Curious. This must be the new pseudo science making the rounds of the internet. This is the second time in a week that I’ve heard about the theorized abiogenic origins of petroleum.

Here’s the deal: whether or not the theory is correct, it is irrelevant - unless the abiogenic form of petroleum production can produce roughly 80 million barrels of oil per day.

In other words, it doesn’t matter where petroleum came from - whether its from God, from decomposing plant matter, or from extremeophile bacteria - if we’re consuming it faster than its being replaced, we need to find alternatives to oil.

(My data is from a google search, which answers the global oil consumption question as: “between 2002 and 2006 the daily consumption was between 78 and 85 million barrels a day.”)

And also, you don’t seem to understand government very well. Unless we had a national referendum, “the people” didn’t choose to build the interstates.

I think I understand how this works. If the government does something you don’t support, like raise the gas tax, you complain about the legislators not representing the people. But if they do something you like, like build the interstate system, they are enacting the will of the people. I’m confused, which is it?

I think you’re the one living in a fairy tale world.

Yes, the government (the elected government) has chosen.

Peter continues: “Streetcar systems were sometimes required to pay for the maintenance of the entire road ”

Yes, just like today, where all us drivers have to support the mass transit system.

Peter continues: “Transit is not good at serving these post WWII neighborhoods. Essentially the government was encouraging the use of cars.”

Once again Peter, it was OUR government, the elected government. Sorry you can’t nullify the elected government by the people, for the people.

Peter continues: “Second, the Interstate system. Imagine for a moment, if you will, that instead of Hitler building the Autobahn, he had built a high speed rail network. When Eisenhower was in Germany, he was impressed with the Autobahn. Now imagine if he would have been impressed with Germany’s high speed rail system?”

What a stupid thought! Hitler bulit highways, Eisenhower understood this. Trucks can travel on any road. Trains can only travel on tracks. It did not happen. Your assumption and conclusion are faulty and illogical.

Peter continues: “What if, instead of building a network of high-speed freeways, Eisenhower built a system of high speed rail? ”

Another stupid, what if. What if the moon was made of green cheese. It did not happen.

Peter, you live in your own fairy tale world. Good luck!

Indeed, Thomas Gold was initially accused of stealing most of his work from communist research. Once ‘found out’ he started crediting that research and stated that he simply developed the same theory in parallel. Riiight. 30 years later.

The whole argument of biogenic versus abiogenic origins is generally seen to be politically and economically influenced and not scientific. In that way, it resembles the Global Warming debate. Personally, I think it resembles UFOlogy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ufology

But - I guess communism must not be so bad after all, Da ‘Comrade DGB’!

Sort sounds like 35W and 62 right now

Speaking of streets: There are many truely bad streets in Mpls. Litteraly disintegrating, some streets are comprised of patches.

What I don’t get is why they are rebuilding the Nicollet Mall, when so many other streets badly need fixing.

And, if alternative transport is equally hard to come by, then we will have the exact opposite of Matty’s utopia: worn down streets overloaded bumper-to-bumper with big boiling hot cars, drivers with boiling hot tempers… shelling out big bucks to go nine miles an hour, and then shelling out more cash to park their big vehicles–and then having to walk a half mile to the office, anyway. (Hmm… that already sounds kinda familiar…)

Gold achieved fame for his 1992 paper “The Deep Hot Biosphere” in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences which presented a controversial view of the origin of coal, oil, and gas deposits, a theory of an abiogenic petroleum origin. The theory suggests coal and crude oil deposits have their origins in natural gas flows which feed bacteria living at extreme depths under the surface of the Earth; in other words, oil and coal are produced through tectonic forces, rather than from the decomposition of fossils. At the beginning of his 1992 paper Gold also referred to ocean vents that pump bacteria from the depth of the earth towards the ocean floor in support of his views. A number of new such hydrothermal vents have since been discovered, as recently as 2007

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Gold