'Fossil fuel' theory takes hit with NASA finding
worldnetdaily ^ | December 1, 2005


New study shows methane on Saturn's moon Titan not biological NASA
scientists are about to publish conclusive studies showing abundant methane
of a non-biologic nature is found on Saturn's giant moon Titan, a finding
that validates a new book's contention that oil is not a fossil fuel.

"We have determined that Titan's methane is not of biologic origin," reports
Hasso Niemann of the Goddard Space Flight Center, a principal NASA
investigator responsible for the Gas Chromatograph Mass Spectrometer aboard
the Cassini-Huygens probe that landed on Titan Jan. 14. Niemann concludes
the methane "must be replenished by geologic processes on Titan, perhaps
venting from a supply in the interior that could have been trapped there as
the moon formed."

The studies announced by NASA yesterday will be reported in the Dec. 8 issue
of the scientific journal Nature.

"This finding confirms one of the key arguments in 'Black Gold Stranglehold:
The Myth of Scarcity and the Politics of Oil,'" claims co-author Jerome R.
Corsi. "We argue that oil and natural gas are abiotic products, not 'fossil
fuels' that are biologically created by the debris of dead dinosaurs and
ancient forests."

Methane has been synthetically created in the laboratory, Corsi points out,
"and now NASA confirms that abiotic methane is abundantly found on Titan."

The realization that hydrocarbons are produced inorganically throughout our
solar system was a key insight that led Cornell University astronomer Thomas
Gold to write his 1998 book, "The Deep Hot Biosphe The Myth of Fossil
Fuels." Gold wrote:

It would be surprising indeed if the earth had obtained its hydrocarbons
only from a source that biology had taken from another carbon-bearing gas -
carbon dioxide - which would have been collected from the atmosphere by
photo-synthesizing organisms for manufacture into carbohydrates and then
somehow reworked by geology into hydrocarbons. All this, while the planetary
bodies bereft of surface life would have received their hydrocarbon gifts by
purely abiogenic causes. Gold wryly noted that he was sure there had not
been any "big stagnant swamps on Titan" to produce the biological debris
that conventionally trained geologists think was required on Earth to
produce oil and natural gas as a "fossil fuel."

"If petroleum and natural gas are abiotic as we maintain in 'Black Gold
Stranglehold,'" Corsi commented, "then the 'peak oil' fear that we are going
to run out of oil may have been based on a giant misconception."

Paradigms in science change slowly and with great resistance, he noted, "But
NASA has given us today incontrovertible evidence that Titan has abundant
inorganic methane."

"If the scientists have ruled out that biological processes created methane
on Titan, why do petro-geologists still argue that natural gas on Earth is
of biological origin?" Corsi asked.

Capt Neal was right!