In article , HeyBub wrote:
Roughneck wrote:
"HeyBub" wrote:

Jim Yanik wrote:

We have not yet discovered all the world's accessible oil deposits.
(nor began drilling or producing from what we have discovered.)
So any claim of "peak oil" can be made is just a psychic
prediction,and worth about as much.

Not only, but there is an hypothesis that oil is being CREATED - in
significant amounts and by dimly understood processes - as we speak.

Dimly understood processes, eh? Now who's in need of a psychic? It
would be nice if you were right, but I'm not holding my breath.

No more dimly than the classic view: "The original creation of oil or
petroleum is not well understood. There are several theories, but the matter
is still one of scientific controversy."
http://www.bydesign.com/fossilfuels/...il_create.html

One of the big "gotchas" is how did hydrocarbons pop up on Jupiter and
Saturn if hydrocarbon creation depended solely on decomposed plant material?

SNIP past this point

There is little credible claim of hydrocarbons or better still organic
compounds in general in general relying on decomposition of plant material
to come into existence when there is evidence that such compounds exist
but evidence of actual life forms is lacking.

High temperatures are considered likely to exist in deeper layers of the
atmosphere of the planets that consist mostly of atmosphere, lightning is
known to exist in the clouds of Jupiter, and plenty of hydrogen and carbon
can be found in some form or another in those planets. Most of the
hydrocarbon content determined so far to exist in the "gas giant" planets
is methane last time I heard.

For another thing, there is tendency among biologists to consider that
presence of organic compounds is a prerequisite for origin of life, and
not the other way around.

Meanwhile, fossil fuels on Earth are traceably all so old as to lack
carbon-14 to extent indicating age of 40,000 years or more - and it is
generally considered that when C-14 is present to extent of age under 6 or
7 figures, it is from contamination rather than from the fossil fuel being
actually being so recently formed. Most fossil fuels are found in rock
formations indicating age more like 200-300 million years when that can be
determined and I have yet to hear of any accompanied by decent evidence
that they were less than 10's of millions of years old.

- Don Klipstein )