The Fischer-Tropsch Equations Demonstrate How Abiotic Oil is Formed

The Physics and Chemistry of Abiotic Oil

Excerpt from my book The Truth About Energy, Global Warming, and Climate Change: Exposing Climate Lies in an Age of Disinformation

The Fischer-Tropsch equations to produce synthetic hydrocarbons describe how Earth could manufacture hydrocarbons synthetically. Current technical descriptions of the Fischer-Tropsch process acknowledge that coal is not necessary to make the synthetic creation of hydrocarbon fuels. The following, for instance, is a contemporary Stanford University 2015 chemistry course description of the Fischer-Tropsch process:

The Fischer-Tropsch process is a gas-to-liquid (GTL) polymerization technique that turns a carbon source into hydrocarbon chains through the hydrogenation of carbon monoxide by means of a metal catalyst.

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The Stanford chemistry course summary continues as follows:

The carbon source is converted to syngas, a combination of carbon monoxide (CO) and hydrogen (H₂) gas, through a process of gasification (C + H₂0 ® CO + H₂) [carbon plus water produces carbon monoxide plus hydrogen] where a controlled flow of steam and oxygen is maintained through the source at high temperature and pressure (1200–1400°C and 3MPa [Megapascal] ~ 30 atm) without enough oxygen for complete combustion.¹

Note: the definition specifies that the process begins with a “carbon source,” specified only as “C” in the chemical equation above. The chemistry coursework does not identify that coal or any organic material, such as biomass, is the source of carbon that the Fischer-Tropsch process requires. The Stanford course material suggests that using CO₂ removed from the ocean or the atmosphere as the carbon source would allow the Fischer-Tropsch process to be carbon-neutral.

This subsection will examine the chemicals in Earth’s core and mantle and the chemical reactions in Earth’s mantle. We will argue that all the chemical reactions that the Fischer-Tropsch equations specify for the synthetic creation of hydrocarbon fuels have been present in inner Earth in geologic time and are still operating today. The main point of this subsection is that the inner Earth is fully capable of manufacturing abiotic hydrocarbon fuels. In other words, Earth’s lower mantle acts to produce abiotic oil as if it were a Fischer-Tropsch plant producing synthetic hydrocarbon fuels.

A secondary theme is that the IPCC’s concentration on anthropogenic CO₂ emissions fails to appreciate the complexity of Earth’s carbon and hydrogen cycles. We will demonstrate that the largest reservoirs of both carbon and hydrogen on Earth reside in its core. Recent scientific studies have established that oxygen is also present in the core, challenging generations of geoscience that have considered it to be oxygen depleted. The carbon and hydrogen cycles in inner Earth have mechanisms whereby carbon and hydrogen emissions reach the surface from the core and mantle. These findings challenge the IPCC calculations that the only significant additions to CO₂ concentrations in the atmosphere are due to humans burning hydrocarbon fuels.

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Concentrations of Hydrogen, Carbon, and Oxygen in Earth’s Core

Earth’s core is composed of two parts: an inner and an outer core. The outer core is about 2,900 km (1,802 miles) below the surface, and the inner core is approximately 5,150 km (3,200 miles) below the surface. The distance from Earth’s surface to its center is 6,730 km (4,182 miles). The inner and outer cores combined constitute approximately 15 percent of Earth’s volume and 32.5 percent of Earth’s mass.²

Geoscientists have traditionally believed Earth’s inner core consists primarily of solid iron alloyed with a small amount of nickel and lighter elements. A scientific study published in 2014 found a surprisingly large amount of carbon in Earth’s inner core, demanding a revision of the traditional view. Seismic studies showed that shear wave (S-wave) travels through the inner core at an anomalously low speed, challenging the notion of the inner core’s solidity. The study proposed iron carbide (Fe₇C₃) was the leading candidate component of the inner core. Adding carbon to the inner core provided an excellent match to account for the shear wave anomaly. The 2014 study produced the following surprising conclusion:

Current estimates of carbon in the mantle ranges between 0.8 x 10²⁰ kg and 12.5 x 10²⁰ kg. If the inner core is made up of Fe₇C₃, its carbon inventory amounts to 60 x 10²⁰ kg, which considerably exceeds the average mantle budget. In this case, the inner core would be the largest carbon reservoir in Earth, accounting for two thirds of its total carbon inventory estimated on the basis of volatility systematics. This model challenges the conventional view that the Earth is highly depleted in carbon, and therefore bears on our understanding of Earth’s accretion and early differentiation. Carbon in the core may exchange with shallower reservoirs through mantle convection in combination with grain boundary diffusion through the D" zone. Through Earth’s history, this process may have played a significant role in the outgassing of CO₂ from the interior and the carbon cycle involving the surface and internal reservoirs.³

The D" zone is an area at the bottom of Earth’s mantle. The D" zone thus lies at the boundary between the mantle and the core.

A scientific study published in Nature Reviews Earth and Environment in August 2021 found evidence for a surprising amount of hydrogen to be present as one of the low atomic number “light” elements to be in the core in addition to iron. In Japan, a group of scientists led by Kei Hirose, from the Earth-Life Science Institute at the Tokyo Institute of Technology, and Department of Earth and Planetary Science at the University of Tokyo, began by observing seismic data suggesting a range of light elements were in Earth’s core. Traditionally earth scientists have assumed the core was predominately solid iron. But the Japanese scientists concluded that the seismic readings suggested otherwise. Hirose suspected that a substantial amount of hydrogen was in the core, in addition to sulfur, silicon, oxygen, and carbon. Using a diamond anvil apparatus to simulate the temperature and pressure of the young Earth’s core, Hirose and his team demonstrated for the first time that hydrogen can bond strongly with iron in these extreme conditions.⁴

Using high-resolution imaging in a secondary ion mass spectroscopy technique, Hirose confirmed that hydrogen under the conditions of the core of the early Earth is iron-loving, or siderophile. “This finding allows us to explore something that affects us in quite a profound way,” Hirose said in an interview written by the University of Tokyo. “That hydrogen is siderophile under high pressure tells us that much of the water that came to Earth in mass bombardments during its formation might be in the core as hydrogen today. We estimate there might be as much as 70 oceans’ worth of hydrogen locked away down there. Had this remained on the surface as water, Earth may never have known land, and life as we know it would never have evolved.” The finding that there could be seventy times more hydrogen in the core than in the oceans should confound IPCC adherents who focus on elements in the atmosphere but not within Earth.⁵ 

The amount of carbon in the core is also surprising. A team of geoscientists from Florida State University and Rice University published an article in August 2021 that estimated that Earth’s outer core may be the largest terrestrial carbon reservoir on the planet.⁶ Using seismic data readings from the core, the scientists estimated between 93 percent and 95 percent of all the carbon on Earth resides in the inner and outer cores at the planet’s center. “Understanding the composition of the Earth’s core is one of the key problems in the solid-earth sciences,” said research scientist Mainak Mookherjee, an associate professor of geology in the Department of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences at Florida State University. “We know the planet’s core is largely iron, but the density of iron is greater than that of the core. There must be lighter elements in the core that reduce its density. Carbon is one consideration, and we are providing better constraints as to how much might be there.”⁷

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As recently as 2011, ScienceDaily reported that geoscientists had determined Earth’s core was deprived of oxygen.⁸ Ten years later, in 2021, a team of scientists from the School of Earth and Environment at the University of Leeds and their colleagues at the Department of Earth Sciences and Thomas Young Centre at the University College of London reported oxygen was present in Earth’s core after all.⁹ “Chemical interactions between metal and silicates at the core-mantle boundary (CMB) are now thought to lead to transfer of oxygen into Earth’s liquid core,” the geoscientists wrote. “Previous models of FeO [iron oxide, also known as ferrous oxide] transfer have considered a solid mantle; however, several lines of evidence suggest that the lowermost mantle could have remained above its solidus long after core formation was complete, which would allow much faster mass transfer.” In chemistry, the solidus defines a temperature range above which solids melt and below which substances are solid (i.e., crystallized). The authors identified that the main power for Earth’s magnetic field involved the release of light elements, including oxygen, to the liquid outer core “due to the ongoing growth of the solid inner core.” They also noted that mass exchange between Earth’s core and mantle “depends on the nature of the light elements and the physical conditions at the CMB.” The focus of their research established oxygen transferred into the core as ferrous oxide (FeO). Their bottom-line conclusion stated more simply was that “chemical interactions at the core-mantle boundary lead to oxygen transfer to the core.”¹⁰

A 2020 study led by geoscientist Jung-Fu Lin at the University of Texas, Austin, used a diamond anvil apparatus that allows the application of high temperature and pressure suggested that Earth’s core did not form early in Earth’s history.¹¹ The study placed the date of creation for Earth’s solid core at between one billion to 1.3 billion years ago, while the planet itself is estimated to be some 4.6 billion years old. Lin’s scientific team noted that the 1–1.3 billion-years-ago estimate for forming the core coincided with paleomagnetic studies of ancient rock formations that revealed Earth’s magnetic field strengthened suddenly between one billion and 1.5 billion years ago. The late-date formation of the core adds a dimension to the expanding Earth theory. It adds the building of a series of conditions within Earth that could produce rapid and dramatic changes consistent with predictions deriving from catastrophe theory mathematics.

1. John Dodaro, “Fischer-Tropsch Process,” Stanford University coursework, Stanford.edu, December 11, 2015.

2. “Core,” National Geographic, no date. See also: “Structure of Earth,” GeologyScience.com, no date. See also: Jijo Sudarsan, “Interior of the Earth: Crust, Mantle, and Core,” ClearIAS.com, last updated on July 10, 2016.

3. Bin Chen, Zeyu Li, Dongzhou Zhang, et al., “Hidden carbon in Earth’s inner core revealed by sear softening in dense Fe₇C₃,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume 111, Number 50 (December 16, 2014), pp. 17755-17758.

4. Kei Hirose, Bernard Wood, and Lidunka Vočadlo, “Light elements in the Earth’s core,” Nature Reviews Earth and Environment, Volume 2 (August 24, 2021), pp. 645-658.

5. University of Tokyo, “There may be up to 70 more times hydrogen in Earth’s core than in the oceans,” Phys.org, May 12, 2021.

6. Suraj K. Bajgain, Mainak Mookherjee, and Rajdeep Dasgupta, “Earth’s core could be the largest terrestrial carbon reservoir,” Communications Earth & Environment, Volume 2, Number 165 (August 19, 2021). See also: Daisy Dobrijevic, “Most of Earth’s carbon may be locked in our planet’s outer core,” Space.com, August 23, 2021.

7. Florida State University, “Researchers refine estimate of amount of carbon in Earth’s outer core,” ScienceDaily, August 19, 2021.

8. Carnegie Institution, “Earth’s core deprived of oxygen,” ScienceDaily, November 24, 2011. The ScienceDaily article reported on the following scientific study: Haijun Huang, Yingwei Fei, et al., “Evidence for an oxygen-depleted liquid outer core of Earth,” Nature, Volume 479 (November 23, 2011), pp. 513-516.

9. Christopher J. Davies, Monica Pozzo, et al., “Transfer of oxygen to Earth’s core from a long-lived magma ocean,” Earth and Planetary Science Letters, Volume 538 (May 15, 2020).

10. Ibid.

11. Stephanie Pappas, “Earth’s core is a billion years old,” LiveScience.com, August 26, 2020. The LiveScience.com article reported on the following study: Youjung Zang, Migqiang Hou, et al., “Reconciliation of Experiments and Theory on Transport Properties of Iron and the Geodynamo,” Physical Review Letters, APS Physics, Journals.APS.org, August 13, 2020.