What did we elect new leaders to do?  They will govern us, but to what end?  What do they understand is the purpose of government?  These questions are central to our ability to hold politicians accountable for the decisions they make over the next several years.

In the early 1600’s the political theorist, John Locke, who had a significant impact on shaping the thought of our Founding Fathers said that people without law are in a “State of Nature.”  Thomas Hobbes a social contract theorist advised that people in the “State of Nature” would “war every man against every man” and life would be “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.”  In the Federalist Paper #15, Alexander Hamilton comments, “Why has government been instituted at all? Because the passions of men will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice without constraint.”  Most people would agree with Hamilton that some form of law or government is preferable to anarchy.

The question then becomes what form of government is best?  Throughout history, many forms have been tried and re-tried with varying degrees of success.

Our Founding Fathers deliberately established our nation as a Republic, not a Democracy.  A Democracy starts with the foundational principle that the government gives rights and that a majority of the people (at least half-plus-one) voting will determine which rights are given and which rights are withheld from the people.

A Republic starts with the foundational principle that all rights are given by God and the government’s primary responsibility is to protect the God-given, unalienable rights of the people and to provide the liberty to exercise those rights.

Politics, according to Daniel Webster’s 1828 Dictionary is, “the science of government; that part of ethics which consists in the regulation and government of a nation or state, for the preservation of its safety and prosperity…and the protection of its citizens in their rights, with the preservation and improvement of their morals.”

Politics in modern America may be re-defined as; “the science of persuasive speech to manipulate the electorate by promises of enlarging entitlements and granting rights and paying for those entitlements by taxing the resources of those who produce them and redistributing them for the benefit of the many.”

In the Bible, Romans 13 lays out two fundamental purposes for civil government and for those who are appointed to positions of authority: 1) to punish evil, and 2) to condone what is good.  This is the basis for Webster to define politics as a part of ethics or the preservation of the morals of the people.

One of the unique things about our American form of government is that the government is designed to protect the rights we have received from God and to give us the liberty to exercise those rights as each individual sees fit. The purpose of our elected leaders is to protect our God-given rights for us, punish evil and preserve the good.

If our newly elected leaders aren’t doing what we elected them to do, when the next election rolls around, it will be time to elect different leaders that will.

Theory A, which most of us are familiar with, claims that oil is an organic “fossil fuel” created by decomposition of plants and dinosaurs over a long period of time.  This theory taught in most schools promotes the concept that “fossil fuel” deposits are limited in quantity and are found near the planet’s surface.  In fact, most Americans believe this theory without question.  Fossil fuels such as coal, petroleum and natural gas are referred to as non-renewable resources, meaning that they cannot be produced, grown or generated faster than their consumption rate.

Theory B, which is less known, claims that petroleum and natural gas are continuously generated by natural processes in the Earth’s magma. The theory that oil is abiotic in origin has over 50 years of intense scientific inquiry and predicts deep oil reserves, refillable oil fields, migratory oil systems and spontaneous venting of gas and oil on the surface of the earth.

If Theory A is correct, have you ever wondered how plants and dinosaurs could have decomposed in big pools a mile or more below the earth’s surface?  How about those oil discoveries in the Gulf of Mexico?  The deep wells are found under one mile ocean water and then several thousand feet under the ocean floor. How did dinosaurs decompose down there?

Dale Allen Pfeiffer, identified as the Contributing Editor for Energy, has written: “There is some speculation that oil is abiotic in origin — generally asserting that oil is formed from magma instead of an organic origin.” He continues, “These ideas are really groundless.”

The starting place for most people when discussing America’s energy future is to assume that oil is not a renewable resource -that we are running out of oil. This hypothesis was first formulated in 1931 by Harold Hotelling. He developed an economic model called Hotelling’s Rule that started with the assumption that fossil fuels were a depleting or non-renewable resource and their heavy use would have a significant impact on the sustainability of future economies.

From Hotelling’s Rule most Americans have just assumed his theory was right. There was not a lot of research about oil in 1931, so fossil fuel theory seemed reasonable.

The definition of a non-renewable resource is a natural resource which cannot be produced, grown, generated, or used on a scale which can sustain its consumption rate. These resources often exist in a fixed amount, or are consumed much faster than nature can create them. Fossil fuels such as coal, petroleum and natural gas are examples. In contrast, resources such as timber, when harvested and replanted or metals which can be recycled are considered renewable resources.

If Theory B is correct that oil is abiotic, then oil is a renewable resource. This would change the whole debate about renewable energy. Oil would, by definition, be one of the most plentiful sources of renewable energy in the world.

Theory B would also turn the debate on the Cap and Trade Tax. The only question then would be is carbon a pollutant and is global warming man caused. We will save that for a later issue. The energy discussion is critical because Americans are going to be taxed for their use of one renewable resource and forced to use less efficient sources of sources of energy. Under one scenario, rates could jump by as much as 63% from 2012 to 2030, according to Midwest Consumer Utilities, a group that includes Madison Gas and Electric Co.

That is a pretty steep price to pay to be faddish on energy policy that may be based on a false assumption.

Then in the late 80’s the production of the well was reduced to less than 4000 barrels a day.  The well was considered depleted.  Then in 1990 the well started producing 15,000 barrels a day and reserves were estimated to be around 400 million barrels. A study of the geological age of the new oil was substantially different than the age of the oil pumped in the 70’s and 80s. The seismic data found that the oil was coming from a previously unknown deeper source.

This phenomenon is not unique to Eugene Island.  It is happening in other Gulf of Mexico wells and in oil fields in Alaska. Replenishment of oil fields was also recorded in Uzbekistan.  In the Middle East where oil has been pumped for 20 years it has been discovered that known oil reserves have doubled to over 680 billion barrels.

The growing reserves would require a continual source of dead dinosaurs and decomposing prehistoric plants. Or could there be another explanation for crude oil?

A theory gaining some prominence is that crude oil may actually be a natural inorganic product, not a product of millions of years and organic decomposition. The evidence would indicate that there might be significant undiscovered oil reserves that would make today’s reserves seem meager.

The theory is that crude oil forms between the mantle and the crust as a natural by-product of what happens 5 and 20 miles below the earth’s surface.

The theory is that Methane (CH4), a common molecule found in quantity throughout our solar system is in huge concentrations and at great depth within the Earth. Where the mantle and crust meet at roughly 20,000 feet beneath the surface, rapidly rising streams of compressed methane-based gasses hit pockets of extreme temperature causing the condensation of heavier hydrocarbons. The product of this condensation becomes crude oil. Some compressed methane-based gasses migrate into pockets and reservoirs as natural gas.

In the geologically “cooler,” more tectonically stable regions around the globe, the crude oil pools into reservoirs. In the “hotter,” more volcanic and tectonically active areas, the oil and natural gas continue to condense and eventually to oxidize, producing carbon dioxide and steam, which exits from active volcanoes and vents in the ocean floor.

Depending on geological variations and movement of the earth crust, oil seeps to the surface in quantity, creating the vast oil-sand deposits in areas like Canada and Venezuela, or the continual seeps found beneath the Gulf of Mexico and Uzbekistan. When the vast, deep pools of oil break free from shifts in the geological strata the oil replenishes existing known pools of oil reserves.

The observations across the oil-producing regions of the globe that support this theory and the list of proponents begins with Mendelev (who created the periodic table of elements) and includes Dr. Thomas Gold (founding director of Cornell University Center for Radiophysics and Space Research) and Dr. J.F. Kenney of Gas Resources Corporations, Houston, Texas.

Dr. Gold presents compelling evidence for inorganic oil formation in his 1999 book, “The Deep Hot Biosphere”. He notes that geologic structures where oil is found all correspond to “deep earth” formations, not the haphazard depositions we find with sedimentary rock, associated fossils or even current surface life.  He also notes that oil extracted from varying depths from the same oil field have the same chemistry – oil chemistry does not vary as fossils vary with increasing depth. Another fact is that oil is found in huge quantities among geographic formations where assays of prehistoric life are not sufficient to produce the existing reservoirs of oil. So where then did it come from?

Another bit of evidence is that every oil field throughout the world has out-gassing helium. Helium is so often present in oil fields that helium detectors are used as oil-prospecting tools. Helium is an inert gas known to be a fundamental product of the radiological decay or uranium and thorium, identified in quantity at great depths below the surface of the earth, 200 and more miles below. It is not found in meaningful quantities in areas that are not producing methane, oil or natural gas. It is not a member of the dozen or so common elements associated with life. It is found throughout the solar system as a thoroughly inorganic product.

Even more intriguing is evidence that several oil reservoirs around the globe are refilling themselves, such as the Eugene Island reservoir – not from the sides, as would be expected from co-current organic reservoirs, but from the bottom up.

Dr. Gold strongly believes that oil is a “renewable, primordial soup continually manufactured by the Earth under ultra-hot conditions and tremendous pressures. As this substance migrates toward the surface, it is attached by bacteria, making it appear to have an organic origin dating back to the dinosaurs.”

Smaller oil companies with innovative teams are using this theory to justify deep oil drilling in Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico, among other locations, with some success. Dr. Kenney is on record predicting that parts of Siberia contain a deep reservoir of oil equal to or exceeding that already discovered in the Middle East.

In August 2002, in the “Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (US),” Dr. Kenney published a paper, which had a partial title of “The genesis of hydrocarbons and the origin of petroleum.” Dr. Kenney and three Russian coauthors conclude:

The Hydrogen-Carbon system does not spontaneously evolve hydrocarbons at pressures less than 30 Kbar, even in the most favorable environment. The H-C system evolves hydrocarbons under pressures found in the mantle of the Earth and at temperatures consistent with that environment.

He was quoted as stating that “competent physicists, chemists, chemical engineers and men knowledgeable of thermodynamics have known that natural petroleum does not evolve from biological materials since the last quarter of the 19th century.”

In our culture it is widely believed and well-established that at some point in the near future we will run out of oil. The world as we know it will end and unless we find another source of cheap energy we will turn the clock back to the dark ages.

If Dr. Gold and Dr. Kenney are correct, that “the end of the world as we know it” scenario is wrong then there is an inexhaustible supply of deep reserves of inorganic crude oil which is commercially feasible to extract that would provide the world with generations of low-cost fuel. Dr. Gold has been quoted saying that current worldwide reserves of crude oil could be 100 times more abundant than currently thought.