Offshore drilling bill passes house - CONTACT YOUR SENATORS!

[captain]

Hopefully with all this drilling one day the earth will suddenly deflate like a balloon and we will end up whizzing through space at high speed.....

Oil and gas result from the breakdown of organic material in sedimentary basins. Its very rare (like, underlying around <0.00001% of the earths crust), localized into a few small areas, and has absolutely no purpose in its natural location. The oil sits trapped in the spaces between sandgrains in sedimentary rock.

Groundwater, which is everywhere, does have a limited role to play in thermodynamics and structural geology of the crust, particularly in near surface environments.

But no - removing oil does not effect the surrounding geology, and ground water takes up the spaces between the sand grains the oil leaves behind.

Cheers,
Rohan.

Ah ha, you have struck on the solution to rising seas caused by global warming melting the ice. The extra water will take the place of the oil.

 

[lamont]

What exactly is the purpose of oil inside the earth?????

How do we know what affects, taking so much or all the oil out of the earth will have on this planet?

Since oil is often used to keep engines lubricated and running cooler, Do oil basically do the same thing in the earth?? Keep things cool? keep a cushin between the rocks to help prevent large earthquakes?

Honestly, how do we know the actual affects of removing so much oil from the earth, is having on this planet????

Oil is geologically sequestered carbon. By digging it up we desequester it. It has been there for hundreds of millions of years. Hundreds of millions of years ago there were alligators at the north pole...

 

[SuSexFulDiver]

Im sorry I dont understand the meaning of "Desequester" cant find it in the dictionary. Do you mean desegregate?

 

[lamont]

Im sorry I dont understand the meaning of "Desequester" cant find it in the dictionary. Do you mean desegregate?

No, i mean de-sequester. Examples of technological carbon sequestration are here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_capture_and_storage

The natural geological processes which created oil, natural gas and methane clathrates are examples of natural geo-seqeuestration that took millions of years to accomplish. By digging it up we are de-sequestering it.

Since the total amount of carbon is conserved, once we dig it up it has to go somewhere. First it goes into the atmosphere. Some of it is sequestered in the oceans, but they are starting to become saturated and we're destroying the coral reefs. It could become seqeuestered in forests and in the plant biosphere, but we're net deforesting areas of the planet and that is leading to more de-sequestration of the carbon. So, the more we dig up, the higher the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere becomes and the hotter the planet gets...

All we're doing is winding the geological clock backwards by digging up the naturally geo-sequestered carbon. We're digging it up at a rate of more than 100 times the rates normally seen in geological processes, though -- although what we are doing is comparable to some mass-extinction events like the paleocene-eocene thermal maximum.

Also, uranium is another non-renewable mined resource which has recently seen a 10x runup in price due to projections of forward demand and which will only buy us about a decade or two between 'peak oil' and when we hit 'peak uranium' due to the velocity of uranium production having reached a maximum...

We can not rely on digging up power sources any more and still be able to scale our economy. That whole model is going to fail soon.

 

[Wildcard]

Quick, everyone stop driving, heating , cooling, lighting, moving, transporting. interacting and going online....This will solve all the problems....
As soon as anyone of you does something with a real effect, then I'll listen.

 

[Wildcard]

"We can not rely on digging up power sources any more and still be able to scale our economy. That whole model is going to fail soon."
Then you will wish you were a redneck or had at least been nice to one. We will be the last ones standing!

 

[robertarak]

I admit, I have only read the first few post on this thread and the last few. I was curious if anyone has mentioned how the rigs create fantastic artificial reefs, promote new marine life habitats and are awesome to dive?
Just curious.

 

[H2Andy]

jesus christ, talk about deja vu

 

[creggur]

Already contacted both of my state senetors and basically said, drill-it, drill-it, and drill-it some more!!!!!!!

I live in Florida by the way and wouldn't be bothered at all by the oil wells.........

 

[creggur]

Already contacted both of my state senators and basically said, drill-it, drill-it, and drill-it some more!!!!!!!

I live in Florida by the way and wouldn't be bothered at all by the oil wells.........