by which the compound is produced. This is a commoncomplaint of scientists who propose the abiotic, deep-earth theory of theorigin of oil. Astronomer Thomas Gold, stated the point succinctly onpage 85 of his 1998 book, "The Deep Hot Biosphere: The Myth of FossilFuels." "Nobody has yet synthesized crude oil or coal in the lab from abeaker of algae or ferns."Published scientific analyses attempting to describe "the notion of kinetic cracking of kerogen into petroleum" tend to start with thefundamental definitional problem.Consider this example:

It is important to keep in mind that the name kerogen, inopposition with usual chemical nomenclature, does not represent a substance with a given chemical composition. Indeed kerogen is a generic name, in the same sense aslipids or proteins.

The resulting theoretical discussions, while generally elaborate, typicallyremain unspecified in rigorous chemical formulae that identify chemicaltransformation processes. These technical discussions of how kerogenproduces oil from source rock generally end up describing field-ovenheating devices typically designed to analyze rock samples, such as theRock-Eval prolysis device, into which geologists can cook "source rock"in the field to see if the specimen rock looks like other "source rock"where oil has already been found. Again, the result is practical fieldgeology, not rigorous laboratory science specifying chemical formulaeidentifying how

flora

and protoplasm turn into hydrocarbons.In sharp contrast, methane has been synthetically produced in a rigorouslaboratory setting with a full specification of the chemical formulaeinvolved in the combination of iron oxide, calcium carbonate, and waterto produce methane at pressure conditions of the Earth's upper

mantle

.The scientists conducting the experiment concluded:

The observation of methane formation at mantle pressuresis significant because it demonstrates the existence of abiogenic pathways for the formation of hydrocarbons inthe Earth's interior and suggests that the hydrocarbonbudget of the bulk Earth may be larger than conventionallyassumed.

Scientists have also recently analyzed spectrographic data validating theformation of methane on Mars by fluid-rock interaction in the crust, withno evidence of biologic or organic processes involved.Scientists proposing the abiotic theory of oil have argued that the"Fossil-Fuel" theory fundamentally violates the second law of thermodynamics, a principle which specifies that energy disperses whenpermitted, such that the energy flow never reverses. For example,consider that when you release the neck of a balloon the air escapes; theair never naturally rushes to concentrate into a balloon without beingforced to do so. Thomas Gold stated the principle on page 46 of his 1998book:

It would be surprising indeed if the Earth had obtained itshydrocarbons only from a source that biology had taken from another carbon-bearing gas – carbon dioxide – whichwould have been collected from the atmosphere by photo-synthesizing organisms for manufacture intocarbohydrates and then somehow reworked by

geology

intohydrocarbons.

In other words, the "fossil fuel" from ancient flora or protoplasm woulddemand that somehow the air went back into the balloon, a reverseflow-of-energy direction contrary to the second law of thermodynamics.In other words, dead dinosaurs and ancient forests follow naturally thelaw of entropy, "dust into dust," not the re-energized "fossil fuel" notionof "dust into oil." We still lack the laboratory demonstrations authorssuch as Richard Heinberg claimed we would find. Has anyone ever