Methane in Earth’s Mantle

Click on the title to see an article detailing an experiment showing that hydrocarbons are created abiotically in the Earth’s mantle.

Here is another study which determined that solid hydrocarbons in rocks that originated in the upper mantle were not organic in origin.

Here is another study in which isotopic evidence shows that hydrocarbons coming up from hydrothermal vents is not of biological origin.

Here is yet another study showing that the formation of hydrocarbons in the Earth’s mantle and the existence of huge quantities of hydrocarbons in the mantle is likely.

Industries in control of hydrocarbon extraction are doing a good job of throttling supply to drive the price up through the roof; there is not an actual shortage of the stuff.

We do have a limited supply of is oxygen, so even if we’ve got infinite hydrocarbon supplies; we do not have infinite oxygen supplies. The atmosphere can not sink an infinite amount of carbon dioxide. Burning hydrocarbons for energy is not sustainable and has very undesirable environmental effects.

But the current oil rape is just greed, and perhaps to a lesser demand, lack of foresight on the part of industry in terms of their failure to anticipate increasing demand from China and India.

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