Forum OpenACS Q&A: Re: Greenpeace.org nominated for Webby-Awards

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Posted by Mike Sisk on

Gotta keep this going...

I also liked the "stored sunlight" analogy until I read about possibility of "abiotic" formation of petroleum. I don't know if that's a crackpot idea or not. As for geothermal energy, I'm fairly comfortable with Hollenbach's recent work on a Deep-Earth reactor possibly being involved.
The primordial oil theory has been around for a while but there is no evidence to support it. A project in Sweden was started a few years back to drill down to prove the existence of this primordial oil but when nothing was found the project was quietly ended. There is a lot of evidence to support the oil-as-stored-sunlight model, not the least being that oil is always found in sedimentary rock of an age that we know supported an abundance of life.

Anyone ever hear of fossil natural fission reactors? Yes, these do exist. These are real nuclear reactors that occured in uranium deposits and nuclear fission occured naturally. Do a google search on "Oklo Natural Fission Reactors" and you'll get more info.

As of 20 years ago the theory on the formation of the earth involved the initial accretion of the planet from material collected in an eddy of the accretion disk around the proto-sun. The impact of matter created energy that heated the earth and compression of the matter as size (and gravity) increased created more. At this stage the earth is a homogenous mixture of stuff -- no oceans, mountains, or anything -- mostly a big half melted rock. Then radio-active decay adds heat until the melting point of iron is reached. Now the process of planetary differentiation takes place as all the iron sinks to the center of the mass releasing huge amounts of energy as gravitational energy is converted to heat. Lighter elements rise to the top as the heavy elements sink. Give it 5 billion or so years to cool down and here we are.