To Peak or Not to Peak?

Love it or hate it, there is no doubt that whether you are an environmentalist or a rabid consumer of hydrocarbons also known as fossil fuel, oil is what makes the world's economies thrive. The truth is that everything we own, from a toaster to a loaf of bread, oil is used at some point in it's creation.

Out of billions of inhabitants of this world, we use products made of plastics, which are oil based products. Every item you purchase has been made in a plant which needs to be powered. Power that is generated by fossil fuels, directly or indirectly. The bottom line is this. Our dependency on oil cannot be weaned overnight. Because, if that was true, we would all be freezing in the dark, and according to experts world oil supplies are in serious decline.

Now a debate has been waging on what many have been calling peak oil. Peak oil is the point in time when the maximum rate of global petroleum extraction is reached, after which the rate of production enters terminal decline.

According to industry watchdogs the world reached its peak oil production in 2006. This, of course, was revised from a previous peak oil calculation that stated that 1970 was the beginning of the end. Peak oil came to the top of the list again when news reached that Saudi oil production had peaked in 2009, news that can only raise the price of a barrel of oil. As peak oil pundits pound the pavement with the news of a dry hole, the laws of supply and demand influence markets world wide.

While those in power banter back and forth on the issue of peak oil and clamber in an effort to save their lifestyle, a small group of geologists and scientist sit back and snicker. Because these people are not buying into the peak oil crisis. They are those scientists that state that oil grows in the crust of the earth, liken to blood in a living creature. Yes, these folks are considered by the ruling party as the lunatic fringe.

One such scientist, a Thomas Gold, a respected astronomer and professor emeritus at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., has held for years that oil is actually a renewable, primordial syrup continuously manufactured by the Earth under superheated conditions and extreme pressures. As the primordial syrup migrates toward the surface, it is attacked by bacteria, making it appear to have an organic origin dating back to prehistoric times.

As a consumer of oil, I for one, like what the lunatics are preaching. If true, the laws of lunacy, can stabilize the price of fuel and provide much needed time to develop alternative energy sources without throwing public funds at projects that act like an energy placebo.

The 'primordial syrup theory' is not completely lacking observed science. A good example is the Eugene Island oil field, deep off the Gulf of Mexico that was believed to have achieved 'peak oil' operation years ago and according to experts was in a decline. For some time it behaved like any normal field. Following its 1973 discovery, Eugene Island's output peaked at about 15,000 barrels a day. By 1989, production had slowed to 4,000 barrels a day. Then inexplicably the field, operated by PennzEnergy Co., is now producing 13,000 barrels a day, and probable reserves have rocketed to more than 400 million barrels from 60 million. Stranger still, scientists studying the field say the crude coming out of the pipe is of a geological age quite different from the oil that gushed 10 years earlier.

There are some credible oil suppliers who also do not believe in 'peak oil'. Recently the head of Saudi oil giant Aramco, Khalid al Falih came out with the statement, “We don't believe in peak oil,” during a speech that was to quell concerns that the largest oil field in the world, Saudi Arabia had peaked and was in serious decline.

By the time anybody graduates from high-school, they have been educated to believe that oil is the result of decaying matter from plants and animals millions of years ago. And, for the most part, that explanation sounds credible. If this were the case then a debate over 'peak oil' would not be an issue in the industry and oil companies could go about their business finding reachable sources and development method of extracting.

Until recent news, I had discarded the 'primordial syrup' theory as science fiction, or the fantasies of academic dreaming. However, news from NASA this week can cause a pregnant pause in the debate, which came from 1,363 Billion kilometers away. Scientists have discovered that a moon of Saturn, Titan has hundreds of times more liquid hydrocarbons than all the known oil and natural gas reserves on Earth, according to new data from NASA's Cassini spacecraft. Titan not only rains oil, it also oozes oil.

I am not so sure that we can no longer consider scientists like Thomas Gold as lunatics. Unless you believe that Titan had enough life millions of years ago, to be processed into a fossil fuel. I guess it is true, oil is where you find it.