Physics is a bitch

Ever since I have taken peak oil and energy sustainability problems on as a sort of pet project, I never really found another side of the debate. I guess that I always thought that critics of the peak oil idea did not believe in it because they had dreams of basking in a cheap oil era for at least the remainder of their life. I thought these people were dillusional to a point where they did not want to face reality, after all it is far easier to procrastinate and say, "let's deal with not having enough oil when the time comes" than it is to actively engage in a dilemma that has the potential to be humanity's greatest problem ever. But no! While there are certainly many of the aforementioned people about, I discovered a new, contrary notion to the idea of oil as a finite resource.

Whilst perusing the interweb the other night, I discovered a transcript from CNBC's squakbox. The show had Matt Simmons and two others whose names I forget at the moment as guests (it may have been Craig Smith?). We all know where Simmons stands so I will move onto his opponent. Smith put forth the theory that oil is not decayed dinosaurs and plants and other organic material, cooked for millions of years and brought closer to the surface through geologic shifts but rather that it exists in unlimited quantities - that the earth is manufacturing oil as I type this. This process occurs deep inside the planet. "So how do we get this earth so deep inside the plane?" one might ask. Apparently "centrifugal force" from the earth's rotation acts upon the oil and pushes it toward the surface to a point where we can reach it. Oh dear. Someone forgot their physics lessons learned as early as high school. Centrifugal force is NOT REAL, a MYTH, NONEXISTENT. It simply does not occur on this world. Well I suppose it is OK to make up things as you go along, creating a perfect situation that would allow world crude demand to increase forever unchecked by price and supply. But as I said earlier, these people must dream of cheap and unlimited fossil fuels for eternity. Also, if this "centrifugal" force is moving oil from deep in the earth, to less deep in the earth, then why have a I not been flung out to space yet? Gravity still acts on all objects, even when they lie below the crust of the earth. By this logic, centrifugal force acts on oil, pushing it away from the core, to the surface, while at the same time escaping the effects gravity; however we humans remain unaffected by centrifugal force but cannot escape gravity, thus keeping us from being thrown off the ground from this wildly spinning planet.

The final conclusion from this genius is that we just have to dig really really deep using the latest and greatest technology coupled with human ingenuity and current resources. Thus we will find an everlasting supply of oil. Sorry dude, real life doesn't work that way.