The mystery of where the oil came from

However, the school of inorganic origin has not gone away. In 1951, the former Soviet geologist Kudryantsev, who had been an organic genesis theorist for the previous 40 years, made a sudden U-turn and coined the "magma theory."

He was convinced that magma deep within the Earth contained not only carbon and hydrogen, but also oxygen, sulfur, nitrogen, and other trace elements in oil. In the process of magma change from high temperature to low temperature, a series of chemical reactions will occur, thus forming a series of compounds in petroleum. Then, along with the intrusion and eruption of magma, these petroleum compounds migrate and accumulate in favorable parts of the crust to form petroleum deposits.

Cornell University astronomer Gold, since 1977, on the basis of the universe and magma, has repeatedly proposed that oil comes from deep in the Earth and has been produced as early as 4.5 billion years ago when the Earth formed. His argument against the organic theory is that the size of the oil deposits in the world is much larger than that of any other sedimentary ore body, and that the identified oil and gas reserves are hundreds of times higher than previously estimated by the biogenic theory; Most difficult to explain is that many oil and gas are associated with helium, but organisms do not play any role in the concentration of helium; Moreover, biological processes explain the highly concentrated distribution of oil fields in the world (referring to the Middle East). In addition, according to the traditional theory, granite is igneous rock, can not have oil and gas, but Gold predicted that one of Europe's largest meteorite impact crater in central Sweden, the ringed Silyan area, is made of granite, but because of meteorite impact caused by large cracks, enough to allow hydrocarbons deep underground flow to the surface of the crust. To this end, the Swedish National Energy Agency has drilled seven exploration Wells in the crater to a depth of about 500 meters, and all of them have found small amounts of gas that seem to confirm Gold's hypothesis.

However, some people found that when the oil price is high, people can not help but ask: how many years can oil burn? Hundreds of millions of cars around the world, so many planes coming and going. The Boeing 747, a long-range jumbo jet, needs 85 tons of fuel at a time, and the Concorde, which was recently retired from service, needs 96 tons of fuel. Today, charging cars are available, and charging planes still seem unable to fly. The world's daily consumption of crude oil is already staggering, exceeding 70 million barrels in 1996, and OPEC expects it to reach 100 million barrels per day (a barrel is 159 liters or 42 gallons) by 2020.

There's no hurry. According to OPEC estimates, at current production levels, OPEC reserves could be used for 80 years, while non-OPEC reserves could be used for 20 years.

The largest oil producers identified by OPEC:

Saudi Arabia → 261.4 billion barrels (about 29 billion tons)

Iraq → 112 billion barrels (12.4 billion tons)

United Arab Emirates → 97.8 billion barrels (10.8 billion tons)

Kuwait → 96.5 billion barrels (10.7 billion tons)

Iran → 92.6 billion barrels (10.3 billion tons)

This does not include non-OPEC powers such as the United States, Russia and China.

According to the U.S. Department of Energy, the world's total oil reserves stood at 1,016 billion barrels (132 billion tons) as of January 1, 2000. In the past 150 years of industrial development, human beings have consumed half of the oil, and it is conservatively estimated that the Earth once contained more than 200 billion tons of oil.

Today, scientists generally believe that oil was produced by prehistoric animals decomposing under high temperatures and pressures. But scientists have long wondered how many prehistoric extinctions did it take to produce as much oil as it does today? Did oil arise only from the decay of animals?

We know that human and animal bodies are 70% water and will only rot away on the surface of the earth. According to current theory, only under high temperature and pressure underground can carbohydrates be broken down into hydrocarbons and become oil. The world's population is 7 billion (7×109), assuming that each person weighs an average of 70 kilograms, and adding the livestock raised by humans (excluding the distribution of wild animals), it is not difficult to calculate that about 300 million tons of crude oil can be produced.

7×109×2 (human + livestock) × 70㎏ × 30% = 2.94×108 tons ≒ 3×108 tons

According to the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, OPEC, the world consumes about 2.9 billion tons of crude oil a year. In other words, if all humans and livestock were converted into crude oil, the 300 million tons would only be enough for one and a half months.

Some people say that prehistoric creatures were large and numerous. We assume that prehistoric "huge" animals have large and small, an average of one ton each, still calculated according to 30% of the effective component, to form more than 200 billion tons of oil, there must be nearly 700 billion prehistoric creatures, how can the earth fit? And they all have a living environment. Suppose they lived in the same density as humans do today, 7 billion. It would take 100 mass killings and deep burials to produce more than 200 billion tons of oil. However, it is not difficult for us to find in life that after the death of animals on the surface, the vast majority of them rot into bones, or are eaten into feces, and become oil.