Article

2008-02-14 Science & Technology

Titan's Surface Organics Surpass Oil Reserves On Earth

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Posted by 3dc 2008-02-14 01:57|| || Front Page|| [9 views ] Top

#1 Hydrocarbons are not the same as petroleum...jeez.

Posted by gromky 2008-02-14 02:27|| 2008-02-14 02:27|| Front Page Top

#2 Petroleum is a mixture of hydrocarbons of various molecular sizes, along with some impurities. Methane is the primary part of the "natural gas" which heats homes & propels internal combustion vehicles. Methane & ethane would do quite well as a substitute or a substrate for longer chain hydrocarbons. If you have enough energy substrates, you can do almost anything.
Getting the material from Titan to earth economically is another matter entirely, but it might be worth trying.

Posted by Anguper Hupomosing9418 2008-02-14 02:56|| 2008-02-14 02:56|| Front Page Top

#3 Even if it were, my guess is transportation costs would be too high to make it efficient.

Posted by Ol Dirty American 2008-02-14 02:56|| 2008-02-14 02:56|| Front Page Top

#4 Titan Oil Recovery, Inc. Bringing New Life to Mature Oil & Gas Fields.

http://www.titanoilrecovery.com/

Houston Office
25025 I-45 North
Suite 525
The Woodlands, Texas 77380

Posted by Besoeker 2008-02-14 03:09|| 2008-02-14 03:09|| Front Page Top

#5 The relevance of this, is that oil and gas could well be primarily from abiotic sources and there is a lot more to be found by deep drilling.

I grew up with a coal fire in the house. I only realized a couple of days ago that in the many thousands of pieces of coal I saw, all with flat fracture surfaces, I never saw a single fossil.

Posted by phil_b 2008-02-14 03:19|| 2008-02-14 03:19|| Front Page Top

#6 I've developed an OSHA Approved Hot-Air Balloon Recovery System to Haul Them Hydrocarbons Back here to Mother Earth.

No Carbon Foot Prints were damaged during the making of "our" Invention.

You can become Owners of your own Balloon by sending only $150,000 to hold your Balloon Down!

Posted by RD">RD 2008-02-14 03:56|| 2008-02-14 03:56|| Front Page Top

#7 that damn RD tried to take credit for my invention... #6 is my post!

he's a sneaky conservative.. watch out.

Posted by Al Gore">Al Gore 2008-02-14 03:58|| 2008-02-14 03:58|| Front Page Top

#8 Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. See this.

Posted by Anguper Hupomosing9418 2008-02-14 03:59|| 2008-02-14 03:59|| Front Page Top

#9 Re#8 the fossils are in the shale above the coal seam and not in the coal itself.

Posted by phil_b 2008-02-14 04:28|| 2008-02-14 04:28|| Front Page Top

#10 Coal was formed during the Carboniferous Period, well before dinosaurs. Think vast peat and fern swamps and shallow seas. Arthropods were the major land animals and they don't readily leave fossils.

Posted by ed 2008-02-14 06:20|| 2008-02-14 06:20|| Front Page Top

#11 [moonbat]
Oh, great! Now Bush and the oil companies are gonna look for an excuse to invade Titan!
[/moonbat]

Posted by Mike 2008-02-14 06:35|| 2008-02-14 06:35|| Front Page Top

#12 The oil on Titan is produced in part by meteor impacts, whose forces are the provernial Philosophers Stone. As a space rock impacts a surface, the temperature and pressure transform elements, hydrocarbons or other minerology result. The first effect is a cavitating shock waves, which create the vacume, and crumble the strata in the direction of its progression, the other thermo dynamics follow this wave, and transform elements struck, to new states.
Oil on our planet is always found within hundreds or up to thousands of miles in any direction of an impact.Often the impact zones are not identifiable because of subsequent erosion over time. the real time images of shoemaker levy hitting jupiter show the creation of the black hydrocarbons moving out from the impact zone and disappearing about 10 months later, as the liquid hydrocarbons seed downward into cavities beneath the surface. That is the story of Oil....and dont you forget it..

Posted by Spiny Gl 2511 2008-02-14 08:03|| 2008-02-14 08:03|| Front Page Top

#13 moonbat on
We cannot late Exxon or Texaco drill on Titan and endanger the seals, whales, mooses, whatever.
moonbat off

Posted by JFM">JFM 2008-02-14 08:08|| 2008-02-14 08:08|| Front Page Top

#14 Coal was formed during the Carboniferous Period

And also in any other time where plants grew. Peat, from the Irish bogs, is not really any different than immature coal, still being formed as I type.

Good to know about Titan - once global warming gets severe enough we can move there.

Posted by Glenmore">Glenmore 2008-02-14 08:10|| 2008-02-14 08:10|| Front Page Top

#15 I think I'll start selling land on Titan to the people who believe GloBull Worming.

Posted by CrazyFool 2008-02-14 08:36|| 2008-02-14 08:36|| Front Page Top

#16 Now all we need for space colonies to be independent of carbon importts from Earth, is space colonies.

Posted by g(r)omgoru 2008-02-14 08:39|| 2008-02-14 08:39|| Front Page Top

#17 The only real problem is getting there. Getting things back can be done slow and steady -- ion drives or the like.

Reminds me of a favorite saying: "Earth First! We'll mine the other planets later."

Posted by Rob Crawford">Rob Crawford 2008-02-14 09:13|| 2008-02-14 09:13|| Front Page Top

#18 "Oh, great! Now Bush and the oil companies are gonna look for an excuse to invade Titan!"

It's already started. What? You thought Cassini was a science mission? We didn't send that plutonium there for the heck of it....

There is an "o" and an "i" and a "l" in plutonium. Think about it.

Posted by Kelly 2008-02-14 11:49|| 2008-02-14 11:49|| Front Page Top

#19 Quagmire!
No, wait. Too soon.

Posted by anonymous5089 2008-02-14 11:52|| 2008-02-14 11:52|| Front Page Top

#20 I claim Titan for Russia!

Posted by Vladimir Putin 2008-02-14 12:28|| 2008-02-14 12:28|| Front Page Top

#21 It would be like drilling in the grand canyon. Have ye no compassion for the Loch Titan Monster?

Posted by Abdominal Snowman 2008-02-14 12:32|| 2008-02-14 12:32|| Front Page Top

#22 Have ye no compassion for the Loch Titan Monster?

I think Cloverfield was a prophetic movie, with the Loch Titan monster coming to Earth to get back at the oil executives who ruined its home. It's a very scary thought. Run, run for your lives! It's coming, and there's no escape!

Posted by anonymous5089 2008-02-14 12:34|| 2008-02-14 12:34|| Front Page Top

#23 Even if it were, my guess is transportation costs would be too high to make it efficient.

Actually it wouldn't be too high, as far as space goes. You don't need ships going back and forth all the time. Once you've got a base on titan you can just lob bags of fuel into the right orbit and recover them on our end. There are no pirates or sea-monsters or even weather to really interfere. If something does go wrong the bag of methane makes a very exciting lightshow against Earth's atmosphere or the moon or an asteroid in between.

Posted by rjschwarz 2008-02-14 14:32|| 2008-02-14 14:32|| Front Page Top

#24 Improvement in transport means occurs daily. Cars are made that use only the pistons needed to meet current speeds. Then there are the hybrid vehicles, that shift between electrical and fossil fuel resources. However, we haven't had a real Leap in decades. There are hints that particle research could yield means to harnass gravity power. If, somehow, the force of gravity could be shifted horizontally, under some mechanism, then no-fuel transportation is a possibility. Controlled gravity: what a concept!I want a Tech Leap, now!

Posted by Woozle Crusing9022 2008-02-14 15:34|| 2008-02-14 15:34|| Front Page Top

#25 There is an "o" and an "i" and a "l" in plutonium. Think about it.

Kelly wins the Subtle Snark of the Day award.

Posted by lotp 2008-02-14 16:06|| 2008-02-14 16:06|| Front Page Top

#26 i second thatr! ~:)

Posted by RD">RD 2008-02-14 17:09|| 2008-02-14 17:09|| Front Page Top

#27 #5 & #9. In the 30's and 40's, we burned anthracite coal in our stoves. My job was to break up the large chunks delivered by the coal company and put them in coal scuttles and set them on the back porch. Quite often when I broke open a piece of coal I exposed a fern fossil. I believe the coal came from Pennsylvania.

Posted by GK 2008-02-14 19:04|| 2008-02-14 19:04|| Front Page Top

#28 If they can bring the mountain to Mohammed, we can sure as hell bring Titan to Earth.

Posted by Alaska Paul">Alaska Paul 2008-02-14 21:28|| 2008-02-14 21:28|| Front Page Top

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