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Field With 155,238,095,238,095,250,000 Barrels Of Oil Discovered, But There Is A Catch
Good news for all those who have nightmares about the prospect of peak oil: scientists have discovered an oil field which has a gargantuan 155 quintillion barrels of oil, or about 200 times more hydrocrabons than there is water on earth. There is however, a catch: the field is located some 1,300 light years away. From Rigzone.
The scientists work at the Max Planck Institute in Germany, and using the 30m-telescope of the Institute for Radio Astronomy they discovered a vast cloud of hydrocarbons within the Horse Head Nebula galaxy in the Orion constellation.
Upon discovery of the cloud IRAM astronomer Viviana Guzman declared that, "the nebula contains 200 times more hydrocarbons than the total amount of water on Earth!"
Just for those of you curious as to exactly how many barrels of oil that roughly equates to, here you go: one hundred and fifty-five quintillion, two hundred and thirty-eight quadrillion, ninety-five trillion, two hundred and thirty-eight billion, ninety-five million, two hundred and fifty thousand, or 155,238,095,238,095,250,000 barrels.
Alas, this means that even if a ship left today to reclaim any of this massive stash which at last check has not been claimed by any terrestrial E&P corporation, it would come back some time in the year 4612. So while oil on earth may well end, hopes of the fracking renaissance notwithstanding, then solar and geothermal better last well into the 47th century, at which point all the crude the world may need will be made available.
Does this also mean a return of the old abiogenic hypothesis?
Now like me you might be wondering how oil, which is supposedly produced from organic matter buried millions of years ago, could possibly exist in space. Well it turns out that these hydrocarbons were likely created by the fragmentation of giant carbonaceous molecules called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, which are produced during the death of a star.
There is even a theory that molecules such as these could have served as the first organic compounds for creating life.
Either way, don't expect the market to start discounting this rather dramatic increase in discovered oil just yet, and definitely don't expect gas at the pump to move even remotely lower on this news.
The good news, for all the Keynesians out there, is that the idea to build the Death Star, as proposed first on Zero Hedge, may finally get some life, especially if the Death Star is provided with some exploration and production capacity. And what self-respecting Keynesian wouldn't salivate at the prospect of injecting $852 quadrillion of debt growth into the economy at this time?
h/t @GreekFire23
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Can monetary policy not change the distance of this rock to us? What if Bernanke bought another trillion of bonds?
Print the bridge!
Beam It Down, SCOTTY...
Frac that wormhole bitchez!
You take one down... Pass it around... 155,238,095,238,095,249,999 barrels of oil on the wall...
~~~
That's the catch...
SEE??? Oil is both abiogenic AND limitless.
Someone help me out here...what's the expected PRODUCTION RATE of this massive reserve? Same as those lakes of methane on Titan, right?
Well fuck ~ Aparently there's more gold on the asteroid Eros than all of the above ground gold ever mined on Earth...
~~~
If it comes right down to it... I'm starting there first... Maybe I'll be luckier with starships than boats...
Guess they had dinosaurs on them other planets, too.
Oh wait. The only life is here on earth and there is no God.
Hmmmmmmmm
The universal implementation of debt economics explains the Fermi Paradox.
http://abstrusegoose.com/89
Why do I have this eerie feeling the world's coming to an end?
Because you just went long AAPL?
I have a theory. You know that whole Mayan thing? Is just a cruel Wall Street mind-fuck to kill the shorts. Again. Mark me, Dec 21 will roll around a huge up day.
I hope so Cougar, because the 22nd I got an early tee time. But's supposed to rain... that count as a world ending event?
I'm pretty sure it would be for some people.
If the clubhouse is all out of the good single malt, then definitely.
Sunshine is for pussies ... real golfers are out there in the rain or after dark.
@ knuckles
~~~
Only if you lip out your putt for a hockey stick on the first hole [& the beverage cart girl is not 'Hooter' rated]...
Now that makes it difficult....
Irony: The engineering and production of the new forms of conveyance enabling travel to, and exploitation of this resource, might actually render it obsolete.
I suggest to all that are interested in such ventures to throw all their money away on it...I mean, invest in the future of burning hydrocarbons to achieve star travel.
In other news, Ford announces the Horse. The quadraped green machine, capable of reaching a top speed of 45 mph and consumes no gas.
So while we are waiting for the arm chair financial "science" majors we'll have something to drive around in meanwhile.
That's a lot of dead animals and plants.
So is this proof of life on other planets or are Earth's oil reserves slowly regenerating through an Abiotic process?
It was stated Nebulae, not Planet.
Slight difference.
I appreciate the opportunity you give me trav777! There is PLENTY of natural gas here in the USA. Yet we do not use it well. Here is how PERU uses their natural gas reserves to power a big part of their car fleet:
http://tinyurl.com/9w9texx
If true, proves that abiotic oil is more plausible than the supposed theory that biological matter and dinosaurs created "fossil fuels"
The high pressure and magma machinations produces the Earth's lubricant we then drill, not some fluffy mammal that died millions of years ago.
There's some interesting Russian research about abiotuc oil floating around on the intertubez; i'd cite them if i could be arsed.
There is lot more to the science of the origin of oil than finding methane in the cosmos, i.e. the simplest molecule made of from 2 of the most abundant elements in the universe...
You also find CH, CH2 C2H, CH3 and on and on and on,.... Hell there is even evidence for C8H
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_interstellar_and_circumstellar_molecules
Where do you think we get our natural heat from? And those barrels are a lot closer to Earth than any death star.
Feb wti's slipping on the news, only up 32 cents
This nebula is in the proximate area of the planet that the aliens that Paul "When Aliens Attack Earth" Krugman is speaking of when he warns us to get ready for a hostile extraterrestrial invasion of earth (urging passage of his 577 trillion USD Alien Defense Network & Force Field Readiness Stimulus Omnibus Expenditure).
We need to preempt them by invading their planet and stealing their oil.
It's all starting to make sense now.
And here I thought Krugman was batshit crazy for all these years...
See.
Todja todja todaj
Absolute proof that aliens are dark skinned and have gold.
(justifies any measures necessary to eliminate and steal the resources and treasure... oh while bringing democracy and freedom to the forlorn... needs must work on an illegal alien policy for 2016...)
Krugman just tweetered/twatted:
That man is a serious intellectual menace to the very social and economic well being of the entire human race. Imagine nirvana; no budget, no deficit limit, no debt limit, unfettered unlimited monetization by a central bank with pure fiat.
Irresponsible, IMHO
+ 155,238,095,238,095,250,000
There is another very abundant source of Hydrocarbons that is much much closer: Uranus. Its full of methane!
I like your style, but wouldn't it be easier just to print the oil into existence instead?
But that would be much less fun for everyone. The exploration could be financed for less than a thousand platinum coins and that in turn could have a very salutary effect on the global economy. /s
Tyler, u always 10 plus feet away from LFTR, or would it have ruined the sarcastic point?
geothermal and solar better get us a good way thru the 47th century, lol, but not Thorium.
Look at the material out there already on LFTR, the work has really already been done by Oakridge, the guy who ran OakRidge, Weinberg, basically got himself fired over nagging the shit outta Congress about how LFTR was far safer, faaar more efficient, and had byproducts on a 100x multiplier lower on longevity - the hot salt can even take nuke weapon material and existing waste as fuel!
Now why can't this thing get funded privately in this ZLB environment??
Where is the press on this??
Ahem. I mean ty for posting Kirk, but where are You on this and getting it funded. Crowd equity?
The administration is ignoring Thorium and always has as it does not use the Uranium Plutonium cycle that meshes with military needs. The Gen4 reactors are all solid fuel water cooled fission. That just sounds stupid as fuck. Yeah, let's cool a nuclear reaction with something that expands 10,000x after heating 100c
The energy output can clean water and build liquid hydrocarbons for transportation however. So at least China copied us and is a few yrs into building it.
LFTR is far from production-ready...we're barely at supercritical water reactors.
Molten salt reactors along with fast breeders and we have functionally inexhaustible uranium fuel supply.
In an equally important story, the sun will one day expand to 800 times its present volume, scorching us all, and turning the earth into a giant "burger to go". Please remember to wipe twice when using this story in the manner in which it is most useful.
Who gives a flying *F*. As if economies need oil to run anyway. Free energy has been available to us since Tesla not to mention the countless others after him. But WTF...Let's send some money to Solyndra! Is it the oil men who own the banks or is it the banks who own the oil men? I forget, but again, who gives a *F* We have everything we need right here on earth except common sense and freedom. Good God! Lord take me now!
I doubt Obummer would approve the pipeline.
1,300 light years?!?! I guarantee the GM Volt can make it there without refueling...
Now if we can just get someone to buy one...
CNN LIVE
"This is Charles Jacko reporting live on site form the newest and largest ever petroleum discovery in the history of mankind. Here where I stand on the planet Exofarawybluescreen some 1,300 light years from Earth waiting for my pizza delivery... don't bogart that..."
Maybe you've seen this before Knukles?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXEgRGvfOwE#t=0m45s
Intergalactic Dinosaurs, bitchez
This one's from horses
plant all available land with corn, and convert to ethanol. Drilling not allowed on that far planet.
It's technically not a planet, but a gas cloud. You'd have to "extract" the "hydrocarbons" from space the same way you might collect a fog for its water; using some kind of giant net or screen.
Crude output would probably amount to 1 barrel per year. However according to my calculations a price target of $1,700,000,000,000 USD per barrel makes in economically viable. So I don't see any reason not to prepare for the day.
All their shit must be causing Galactic Warming.
DC Fusor's Chevy Volt just became even less relevant... But it's still good for toasting marshmallows...
Do burning VOCs leave a bad taste in your s'mores?
Not really sure... What I am sure of is that driving around in a Chevy Volt makes you look like a Girl Scout...
Correction.
Dinosaurs....on a Spaceship!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinosaurs_on_a_Spaceship
http://www.tvfanatic.com/videos/doctor-who-promo-dinosaurs-on-a-spaceship/
Theres no way to tap it in 1,300 light years! Dont get your hopes up!
We'll make it there in 12 parsecs.
*lulz*
Yeah bitch... Just like the 'Kessel Run'...
Greedo shot first.
20 years later... sounds like we have the makings of a great Dr.Who episode.
I made the Ketzel run in under that! And yeah, I shot first.
Send the Nostromo.
On first glance, I thought this was the number of dollars BernanQE will be printing.
Who says it isn't?
So.... They discovered Dinosaurs?
swamp rats in beggar's canyon.... a long time ago in a galaxy far....
It's womp rats.
Naw, probably a race of intelligent spieces that filled their galaxy with bipeds that consumed every resource available spreading like a virus to every niche. Well it collapsed and now we're going to power our cars with an alien family of four.
By the time the oil astronauts get back they can tap our graveyards as it'a all abiotic appearently. They'll need that energy to get back to the alien graveyard to pump gas to get back home, etc, etc, etc. I know it's not a popular idea but why don't we just use newly the dead to produce abotic diesel?
Human or corn or wheat grass, all can be used as hydrocarbons in the production of biodiesel.
I guess there was a high density dinosaur population - or does this debunk that theory!
at some point when the fed is up to 150 bil/mo in QE they will announce they found massive gold deposits on the moon. probably around this time next year just in time for the end of the year knock down.
If history serves the status quo, and there is gold on the moon, I imagine the Moon is already owned by some Saudi family. So, nothing changes.
I'm sure there is gold on the moon, but without water to transport and concentrate it is too spread out to mine practically, the distance and lack of oxygen and everything else not withstanding.
Yes, and all that cheese that would melt when our retro-rockets fire up.
Get a grip. That whole moon thing is just a stage set up in Hollywood. And it wasn't cheese it was plywood. I read all about it on the intarwebs.
Haven't the fucking Japs invented a camera yet that can take pictures of the moon surface already [to see if there's a flag] & put this stupid thing to rest?
~~~
Jesus tapdancing Christ... We [supposedly] know that Jed Clampett is shootin' at squirrels on a planet 12 parsecs away, but we can't take a fucking picture of the moon?
Two NASA spacecraft have been mapping the moon's surface
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/video/2012/dec/18/twin-nasa-spacecraft...
I know right... maybe it's on the dark side?
but seriously, how's the farm?
No need to dig it up or prove it; it is simply in deep storage under the American Flag. Just add it to the balance sheet.
Somewhat important point . . . all hydrocarbons are not oil. Oil is a hydrocarbon, but not all hydrocarbons are oil.
This matters rather a lot. One barrel of standard atmosphere pressure and temperature CH4 (methane aka natural gas) hydrocarbon contains 1/1000th the energy of 1 barrel of crude. A barrel is 42 gallons.
You don't have to go that far, btw. Titan has a lot of hydrocarbons. Just not oil.
Can you make oil from CH4? Sure. You just burn about a barrel of oil for the required energy to create that barrel of oil in doing so.
Your post has a tone of pleading desperation, doesn't it?
He's a paleontologist... He's long been aware of the dinosaur fossils on Titan...
CNN LIVE
This is Charles Jacko reporting live from the planet Saturn's moon Titan, observing the latest scientific discovery about to rock the very scientific and financial foundations of mankind. Here, there has been a River of Bitcoins discovered, flowing freely....
I think the 1300 light years poses a slightly bigger problem that the conversion from CH4
So you're saying it's more efficient than producing Ethanol?
Ahem, using the Sabatier reaction one only needs H2O, CO2, and a catalyst to make CH4. It's even an exothermic reaction.
His Nobel is getting pretty old....I think it was 1912.
(Sabatier reactors are a leading option for fabricating rocket fuel for a Mars return mission)
This doesn't make crude.
rocket fuel!??! This is the DUMBEST proposal in history when a fission fragment drive would get us to Mars and back in a freaking week.
Why don't they take a bunch of twisted up rubber bands while they're at it? Freaking neandarthal chemical rocket technology LOL
They could put a coupla of fast niggers on a treadmill...
H2, not H20. Gigantic difference there.
But Timmah just said; "What's a O between friends?"
"What's a O between friends?"
The President at a Chicago bathhouse?
Right, right, it makes H2O. I will slap myself.
I just hate it when they round off so much
Send the Nostromo.
Did they find weapons of mass destruction as well?
Yes a great big black hole named 1FED101
We are sailing past the event horizon now.
We surely passed the first event horizon. On our way to the second.
by closer look it says SHELL on it
Doesn't that prove life on other planets or was that all a lie too. I want my Santa. Where's my Santa?
"There is however, a catch: the field is located some 1,300 light years away."
Don't worry. We'll be able to upload our consciousness to an iPhone soon and live forever. Then we only have to get iPhones to relativistic speeds, instead of big clunky starships.
What about the Y10k bug?
Don't worry. Jobs is going to be reincarnated as the next Apple OS. He'll be able to fix it.
Already done...except he was reincarnated as a female named SIRI.
See.
Talks all the time and can't take directions...
Your girlfriend called. You're cut off.
"He'll be able to fix it"
Correction, he'll get Woz to do it.
so, ... are you telling me there were dinosaurs on that nebula?
The problem with this is that the Vogons grabbed all of it 1,400 light years ago.
Bwahahaha!!! Is your math off? It could have been stolen 1299 years ago, but we would not know for another year, since the light we are receiving is 1300 years old.
Think of it this way. Our current "snapshot" shows the hydrocarbons are there. If a hundred years later the Vogons steal the hydrocarbons, we wouldn't see the evidence of that for another 100 years. Confusing, isn't it?
That makes more sense. They may even have stolen it the day before this discovery, and we wouldn't know for another 1300 years. What if we went there, but there was no there when we got there?
Doesn't matter. The Vogons will be accused of having WMDs, which we will have sold them parts to build.
They don't need weapons of mass distruction. They have poetry.
you're making me dizzy...
but, what if it's been traveling at the speed of light towards us and the earth's been traveling at the speed of light towards it and we smack into each other tomorrow @ 12:21:12 o'clock?
If you are both travelling the speed of light, isn't time reversing, relative to each other?
Exxon-sponsored quantum wormholes coming right up.
Sending a tanker to collect that oil will only take 155,238,095,238,095,250,001 barrels of oil.
Unobtainium bitcherz
If anybody lives there they'd better have big guns or they are fucked.
Avatar; another film designed to teach you about environmental responsibility, but instead demonstrates once again that people need guns to protect themselves from the criminals with guns.
Finally, I get this whole 'cold dead haed' conjecture thing, thank you. Right then:
Because the wholly unthreatening (to our part of the planet anyway) inhabitants of 'wherever' only possess sandals, pointy sticks and rocks to defend themselves, they were at a distinct disadvantage in the movie because everyone knows that you should never bring a rock, pointy stick, knife, shoe, or bow to a gunfight, even if it is your own pad, because guns are the more lethal weapon (I think I got it so far). Soooo, we should all have access to infinitely more guns as it is a fact that the more potential for deadly violence that exists always always always always always ( I don't think that this point can be emphasized enough) means there will be less deadly violence, just so long as that power is distributed equally (not like wealth/power mind you, let's not go there please) because if everyone including criminals only had access to rocks, pointy stick, knives, and shoes to, uh... no. wait, that's not right, arm bears with me for a moment... K, like this; for the sake of argument, let's say guns were chocolate, if I offered mine to a criminal who wanted to attack someone with a (glass) jar of peanut butter, and he had an allergy I wasn't aware of, and he died, would I be held responsible? (not including Canada, naturally. We all know that in that country if you attack an armed intruder before offering him a cup of tea, you are held criminally (and civilly) liable by the Queen's RCMP for any digestive discomfort he may experience). So...now where was I? Uhhhhh, look, screw it; I and mine should be allowed to openly brandish all the RPG's we can fit into our humvee, and all you other bastids can kiss my sharries.
Or something like that... it's a work in progress.
Peace.
WTF?
Needs a little fine tuning?
Yep.
Yep, that's how it is. We'll only see the end of violence when every single person on Earth possesses the ability to destroy the entire solar system just by thinking about it.
Finally some peace.
Obama just passed an executive order banning drilling up there.
Go out and look for a windy planet.
These are inferior "small loop" hydrocarbons. They cannot power cars or even camp fires. In fact, it takes more energy to ignite them than they produce. The idea of dinosaurs floating around aimlessly in space is absurd. I have a PHD. Just read the paper, and be sure to tip your waiters and waitresses.
/sarc
If we turn the Earth's population into slaves and exert all global dictatorship resources to developing the newly-discovered warp drive option, we just...might...be able to do it.
And just think of the Teflon/Velcro/Tang style spinoff benefits to give the slaves something to play with.
FORWARD!!!
Oil is a hydrocarbon, all hydrocarbons are not oil....
Lots of evidence for methane in the universe....
But we're all still gonna die, right?
I'd be terrified of a future where humanity doesn't decline into extinction from peak ail.
Yes - without a doubt. Every single one of us.
edit: except for maybe Ted Nugent.
And Keith Richards?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0c3d7QgZr7g
I'm startin' low tonight.
Stop using facts Flak, you're going to irritate and confuse the sheeple.
It's a tough job, but somebody has to do it...
Reading just the press release as offered in the parent post, someone was trying to gear up excitement over something that didn't amount to shit. Or else they really were hunting unicorns.
I've been watching all the actors grappling with the impending epic fail of technology, and the ongoing crawling horror of Anthropogenic Global Armegedon, and noticing that there is some strange unicorn sightings coming out of normally staid corners of the infosphere. The web site XKCD.com once ran a comic about how meterologists started to come unhinged during the epic hurricane season of 2005 ( http://forums.xkcd.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=95771 ) and I wonder if things are starting to come unhinged in other areas of descriptive science, like astronomy, as the fear of their own fields becoming utterly irrelevant begins to eat into their brains.
Because if things go even half as badly as they are shaping up, there's all kinda shit ain't gonna matter.
Screw that. Why go so far.
Just drill Uranus for gas.
Resistance is futile, bitchez.
I hereby declare that line be mandatory in the next Star Trek film.
It's a Klingon interstellar oil spill. Those reckless bastards!
No problem, Klingons fined their BP for only 39.99
Thanks for the post, I really needed that...
edit: thanks to the comments on here, laughing sure feels good!
But the dinosauce is what my scienze teachor taut me?
Bruce Willis will get it for us.
Only if he takes Ben Afleck again, but leaves him there this time.
So much for the "we're running out of dead dinosaur juice" theory...
Shhhhh.... Don't tell Flakmeister!
As for abiotic oil, still gotta deal with the pesky C12/C13, not to mention a slew of other factors....
The only thing that matters is production rate.
If all the oil in the world is made abiotically, that still doesn't matter. Even if all the abiotic oil is pure light sweet crude, it still doesn't matter. It only matters if the rate of production by the Earth of new barrels of oil is anywhere in the range of 80 million barrels per day.
And that is only to maintain current production, allowing for no future growth in consumption.
Now, now.
With ingenuity and the application of new technology, human beings have always overcome prior resource constraints, therefore they will always do so in the future.
That's plain logic. QED.
Never ending 3%+ YoY growth will start up again real soon. Just hang on, and don't get all pessimistic. Go take out a loan on a new car; that always helps.
Wow SpazRex thanks! Of course technology will fix it, it always does after all, just as you point out. It's all so much more clear now.
Silly me, to think I was beginning to worry.
Off to the Mall!
lots of isotope ratios, for that matter...but maybe the cosmic ray flux was higher when Nibiru was orbiting Uranus
Does anyone have the heart to tell these folks that the methane cloud is probably a better vacuum than we can achieve on earth... in the other words, for all intents and purposes, just empty space...
LONG Death Stars
Buzz Lightyear or is it Effin Uncle Bens Converted Fiat, same quote...
To Infinity and Beyond!