Biogenic versus Abiogenic Oil
Why Oil, Coal, and Natural Gas Are Not "Fossil Fuels"
Excerpt from my book The Truth About Energy, Global Warming, and Climate Change: Exposing Climate Lies in an Age of Disinformation
There are two paradigms central to understanding the IPCC’s argument demonizing anthropogenic CO2. The first is that CO2 is a greenhouse gas humans must bring under control, despite being a trace chemical compound in the atmosphere. The second is the idea that hydrocarbon fuels are fossil fuels that we must stop burning, even though the IPCC views hydrocarbon fuels as depleting resources that will soon be exhausted by increased human consumption. The two concepts are linked. We must stop burning hydrocarbon fuels because oil, coal, and natural gas all emit CO2, and CO2 is a significant cause in producing catastrophic climate change. IPCC adherents insist a consensus of scientists holds both ideas as accurate. IPCC adherents, therefore, ridicule and scorn those of us who argue that we can safely and productively burn hydrocarbon fuels, as well as those who say CO2 is not a significant driver of Earth’s temperature.
The purpose of this chapter is to argue that natural hydrocarbon fuels found fully formed in the earth are abiotic, i.e., not made up of organic, biological material.1 This chapter will also clarify that hydrocarbon fuels degassing through deep-sea hydrothermal vents and deep-earth fissures are an essential feature of Earth’s carbon cycle long before the first signs of life appeared on the planet in the form of deep-earth microorganisms. The carbon cycle starts in Earth’s core, not with biogenic decay.
Conventionally trained petroleum geologists will find the idea of abiotic oil hard to accept, much as petroleum geologists demonized for decades anyone who dared suggest that peak oil was a tautology, not proven science. So far in this book, we have demonstrated the complexity of Earth’s weather and climate. Because we understand that Earth’s weather and climate are both chaotic and subject to catastrophic change, then we must also recognize that we live on a planet whose environment is beyond our control. We will conclude this chapter by arguing that decarbonizing by restricting or significantly reducing the use of hydrocarbon fuels will have detrimental effects on the life-supporting nature of the carbon cycle itself.
This chapter is mainly about the science of abiotic oil. But the chapter is placed within part III on economics because the realization that the mantle of Earth abiogenically creates the hydrocarbon fuels that we burn as oil, coal, and natural gas has significant economic consequences. First, this chapter will show abiotic hydrocarbons are plentiful on Earth. Next, abiotic hydrocarbons are being created by Earth continuously. Finally, burning hydrocarbon fuels is one of the many natural and nonharmful processes in Earth’s natural carbon cycle. Decarbonizing may have unanticipated severe and harmful effects on the planet’s carbon, climate, and food cycles.
As famously pointed out by Thomas Kuhn, paradigms in science shift when incontrovertible scientific evidence begins to challenge orthodox beliefs.2 In previous chapters, we have argued the IPCC’s fears, which are the burning of hydrocarbon fuels since the dawn of the industrial age will cause catastrophic global warming and climate change, are unfounded, given the history of Earth’s changes in geologic time. A paradigm shift away from the concept that hydrocarbon fuels are fossil fuels will open the mind to the possibility that hydrocarbon fuels are a natural product of Earth, not inherently harmful. If we assume what Earth produces naturally may be used safely, we can also consider continuing the advances made so far in burning hydrocarbons more cleanly.
Biogenic versus Abiogenic Oil
Dmitri Mendeleev, the Russian chemist, who in 1896 first arranged the sixty-three known elements into a periodic table based on atomic mass, also studied the origin of petroleum. Mendeleev was one of the first to suggest that oil is primordial material that arises from great depths from within Earth.3 He reasoned that oil moves upward toward Earth’s surface along structures he theorized were “deep faults” within Earth’s crust. Philosophy of science professor Clifford Walters published a historical survey of views on the origin of petroleum. In his survey, Walters observed that Mendeleev’s abiotic theory “was viewed initially as particularly attractive as it offered an explanation for the growing awareness of the widespread occurrence of petroleum deposits that suggested some sort of deep, global process.”4
Michael D. Gordin, a professor of history at Princeton University, was less kind in discussing Mendeleev’s theory of abiotic oil. In his 2004 biography of Mendeleev entitled A Well-Ordered Thing, Gordin commented as follows:
There has been understandable emphasis on Mendeleev’s consulting for the growing Baku oil industry and its relation to the Witte system. Mendeleev was affiliated with the oil industry (one of the most important sectors of the economy) from the start of his career, beginning with private work for V.A. Kokorev in Baku in 1863, and he published on oil throughout his life—including a monograph comparing the Pennsylvania and Baku oil fields as well as newspaper pieces advocating the elimination of the government lease system and the excise tax. Oil became a focus of his scientific work as well: Mendeleev argued (incorrectly) that oil was not derived from microorganisms, but rather from metallorganic reactions with water.5
Gordin’s politically correct assertion that Mendeleev’s abiotic oil theory was wrong is typical of the intolerance orthodox scientists and historians of science have when alternative explanations challenge their beliefs. Note also Gordin’s subtle suggestion that Mendeleev’s oil industry financial ties influenced his incorrect thinking.
Geoscientists Mark A. Sephton and Robert M. Hazen, in their 2013 article “On the Origin of Deep Hydrocarbons,” expressed accurately that geology textbooks continue to view the organic theory of the origin of oil as the scientific consensus. They summed up as follows, making it clear they understood the economic importance of the abiotic versus organic debate:
Deep deposits of hydrocarbons, including varied reservoirs of petroleum and natural gas, represent the most economically important component of the deep carbon cycle. Yet despite their intensive study and exploitation for more than a century, details of the origins of some deep hydrocarbons remain a matter of vocal debate in some scientific circles. This long and continuing history of controversy may surprise some readers, for the biogenic origins of “fossil fuels”—a principle buttressed by a vast primary scientific literature and established as textbook orthodoxy in North America and many other parts of the world—might appear to be settled fact. Nevertheless, conventional wisdom continues to be challenged by some scientists.6
As we pointed out in chapter 1, the peak oil theory reduces to a tautology if we assume hydrocarbon fuels are organic fossil fuels. Tautological thinking runs deep into the core of chemical science worldwide. The distinction between organic and inorganic chemistry did not last long. In 1828, the German physician Friedrich Wöhler synthesized urea from inorganic starting materials. Urine is produced by many animals, including us, and urea is a significant component of urine. Wöhler conducted his experiment by evaporating a water solution of ammonium cyanate that he had prepared by adding silver cyanate to ammonium chloride. Instead, he got a crystalline material identical to urea, a chemical easily isolated from urine. This result blew apart any theory that only living organisms can produce organic chemicals. Wöhler clearly showed that no mysterious vital force was needed to synthesize organic chemicals.
Wöhler’s experiment should have destroyed the traditional basis for distinguishing between organic and inorganic chemicals. Marc A. Shampo, Ph.D., and Robert A. Kyle, M.D., noted the importance of Wöhler’s discovery as follows:
Urea is important in physiologic chemistry because it is the principal end product of the metabolism of nitrogenous foods in the body and is found in the urine. Before this experiment, most investigators believed that a “life force” motivated or influenced all substances found in plants and animals. They therefore contended that any substance produced by a life process could not be made from inorganic chemicals. Wöhler’s experiment ushered in the era of synthetic organic compounds, which led to the production of dyes, dynamite, plastics, sulfa drugs, and synthetic fibers and to the process of petroleum cracking.7
Still, even today, the fields of organic and inorganic chemistry are studied separately. The American Chemical Society acknowledges that organic chemistry was originally “limited to the study of compounds produced by living organisms.” Yet, the American Chemical Society recognizes organic chemistry as “the study of the structure, properties, reactions, and preparation of carbon-containing compounds. Most organic compounds contain carbon and hydrogen, but they may also include any number of other elements (e.g., nitrogen, oxygen, halogens, phosphorus, silicon, sulfur).”8 The tautology remains in place in the academic study of chemistry. Organic chemistry is where hydrocarbons are studied. Why? Because dating back to before Wöhler, geologists assume hydrocarbon fuels had an organic origin. Subconsciously the classification of oil as an organic chemical continues to reinforce the fossil fuel theory. If hydrocarbons are organic chemicals, it implies an origin from chemicals that somehow once lived.
Mendeleev’s genius was that he did not categorize the elements by distinguishing them by “organic elements” and “inorganic elements.” Mendeleev organized his periodic table by ranking the elements according to their atomic weights.9He understood that the elements are just substances in the final analysis, and chemical compounds are formulations in which elements combine. Hydrocarbon fuels are not organic because they are compounds of hydrogen and carbon. Hydrocarbon fuels are, by definition, organic only if decaying organic materials are required to produce them. If Earth creates hydrocarbon fuels without decaying organic materials, then fossil fuels as a synonym for hydrocarbon fuels is inappropriate.
I have written two previous books on abiotic oil and numerous published articles between 2005–2015, when I was a senior staff reporter for WorldNetDaily. The first book was published in 2006: Jerome R. Corsi and Craig R. Smith, Black Gold Stranglehold: Why Does Gasoline Cost So Much (Washington, D.C.: WorldNetDaily Press, 2005). The second book was published in 2012: Jerome R. Corsi, The Great Oil Conspiracy: How the U.S. Government Hid the Nazi Discovery of Abiotic Oil from the American People (New York: Skyhorse Publishing, 2012). Certain materials from these prior publications are reprinted here without footnotes. I have taken from these previous writings sparingly, and I have paraphrased the repeated selections whenever possible. When paraphrasing added unnecessary complications, I have reused some selections word for word. While throughout the book I have been fastidious about footnoting, I do not consider revisiting my own previous writings to be plagiarism.
Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962).
Dmitri Mendeleev, The Principles of Chemistry, Volume 1, second edition translated from the sixth Russian edition (Collier: New York, 1902), p. 552.
Clifford Walters, University of Texas at Austin, “The Origin of Petroleum,” in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dmitri_Mendeleev Practical Advances in Petroleum Processing, by Chang S. Hsu and Paul Robinson (Berlin: Springer, 2006), Chapter 2, pp. 79-101.
Michael D. Gordin, A Well-Ordered Thing: Dmitrii Mendeleev and the Shadow of the Periodic Table (New York: Basic Books, 2004), p. 153. Gordin spelled Mendeleev’s first name as “Dmitrii” throughout the book. The parenthetical suggestion is in the original.
Mark A. Sephton and Robert M. Hazen, “On the Origins of Deep Hydrocarbons,” Mineralogy and Geochemistry, research article, Volume 75, Number 1 (January 1, 2013), pp. 449-455, from the Abstract at p. 449.
Marc A. Shampo, Ph.D., and Robert A. Kyle, M.D. “Early German Physician First to Synthesize Urea,” Mayo Clinic Proceedings, Volume 60 (October 1985), p. 662.
“What is organic chemistry?” American Chemical Society, ACS.org, no date.
Ann E. Robinson, “Mendeleev’s Periodic Table,” Ohio State University and Miami University website entitled “Origins: Current Events in Historic Perspective,” Origins.OSU.edu, March 2019.