Oil on Saturn's Moon Titan

[praxisseizure]

We've known this for a long while, but so many people conveniently forget it.
Here it is...

Oil does NOT come from fossils.

Here's the proof: http://digg.com/space/Titan_Has_More_Oil_Than_Earth
(In fact, there's a whole century of suppression of the truth about Oil)

Hydrocarbons (Oil) have NOTHING to do with biology.
Hydrocarbons are inorganic material classified as organic.
End of story. Period. Stop believing them.
And Peak Oil is unbelievably absurd propaganda.

Maybe some of you can influence this on Digg, and get some 20 year olds to snap out of it. Perhaps point out to them what they are told isn't necessarily the truth.

Yes, the world IS round. :D

[rvkpa]

I saw all those peak oil movies, books, websites, whatever. I think the problem is more going to be cost, (due to the evils of fiat currency, oil cartels, and "free trade") and environmental considerations. (global warming and pollution from new cars in developing nations)

[PauliticsPolitics]

man...
we better conquer that titan moon and burn their oil fields. They might start selling their oil in something other than dollars.

[idiom]

Peak oil is not about the amount of oil in the world, but about the speed at which we can pump it. Peak Oil is the theory that we are making more cars faster than we are making new refineries roughly, abiotic oil genesis doesn't help.

Also we haven't seen many heavy hydrocarbons on Titan yet. And nobodies covering it up. There is a stack of hydrocarbons in the atmospheres of the outer planets. The tricky bit is getting all that Oil on Titan into your car next week.

[bdmarti]

Peak oil is a fact. It's not even open to debate.

Start with any finite resource, use up that resource at a constant or growing rate and eventually you have used more than half of that resource. At some point while using said resource you will reach a peak in the amount you are using, though this could be constant.

Unless you know for certain how to get the Earth to produce some more in a reasonable time scale, Oil is a finite resource. Ergo, we will use it up eventually.

When we will peak in production is unknown, though likely soon.

[Fields]

Dugg.

[Paul10]

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[Paul10]

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[torchbearer]

man...
we better conquer that titan moon and burn their oil fields. They might start selling their oil in something other than dollars.

Just for a side fact, if you lit a match on titan, the liguid methane would not burn because of the lack of oxygen.
:) now ya know.

[Fields]

We have enormous amounts of liquid methane here on the ocean floor. I saw a show on discovery about it, interesting stuff.

[CurtisLow]

Oil on Saturn's Moon Titan
http://img132.imageshack.us/img132/112/shhhxc6.jpg
"Shhh" Bush is Listening!

[Alawn]

Tons and tons of oil in Alaska (more than Saudi Arabia), Russia, Mexico and other places as well. But oil companies lobby to keep drilling down so there is less supply to drive up the prices. Same thing with diamonds. They really are not rare at all in certain places but they just limit the amount mined to keep them expensive.

[tangent4ronpaul]

Very Cool! - but it's going to be a while before the space program can really take advantage of it...

Here's something related, and is one of the reasons I get less than thrilled when Dr. Paul talks about doing away with the Department of Energy... (What's going to happen to the labs, NEST and who's going to maintain the nuclear stockpile...?)



http://www.sandia.gov/news/resources/releases/2007/sunshine.html


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 5, 2007
Sandia’s Sunshine to Petrol project seeks fuel from thin air
Team to chemically transform carbon dioxide into carbon-neutral liquid fuels

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. —Using concentrated solar energy to reverse combustion, a research team from Sandia National Laboratories is building a prototype device intended to chemically “reenergize” carbon dioxide into carbon monoxide using concentrated solar power. The carbon monoxide could then be used to make hydrogen or serve as a building block to synthesize a liquid combustible fuel, such as methanol or even gasoline, diesel and jet fuel.

The prototype device, called the Counter Rotating Ring Receiver Reactor Recuperator (CR5, for short), will break a carbon-oxygen bond in the carbon dioxide to form carbon monoxide and oxygen in two distinct steps. It is a major piece of an approach to converting carbon dioxide into fuel from sunlight.

The Sandia research team calls this approach “Sunshine to Petrol” (S2P). “Liquid Solar Fuel” is the end product — the methanol, gasoline, or other liquid fuel made from water and the carbon monoxide produced using solar energy.

Sandia is a National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) laboratory.

CR5 inventor Rich Diver says the original idea for the device was to break down water into hydrogen and oxygen. The hydrogen could then fuel a potential hydrogen economy.

The Sandia researchers came up with the idea to use the CR5 to break down carbon dioxide, just as it would water. Over the past year they have shown proof of concept and are completing a prototype device that will use concentrated solar energy to reenergize carbon dioxide or water, the products of combustion. This will form carbon monoxide, hydrogen, and oxygen, which ultimately could be used to synthesize liquid fuels in an integrated S2P system.

Coresearchers on the project are Jim E. Miller and Nathan Siegel. Project champion is Ellen B. Stechel, manager of Sandia’s Fuels and Energy Transitions Department.

Stechel says that researchers have known for a long time that theoretically it might be possible to recycle carbon dioxide, but many thought it could not be made practical, either technically or economically.

“Hence, it has not been pursued with much vigor,” she says. “Not only did we think it was possible, the team has developed a prototype that they fully anticipate will successfully break down carbon dioxide in a clever and viable two-step process.”

Stechel notes that one driver for the invention is the need to reduce greenhouse gases.

“This invention, though probably a good 15 to 20 years away from being on the market, holds a real promise of being able to reduce carbon dioxide emissions while preserving options to keep using fuels we know and love,” she says. “Recycling carbon dioxide into fuels provides an attractive alternative to burying it.”

Providing funding for Sunshine to Petrol is Sandia’s internal Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) program. The research has also attracted interest and some funding from DoD/DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency).

“What’s exciting about this invention is that it will result in fossil fuels being used at least twice, meaning less carbon dioxide being put into the atmosphere and a reduction of the rate that fossil fuels are pulled out of the ground,” Diver says.

As an example, he says, coal would be burned at a clean coal power plant. The carbon dioxide from the burning of the coal would be captured and reduced to carbon monoxide in the CR5. The carbon monoxide would then be the starting point of making gasoline, jet fuel, methanol, or almost any type of liquid fuel.

The prospect of a liquid fuel is significant because it fits in with the current gasoline and oil infrastructure. After the synthesized fuel is made from the carbon monoxide, it could be transported through a pipeline or put in a truck and hauled to a gas station, just like gasoline refined from petroleum is now. Plus it would work in ordinary gasoline and diesel engine vehicles.

Miller says that while the first step would be to capture the carbon dioxide from sources where it is concentrated — e.g., power plants, smokestacks, and breweries — the ultimate goal would be to snatch it out of the air. A S2P system that includes atmospheric carbon dioxide capture could produce carbon-neutral liquid fuels.

“Our overall objective with this prototype is to demonstrate the practicality of the CR5 concept and to determine how test results from small-scale testing can be expanded to work in real devices,” Miller says. “The design is conservative compared to what might eventually be developed.”

Diver says the prototype should be completed by early next year. He hand-built the precision device in a shop at Sandia’s National Solar Thermal Test Facility and is now waiting on a few parts to finalize it. Initial tests will break down water into hydrogen and oxygen. That will be followed by tests that similarly break down carbon dioxide to carbon monoxide and oxygen.

Besides having a nearly completed prototype, the research team has already proven that the chemistry works repeatedly through multiple cycles without losing performance and on a short enough cycle time for a practical device.

“We just now have to do it all in one continuous working device,” Siegel says.

Top of Page

Sandia is a multiprogram laboratory operated by Sandia Corporation, a Lockheed Martin company, for the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration. With main facilities in Albuquerque, N.M., and Livermore, Calif., Sandia has major R&D responsibilities in national security, energy and environmental technologies, and economic competitiveness.

Sandia news media contact: Chris Burroughs, coburro@sandia.gov, (505) 844-0948

http://www.sandia.gov/news/resources/releases/2007/images/richdiver_nr.jpg
http://www.sandia.gov/news/resources/releases/2007/images/solar_richdiver_nr.jpg

-n

[linusPAULing]

We've known this for a long while, but so many people conveniently forget it.
Here it is...

Oil does NOT come from fossils.

Here's the proof: http://digg.com/space/Titan_Has_More_Oil_Than_Earth
(In fact, there's a whole century of suppression of the truth about Oil)

Hydrocarbons (Oil) have NOTHING to do with biology.
Hydrocarbons are inorganic material classified as organic.
End of story. Period. Stop believing them.
And Peak Oil is unbelievably absurd propaganda.

Maybe some of you can influence this on Digg, and get some 20 year olds to snap out of it. Perhaps point out to them what they are told isn't necessarily the truth.

Yes, the world IS round. :D

The article claims that the hydrocarbon compounds on Titan are methane and ethane, which is related to natural gas. The compounds are NOT oil! The comparison to oil on earth is merely in terms of energy content.

This leaves open the possibility that oil is still the result of fossilized biomaterial.

Also, from a chemical standpoint, hydrocarbons are indeed organic compounds by definition.

[torchbearer]

domestic drilling goes down when the price goes down.. that's just how the market works.. it all depends on at what price does it become profitable to drill... in alaska, it cost more to produce a barrel of oil than it does in arabia...
right now, it would be profitable to drill in the netherlands...or anywhere..artic even.

[tangent4ronpaul]

Tons and tons of oil in Alaska (more than Saudi Arabia), Russia, Mexico and other places as well. But oil companies lobby to keep drilling down so there is less supply to drive up the prices. Same thing with diamonds. They really are not rare at all in certain places but they just limit the amount mined to keep them expensive.

Actually, the choke point is the number of refineries.

-n

[torchbearer]

Actually, the choke point is the number of refineries.

-n

+99. and they aren't planning to build anymore....
who wants to start a chipin for oil refineries?

[MJfromCT]

Maybe dinosaurs lived on the moon Titan

[linusPAULing]

We have enormous amounts of liquid methane here on the ocean floor. I saw a show on discovery about it, interesting stuff.


Actually, it is theorized that these pockets are responsible for the odd occurrences in the Bermuda triangle. When massive amounts of methane rise from the sea floor, it reduces the buoyancy of ships (which subsequently sink) and it can snuff out (paradoxically) airplane engines due to lack of oxygen (and they fall right out of the sky.)

[torchbearer]

Maybe dinosaurs lived on the moon Titan

the carbon that could form oil doesn't necesarily have to come from living tissue.

[rvkpa]

There could be 93 octane gasoline sitting in tanks on the moon and our incompetant space program couldn't do anything with it anyway.

[torchbearer]

There could be 93 octane gasoline sitting in tanks on the moon and our incompetant space program couldn't do anything with it anyway.

there is a bounty of helium-3 on the moon... we have nuclear fusion reactors, they could power entire states.... clean too.
problem is... getting it back here cheaply.
http://www.asi.org/adb/02/09/he3-intro.html

[Revolution9]

Bringing them tankers back will cost more than the oil can be sold for.

Best
randy