In related news...
Titanian Methane have announced a hosepipe ban for all Antarctic region customers.
LPG lake on Titan evaporating in scorchio -180°C heatwave
NASA boffins have released a video travelogue entitled "See Beautiful Ontario Lacus", revealing the delights that travellers to the moons of Saturn might encounter during a visit to the freezing antarctic patio-gas lakes of Titan. The film might better have been entitled "See Beautiful, Disappearing Ontario Lacus", as …
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Monday 19th July 2010 09:13 GMT Kilgaard
Fossil fuels on other planets
I've never managed to get an explanation for this ... here on Earth we all "know" that Fossil Fuels only come from fossils. Yet on other planets we apparently can have lakes of the stuff without any rotting dinosaurs in sight.
Can somebody please explain how hyrdocarbons exist naturally on other planets and yet are "biologically created" on poor old Earth? (This is not a troll or a flame, I *really* *really* want to know.)
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Monday 19th July 2010 13:14 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Fossil fuels on other planets
I saw a recent documentary on German TV where some scientists were claiming that there are probably other process at work that can also produce hydrocarbons. They back that by referencing the fact that some oil wells in Russia, that were shut down due to depletion, are now not as empty as previously thought. They propose that high pressure process deep in the earth seem to be creating hydrocarbons out of carbon in the Earths mantle and replenishing those wells.
Remember, 2nd generation dying stars have dumped unmeasurable tons of carbon into our galaxy and there must be other ways of creating hydrocarbons out of all that carbon. Our 3rd generation star has condensed that stardust into different planets at different distances and all of what we see in our solar system has contributed to the 1 in a million?/billion? chance that life could form on our home planet. If all that stardust would have been evenly distributed amongst all our planets we would not have had the conditions needed for life on Earth.
The universe obviously doesn't need bio-synthesis to create/crack hydrocarbons so evidence we see on Titan backs those scientists claims that it could be happening here on earth as well. Still, that doesn't mean that we can continue to burn up what we have now 'cause those process probably take even longer than the traditional theory. Stop burning our hydrocarbons and save it for more important products that have no alternative.
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Monday 26th July 2010 10:51 GMT Kilgaard
Why no research?
Right, there are obviously other methods to make hydrocarbons. The problem I have is that neither side of the climate debate seems to even conceed this, let alone investigate it.
There seems to have been some research into this area in Cold War Russia, but Big Oil has quietly smothered that in favour of "traditional theory". They don't want anything that could break their monopoly coming to light. On the flip side, the Green Movement just has an overriding hatred of Oil and everything associated with it.
My contention is that hydrocarbon based liquids are a fantastic portable energy source. For vehicular transport there is nothing even close to the energy density and convenience of a tank of liquid hydrocarbon. As far as I can tell "replacements" for petrol seem to focus around (1) batteries, (2) hydrogen fuel or (3) biologically generated equivalents. Options (1) and (2) have serious energy density and safety issues. Option (3) seems to make the most sense, but gets panned by both sides of the debate. And where is option (4) non-biologically generated equivalents.
People seem to have 2 issues with liquid hydrocarbons, although they often blur the edges together. The first is it's a non-renewable energy source. But what if we don't look at it as a source, but simply an energy storage and transportation medium?
The second is that it contributes to climate change. It only contributes to climate change if those carbon molecules are sourced from carbon sinks or storages such as oil deposits. If we can synthisise (sp?) liquid hydrocarbons from atmospheric carbon then we defeat "Greenhouse Gas" and "Peak Oil" in one go. Trapping and later releasing carbon molecules is (in the current Buzz-speak) "Carbon Neutral".
Obviously I'm talking about using some other (non Fossil Fuel) method of "producing" the energy required to drive the systhesis process, and I'm not discussing that issue here. After all, every method we have comes directly or indirectly from the Sun.
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Monday 19th July 2010 13:36 GMT MinionZero
How to make a hyrdocarbon
You assume the only route to hyrdocarbons is (as you say) rotting dinosaurs. That is where you go wrong. Its not just via decomposed organic matter. Don't just think about breaking something down into Hyrdocarbons, think instead about also atoms clumping together to form Molecules.
For example one of the hyrdocarbons is Methane. There is nothing special about hyrdocarbons, (other than they are important to us but then so is other atoms and compounds).
Hyrdocarbons are simply chemistry. Take 4 hydrogen atoms and add them to a carbon atom and you have a Methane Molecule. etc..
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Biting the hand that feeds IT
