Re: US lawmaker, environmentalist spar over nuclear power

[Wes Van Pelt <vanpeltw@idt.net>]

ruth_weiner wrote:

> That's of course equally true for fossil fuels, which are "biomass" fossils.
> All of the carbon was at some time CO2 incorporated as biomass by
> photosynthesis.
>
> Ruth Weiner
> ruth_weiner@msn.com

Ruth and Radsafers,

I have been intrigued by the origin of coal, gas and petroleum, and have always
thought that it could not be adequately explained by decaying plants, even over
millions of years.

For example, there is such a large amount of geologic hydrocarbons, even much
more than the total amount of plants on the earth now.

And this stuff is found VERY deep, up to 5 or 10 miles, much too deep to imagine
from decaying plants in primordial swamps.

And it is almost always associated with helium. The helium comes from alpha
decay of uranium and thorium and is swept up with gas (methane) from great
depths, possible as deep as the earth's mantle.

I found a terrific article on the origin of hydrocarbons:
http://people.cornell.edu/pages/tg21/usgs.html

Regards,
Wes
--
Wesley R. Van Pelt, Ph.D., CIH, CHP            KF2LG
President, Van Pelt Associates
Radiation Safety and Environmental Radioactivity
mailto:vanpeltw@idt.net    http://idt.net/~vanpeltw/


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