Titan's surface organics surpass oil reserves on Earth

eXpat · Intermediate Crude Joined: Jun 08, 2006 Posts: 860

Hydrocarbons mine, earthlings!

Nicholai

If anybody actually buys in to something like that, they're living a fantasy

funzone36 · Heavy Crude Joined: Dec 04, 2005 Posts: 179

{thread merged by emersonbiggins}

Fossil fuels do not have to come from dead organisms because the moon Titan has dozens times more fossil fuels than the Earth has.

[Yahoo] Titan Has More Oil Than Earth: http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/20080213/sc_space/titanhasmoreoilthanearth;_ylt=ArLAeB9Pj8a0Qvqp0WwKya8PLBIF

Titan is too cold for life to exist. And even if some life existed in the past, how can they provide so much more fossil fuels than Earth when dinosaurs once existed on this planet?

EDIT: Sorry, I seriously did not know there was already a thread about this since I do not regularly visit this site. Please merge this thread with the other thread.

funzone36 · Heavy Crude Joined: Dec 04, 2005 Posts: 179

Thanks for answering the question for the thread I created.

Now, even though I don't visit this site regularly, I can tell that this forum has way more sarcasm than any other forum I visited. I know the majority of you guys agree with each other but too much sarcasm can get annoying. You know what I mean?

FreakOil

mididoctors

You don't have to go to Titan as there are more Methane hydrates on Earth than fossil fuels ... mind you accessing them from Titan may be easier.

moreover the fossil fuels are abiotic because Methane is on Titan argument=wrong

there is energy everywhere but allowing it to be freed up is the issue. pesky 3 laws etc...

I could grab a headline

My kitchen table contains more energy than all the energy ever used by Humanity!

which is true but hardly a solution to resource depletion.

Boris
London

mididoctors

mos6507 · Fusion Joined: Aug 03, 2007 Posts: 3116

kpeavey · Expert Joined: Oct 04, 2004 Posts: 1127

If we did succeed in harvesting hydrocarbons from Titan and bringing them to earth, there is the problem of increasing the earth's mass. Change the mass, change the rotation rate, lunar attraction, solar attraction, which all affect tides, seasons, climate and weather patterns.

Maintaining the balance of mass would be necessary. For each ton brought into the earth system, a ton would have to be expelled. Sending it back to Titan would keep the mass equation constant. Figure those launch costs again.

If the mass problem is solved, there is the energy infusion problem. Bringing in enough material to make the project economical and produce a net EROEI would require collossal volumes be involved. The energy released from these volumes would surely upset the natural ecosystem through waste heat. See Fermi law #2. A means of sequestering heat energy would be required, followed by a means of getting rid of it into space, or at least out of the earth system.

Also, there is the issue of pollutants, but this is answered with sending the stuff back to Titan as part of the conservation of mass problem.
_________________
If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face--for ever."
-George Orwell, 1984

______________
Accept the Facts.

Alcassin

Oh great, we have Titan, I thought our Sun is closer though. There is plenty of hydrogen. Anyway, I see thet our problems with climate change is also solved, we won't ever extract fossil fuels from the ground, we are just going to import more carbon from the space :D

Excellent!

Keith_McClary

Judgie

kpeavey · Expert Joined: Oct 04, 2004 Posts: 1127

http://www.permanent.com/
this place has been around for years, asteroid mining and all that
_________________
If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face--for ever."
-George Orwell, 1984

______________
Accept the Facts.

larry00 · Coal Joined: Aug 17, 2007 Posts: 7

Methane/Ethane burn and Titan has plenty of both!
You would have to be very naive to think these substances only occur on one moon of one planet.
Could very well be our light crude is a combination since its hard to see how usable crude exists at 6 miles under the surface in a usable form under heat that would melt steel.
Is Jupiter a sun just waiting to be born ?

Tis a golden age to be a scientist in.
Always keep your mind open as man has come a long way and gloom and doom has been predicted every decade as long as I have been alive but we are still here and prospering.

I'm hearing about a new space race to the moon by the US , Russia and China for a substance I think called Hydrogen 3 .

A metric ton would equil all Earth's energy production for a year.
Our moon is supposed to be rich in this substance.

Predictions are by 2014 mining will commence.

I really hadn't heard anything about this stuff till a week or so ago.
Energy doesn't have to be organic it's just that it was lying around near the surface and was easy/plentiful and our whole energy and transportation sector was founded on it.

We have to have a fundamental shift in energy production soon and we will because simple economics dictates that the more expensive organic materials become the cheaper alternative sources become.

Bio fuels are a boondoggle . The costs to the food segment of society are just now being felt and we can scarcely afford the clean water at 4 gal. used per gal of ethanol produced.

Here is a link to a article on the Hydrogen Three and its value as a energy resource.

http://fti.neep.wisc.edu/gallery/pdf/space_com063000.pdf

Note the 2000 date on the article then think about the increased cost of energy since then.
I have no doubt human nature has already solved many of the downside problems and the increased costs have made moon mining Hydrogen three viable.
You can Google Hydrogen three and several articles from science journals and even mechanics Illustrated come up.

JPL