Dinosaur Juice - Fossil Fuel or Fraud?

I read the faded sign as we pulled into town: “Welcome to Hudson’s Hope - Land of Dinosaurs and Dams.” Stencilled beside a happy waterfall were two green brontosauri that appeared to be shooting lazer beams made of oil out of their eyes. Past and future, with this rusting hamlet as epicenter. “Land of Shit,” Shevko corrected. “Don’t blink or you’ll miss it.” 

It took me a while to draw the connection between dinosaur fossils and their oil by-products. My first thought was about extinction, exploiting our planet’s natural resources past the point of no return. Like the Delorean Time Machine in Back to the Future III, the train bridge up ahead is incomplete and we’re praying technology will save us all, before we hit that fateful precipice and magically teleport elsewhere, or tumble down into a canyon fireball. I was thinking about dinosaurs roaming these very hills, each terrible lizard a cog in the Wheel of Life. Did those reptilian heathens summon their own demise at the forefront of a life-ending comet by merely surviving? Do we not deserve an even worse finish for our deliberate consumer greed and unsustainable habits? But here in the Backyard, it’s no place for theoretical debate. We’re here to make money, exploiting that sweet, sweet dinosaur juice that simmers somewhere beneath our heavy winter work-boots.

(Jurassic Park ™ Flowchart)

Now, hold on. Does fuel actually come from fossils? I’m no scientist (although out here as a Well-Tester I pretend to be) and I don’t burn shit up on a burner, but were there really enough dinosaurs – or even plant life – to create the billions and billions of known oil reserves? Or is it just a nice story that roughnecks and oil executives tell their kids at bedtime? Well, apparently the jury is divided. Just like most other scientific “facts”, there are the mainstream theories and the fringe theories, stubbornly honking at each other like some Maiosaura protecting her eggs.

The mainstream theory of oil formation (biogenic/ fossil fuels) holds that oil originated millions of years ago in shallow seas as vast quantities of organic matter that died and sank into the mud to decompose. Over time as the source rock was buried deeper, overburden pressure raised temperatures into the “oil window” (80-100°C) enabling crude oil to form, become fluid, and migrate upward through the rock strata in a process called “oil expulsion”. The oil was eventually trapped in underground reservoirs where it was to remain, patiently awaiting Mankind’s Crazy-Straw to slurp it up, give it purpose and fulfill its destiny.

The other side supports the abiogenic hypothesis (developed before palaeontology), which argues that petroleum was formed from deep carbon deposits, perhaps dating way back to the formation of the Earth, and suggests that there exists a great deal more petroleum than commonly thought. The evidence for naturally occurring petroleum, slim as it may be, flies in the face of Peak Oil proponents, suggesting that oil is actually regenerative. I smell a Nerd Fight!

Years of production left in the ground with the current proved reserves (according to mainstream biogenic theory):

·       Coal: 148 years

·       Oil: 43 years

·       Natural gas: 61 years

Lifespan of our favourite extinct dinosaurs (according to mainstream palaeontology):

·       Velociraptor: 20 years

·       Triceratops: 100 years

·       Brachiosaurus: 300 years

Here on-site, glancing at the surrounding pipe-maze, I feel myself getting old. And I imagine the natural gas and oil being separated beneath my feet and sent off through the woods to be processed. On an average day, this lease that I'm monitoring produces about $30,000 worth of petroleum. I wonder what the equivalent is in pounds of dinosaur bones. How many Stegosaurus constitute a barrel? And what will become of the skeletons of mankind in three hundred million years? Will an advanced reptilian humanoid population employ their lot of part-time criminal, full-time rednecks to pump our remaining essence into a fuel source, full circle? 

I guess only time will tell.