this post was submitted on 26 Nov 2024
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So apparently a large-ish contingent of American reactionaries don't think crude oil is a finite resource. They believe the Earth regenerates it at a faster pace than it can be drilled, and this isn't a niche conspiracy theory either. I mentioned it off-hand at work after seeing a random tweet about it, then like 5 of my coworkers all nodded and agreed. One even used the term "abiotic oil."

Is this just cope or what? One of my coworkers literally said, "Well oil is like water, it goes through a cycle and gets replenished." Something about how crude oil is actually made through some kind of geological process, rather than decomposed algae/animal matter from millions of years ago. I think maybe there's evidence of abiotic hydrocarbon gasses existing from various chemical reactions with minerals, but I believe there's never been a convincing source of abiotic petroleum that couldn't also be explained as biological in origin.

They don't actually believe this, do they? It's just a thin kind of security blanket so they don't have to consider the reality of what fossil fuels truly are?

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[–] GarbageShoot@hexbear.net 44 points 7 months ago

"oil cycle" is a good bit

If oil could be cheaply manufactured without mining, there would be a solid three dozen people in most Gulf states.

[–] barrbaric@hexbear.net 35 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Well y'see, oil comes from dinosaur bones, and satan places dinosaur bones to trick us into thinking evolution is real, and since there are more and more excavations, satan needs to plant more fake dinosaur bones to keep up. The only thing stopping this from having no limit is that eventually satan will get tired. sicko-satan

[–] Findom_DeLuise@hexbear.net 25 points 7 months ago

The problem with capitalism is that you eventually run out of Satan's dinosaur bones anarchist-occult

[–] infuziSporg@hexbear.net 3 points 7 months ago

Keep up the fight against Satan, consume more oil

[–] Des@hexbear.net 33 points 7 months ago (1 children)

they read about Mystery Flesh Pit National Park and thought it was a real thing that existed and there are real slumbering elder gods that poop oil

[–] Bobson_Dugnutt@hexbear.net 13 points 7 months ago (2 children)

I thought that the Permian Basin Superorganism ate oil

[–] fox@hexbear.net 10 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Sort of, but also it eats nucleotides and mantle heat

[–] Bobson_Dugnutt@hexbear.net 4 points 7 months ago (1 children)

nucleotides

Like big chunks of DNA buried underground?

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[–] Des@hexbear.net 3 points 7 months ago

oh yeah my bad you are right. eats oil and poops out cool MDMA-like sex goo

[–] blame@hexbear.net 27 points 7 months ago

I think there was some peak oil cope back in the day that was something along the lines of "we dont really know where oil comes from, it could come from the earth's mantle!"

[–] Bobson_Dugnutt@hexbear.net 23 points 7 months ago

I remember hearing some theory that oil might be produced by extremophile bacteria deep in the crust, which doesn't make much sense, but it's more plausible than the idea that oil spontaneously generates out of rocks, WTF.

Coal miners regularly find fossils in coal mines, and oil companies often employ paleontologists who study microscopic fossils brought up from oil wells to learn about the layers of rock they're drilling through: https://wiki.aapg.org/Microfossils_in_exploration

[–] happybadger@hexbear.net 19 points 7 months ago
[–] glimmer_twin@hexbear.net 18 points 7 months ago

We’re so cooked

[–] chungusamonugs@hexbear.net 17 points 7 months ago

This is what that billions of Koch ~~blood~~ lobbying money paid to accomplish.

[–] sisatici@hexbear.net 12 points 7 months ago

Who was consuming this oil in the cycle before humans existed.

[–] blindbunny@lemmy.ml 11 points 7 months ago (3 children)

If anyone wants some brain damage I've never even heard of abiotic oil before. We're cooked if there are people that think this is real...

[–] iie@hexbear.net 9 points 7 months ago

Oil from younger rocks contains compounds linked to flowering plants, but oil from older rocks formed before flowering plants existed contains only more primitive organic compounds.

This was an interesting little detail

[–] HexReplyBot@hexbear.net 3 points 7 months ago

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[–] merthyr1831@lemmy.ml 2 points 7 months ago

Isn't it funny how easily recycled holocaust denialism is used to defend oil barons. Muh "the numbers just don't add up, (((they))) must be lying about it" bullshit right off the bat.

[–] Wheaties@hexbear.net 11 points 7 months ago (1 children)

the important thing is nobody really knows for sure which is the true origin of oil, so we're going to act as though it's the really convenient one and be all affronted whenever anyone suggests otherwise.

except... even if it's the convenient, abiotic regenerative origin... that kinda means we could potentially put more CO2 into the atmosphere than was ever present at any point in the planet's past. Like, if it were fossil fuels, then even if we burned every last drop there would still be some form of life that could survive the conditions, cus it was life that trapped all that carbon in the first place. But if we're just pumping an endless supply of complex carbon chains....

[–] infuziSporg@hexbear.net 4 points 7 months ago (1 children)

That's assuming that the other things that have changed in that time aren't important.

Because we're talking about 500-2000 mya.

[–] Wheaties@hexbear.net 3 points 7 months ago

very true

pretty sure the leading theory for biotic oil is that nothing could decompose woody bark for a long time, so it just amassed over x mundred blousand years until geologic time and pressure cooked it into the old god's blood we use to power everything. That alone implies we may never get all the carbon back in the toothpaste tube.

[–] oscardejarjayes@hexbear.net 10 points 7 months ago

crude petroleum (literally plant medicine)

[–] JustSo@hexbear.net 6 points 7 months ago

They don't actually believe this, do they? It's just a thin kind of security blanket so they don't have to consider the reality

Both, I'm afraid.

[–] Vidiwell@hexbear.net 4 points 7 months ago (2 children)

https://thespouter.substack.com/p/to-dispense-with-abiotic-oil

recommend a bit of "investigation" prior to right to speak. It has an interesting history. Mao and Stalin were abiotic oil guys for a time!

[–] GarbageShoot@hexbear.net 21 points 7 months ago (1 children)

There is a difference between people believing retrospectively dumb shit in the past versus believing dumb shit today. I'm not going to call some 16th century natural philosopher dumb for believing in elan vital or whatever.

[–] Vidiwell@hexbear.net 8 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

the casual dunking from people with no idea of its historical background was more the point here. an interesting idea with a history in socialist science and instead reduced to the lowest common denominator for a cheap dunk is reddit culture for better or worse. Hence investigate...then dunk.

[–] GarbageShoot@hexbear.net 4 points 7 months ago

Sure the history is interesting, so is that of elan vital, abiogenesis, and geocentrism. It still remains that anyone who believes in these in the modern day has something seriously wrong with them and there being a Soviet plenum that agreed with them almost a century ago does not change that fact.

[–] kittin@hexbear.net 13 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

“Some Russian scientists investigated it in the 50s” and “Stalin was an abiotic oil guy” seems like a massive equivocation since Stalin wasn’t a geologist nor was he involved in geological research so far as I am aware aside from funding research into how to close the oil-production gap with the US.