Do you really believe oil came from dinosaur meat? (global warming, energy, water)
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Of course it isn't made from dinosaur meat, and no reputable source claims that it is.
Is there some minuscule, completely insignificant portion of it that came from dinosaur corpses? Sure, just like it would contain some amount of amphibian, fish, and proto-mammal components. But 99.9% comes from dead plants, algae, and single cell organisms.
If you took every dinosaur that ever existed and crushed them down, their biomass wouldn't come close to that of the petroleum currently existing within the Earth.
Land dwelling animals are overwhelmingly recycled through the food chain, serving as food for other animals, bacteria, and plants. Only a tiny number would have made it into the swamps or lake bottoms untouched to become Quaker State.
Funny, I never saw this thread as an argument over whether oil comes from dinosaur meat vs fossil remnants of living biomass from the dinosaur age. Fossil Fuel implies anything living that was fossilized, no? The competing theory of abiotic generation of hydrocarbon compounds is one theory, and the biogenic theory is another. There is no theory of a 'dinosaur meat' specific source of oil!
Maybe you aren't being snarky, but neither are you being helpful. Since you scoff at the accepted theory of oil generation, you might enlighten us then, on what you think is a better, more rational theory. "No end in sight". Hmmm. A casual observation of the state of the fossil fuel industry, from the earliest known discoveries in the plains of the continental U.S. to the current deep water oil mining projects off the continental shelf, do not suggest to this writer that there "is no end in sight". Oil was ladled out of wells at the turn of the Century, and oil companies became the richest, most profitable entities on earth during the salad days of the oil boom. The cost of a deep water drilling rig is considerable, and the oil harvested using one cannot have the same net worth as legacy oil product that was simply ladled up and transported to refineries. The only reason we still use oil as a primary energy source is because wealthy beyond belief oil companies can pour investor money into exploration projects and exploit niche sources of low quality crude like tar sands, shale rock. Nope. Oil has a finite supply and there is a finite amount of time humanity can use it cheaply. Oil companies don't want you to know that or, to think that, because that will scare off investment.
The estimated known reserves of oil, natural gas, and coal are widely published. No one is trying to hide that fact. Oil and coal are king right now because they are cheaper, and the technology is better developed. The World will have to find a new source of energy in the future, but we have at least 20 more years of cheap oil and coal. Hopefully, at that point trash to energy will be in full swing, producing syn-diesel from old plastics and rubber, and bio-diesel from plant and animal waste. If the World can figure out cellulosic ethanol, that will help tremendously. It is going to take a combination of many different sources to replace oil and coal.
MSince you scoff at the accepted theory of oil generation, you might enlighten us then, on what you think is a better, more rational theory.
I don't have a theory so that's why I am asking. I also don't think that the doubters have the burden of disproving the fossil fuel theory. When did it take up the perch in the first place to be knocked down? All I have read here are conjectures. Why can't we just say we don't know. Until someone actually creates oil from fossils, it's just a theory. I know it takes time but the smart scientist should have a workaround if they want people to accept their theory. As to the finiteness of oil, of course nothing is technically infinite but what if new oil is being created as we speak? Why are we assuming that we are sucking up oil from a finite reservoir?
The estimated known reserves of oil, natural gas, and coal are widely published.
Are you SURE they won't find another oil field worth couple of hundred billion barrels in a couple of years? You know they will. You can't "publish" the news that hasn't happened yet.
Whether you believe the abiotic theory or not we are consuming 100 million barrels of fossil fuel per day,there must be oceans of oil underground, the abiotic theory=Scientists Prove Abiotic Oil Is Real!
I don't have a theory so that's why I am asking. I also don't think that the doubters have the burden of disproving the fossil fuel theory. When did it take up the perch in the first place to be knocked down? All I have read here are conjectures. Why can't we just say we don't know. Until someone actually creates oil from fossils, it's just a theory. I know it takes time but the smart scientist should have a workaround if they want people to accept their theory. As to the finiteness of oil, of course nothing is technically infinite but what if new oil is being created as we speak? Why are we assuming that we are sucking up oil from a finite reservoir?
Um, yes, they do, that's how it works. The burden of proof lies on the person proposing the idea.
Gravity is "just a theory". So is electricity. We accept the theories that explain these phenomena because they work - i.e., you can make accurate predictions from them, such as if you use a certain gauge wire, hook it up according to specific rules, and maintain that wiring properly, your house won't burn down. Our ideas about electricity may not be 100% correct, but they obviously can't be 100% wrong either.
In everyday language, people often use the word "theory" to mean something like "wild-ass guess". Scientists don't use it that way at all. A scientific theory is like a framework, it organizes current knowledge and points toward new lines of research.
In the case of oil, we accept the current theory for many reasons. One of those reasons is that geologists can use that theory to predict where to look for oil. This is a 100-year-old, multi-billion dollar business, if our current theories about oil formation didn't produce oil finds, then they would have ceased being our current theories some time ago.
Also, while there are differing ideas about how much oil is in the earth, it is a sure bet that it is a finite amount. Because the earth is finite. All energy on earth ultimately derives from the sun, and the sun is finite.
Serious question - did you have any education in science at all? I learned this stuff in 6th grade, in 1959.
Funny, I never saw this thread as an argument over whether oil comes from dinosaur meat vs fossil remnants of living biomass from the dinosaur age. Fossil Fuel implies anything living that was fossilized, no? The competing theory of abiotic generation of hydrocarbon compounds is one theory, and the biogenic theory is another. There is no theory of a 'dinosaur meat' specific source of oil!
Technically, the oil-forming process is not fossilization. It's called fossil fuel to indicate that it is really old, not because it's a product of a rock formation process, as, say, petrified wood is. Although sand and rock formations do become saturated with oil, that happens as a separate phenomenon, after the oil and sand/rock are formed.
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