First ever post i read on steemit , and indeed I had the same question; how rare is fossil fuel really?
I came across a youtube vid just 2 days ago with a retired USA colonel explaining that ; yes, maybe its a hydro carbon, but no one ever has explained why the deepest fossils are found at 16000 feet, but oil gets drilled at 30000 feet and lower. In his story he tells that Rockefeller knew that the 2nd most abundant liquid on earth was going to be hard to put a price on, but if its supply was limited, he could claim scarcity.
He sent a number of scientists over to a biology conference in Geneva in the late 1892 in which the attendants were going to come up with the definition of what constitutes an organic substance, and he managed to get petroleum classed as a biological substance. The rest is apparenty history.
Not promoting carbon based fuels tho; anything thats less a polutant than what we use now is a win.
You made my day dude. Happy to know bout this new fact. Already going through it.
A hearty welcome to Steemit.com. Keep in touch.
I agree on the fact that anything that would pollute less would be already a kind of victory. But one must be careful in the definition of "polluting less". Being objective with this respect today is hardish.
Oil below 17000 feet cracks to gas because the heat and pressure at that depth breaks up the long chains liquid petroleum is composed of. Oil is only exploitable because it pools up in porous rock , usually associated with salt dome caps which act as stoppers.
I think that is what Gold's theory says
Gold was a proponent of non-biological origins for oil. The ongoing formation of methane deep within basement rock by bacteria might be the source for more complex hydrocarbons. The petroleum we use daily has pretty well understood origins. Porous rock capped by a salt dome is a common structure, fault slip zones are another. The accumulations we can access are geological rarities. MOST of the oil ever generated by our planet never accumulated, but escaped because there was no geological trapping mechanism.