What if there's Oil on Mars?

in space •  7 years ago  (edited)


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Somebody joked recently that if Mars only had oil deposits, we'd already have cities there. Commentary on how we only ever do ambitious things if there's profit in it of course, but it got me thinking. What if Mars actually does have oil on it?

If there was ever life on Mars, even just algae and microbes in its oceans, their death and decay would have left behind a substantial quantity of oil deep underground. Most of our own oil isn't from large, complex animals (despite the nickname "dino juice") but from algae and microbes, whose biomass greatly exceeds that of more complicated, larger life forms many times over. Especially over long time periods because of how quickly they reproduce and die.

Anyways, let's say Mars does turn out to have oil deposits. Would they be valuable? You couldn't sell it to anybody on Earth because the cost of transporting it from Mars to Earth would greatly exceed the amount of money you could sell the oil for. This principle was best expressed by the saying "even if gold bricks were stacked up eyeball deep on the Moon, they couldn't be brought back at a profit".

Not by rocketry anyways. There's some possibility of using an electromagnetic mass driver to shoot ablative stone coated slugs of precious metals back to Earth where they would be collected from the crater they land in. But that's another article.

So would the oil at least be useful on Mars, for the benefit of Mars colonists? Not as a fuel for ground vehicles. Not if used in either fuel cells or internal combustion engines anyway, since both of those require an atmosphere rich in oxygen to react with the liquid hydrocarbon fuel, otherwise combustion cannot occur.


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This is why there exist enormous, plentiful lakes of liquid ethane (another hydrocarbon) on the surface of Titan, but despite doubtless many meteorites striking it, they've never caught fire. That would require an oxygen rich atmosphere. Without that, you cannot use liquid hydrocarbon fuels in the way we do on Earth.

So indeed, there are already known deposits of liquid hydrocarbons in the solar system, outside of Earth. Titan is covered in it. We don't go there to retrieve it because spaceflight cannot become cheap enough to turn a profit doing that.

Even reprocessing the constituent atomic elements from burning hydrocarbon fuels back into hydrocarbon fuels using nuclear power (as some aircraft carriers can now do, to manufacture fighter jet fuel while at sea) is cheaper than harvesting those fuels from another planet or moon.

However, using nuclear power to process naturally occurring elements into something desirable is in fact one of the ways Mars colonists could benefit from oil deposits on the red planet. By refining the oil, hydrogen could be extracted, which is an important ingredient in rocket fuel.

CO2 is freely available in the Martian atmosphere, thin though it is, so the oxygen could be split out of that and used as the other major component of rocket fuel. In this way, naturally occurring oil deposits on Mars could be put to good use, making rocket fuel out of local resources.

However it's not really accurate to call that a fuel as it's not a primary energy source, and it takes more nuclear energy to make the fuel out of oil and atmospheric CO2 than you get back out of it when burned in a rocket engine. It's an 'energy storage medium'. That's fine though, it does a job we cannot currently do with nuclear power: Escaping planetary gravity wells.

There's also the fact that we need oil in order to manufacture plastics, a crucial component of space suits, habitats and basically every modern technology. The ability to make plastics and rubbers from in situ materials on Mars would be tremendously helpful to colonists.

The very real possibility that oil deposits exist deep beneath the Martian soil is, then, highly worthwhile to investigate. As yet we've sent no lander capable of drilling that deep or with the necessary sound wave based equipment to detect oil deposits, but that would be a wise inclusion on a future rover.


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As @kouba01 said, at least there'd be plenty of lube.
Portal technology might not be far off if it means sweet mars oil to monopolize.

For the most part it would be useless to people arriving there from earth, at least as a fossil fuel. As there is no oxygen to burn and make the fuel useful.

Perhaps tribologists would love it as its only useful property would be lubrication.

( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

Hahhaha .. Oil? For what?

I think that there is something like a stone that can be a source of energy over oil.

But then I think, we just wasted time thinking to wade through Mars. The person who claims that there is a lot of oil on Mars, if we think Crazy, ga too, we think fool ga too, but it will all be in vain in the end.

Yeah, I'd love for us to investigate for this. I've wondered a few times before what we could actually find deep under the red ground. It'd be nice if they actually got interested enough to send a rover capable of checking within the next 10 years or so. But, guess we shall see, eh?

A very interesting post indeed! Though we hear a lot about Mars, the idea of having oil dePosits in Mars is not something I have come across before! Hope Musk makes it to there soon and finds out! 😍

I think that if life has been found on Mars, then it's most likely there will be some sort of liquid with at least simmilar properties to oil. It'd be something worth the investigation.

And you're right, if here actually is, it would only be resourceable on Mars.

Thanks for your post!

If there's oil on Mars, men will find a way to inhabit the damn place and make it very lovable, If a problem arises when resources and money is involved, man has a way of finding solutions

US will wage war for that hahahahahhahahaahha peace

Loooooool.

Whatever it is, ALIENS! I am waiting.

Some of the moons of the gas giants are almost pure hydrocarbons (oil)...Titan comes to mind.

Yeah. It was aliens. I knew it.

Wasn't there a planet that was like a giant rough diamond out there too?

I'd rather not fcks with aliens on Mars. They will make you into their testing dummy. And do a lot of awful things to you(

You might not know but Oil can be remade into nuclear fuel after drinking and digesting it. There is a secret lab where there are huge groups of people who sit on a row of toilets, drinking Oil and recycling it into fuel. True story.
Check reddit, I've learned it there. Reddit never lies.

I knew it! That's the same place where they produce twinkies and ho ho's right?

Colonists may use it in their plastic manufacturing factory:)

"All your oil are belong to us."

Alex - I don't know what'll happen... But it'll not a good news for Mars... People (Politics & Business parties) crazy about oil... They'll start space war...

+W+

Wow. Talk about a extremely thought provoking hypothetical analysis. Now I am wondering that if there was enough reward involved would we already be time travelers or something else insane?

If it is really possible, that will be great for so many proposes and achievements for scientist but if really microbes and algae are in there oil can be discovery. I sometimes think on how God's creation make me wonder how Mars will look like. I think humans can't comprehend what happens under the sun. No matter how hard We try, we cannot comprehend it. Even if we claim that we are wise enough to know, we cannot really comprehend it.​ we will continue to find more and more. I just always like and appreciate your post. Keep it up @alexbeyman.you and follow me @kdforlife.

I think that mars likely has oil. I also think that as recently as a few thousand years ago there was life on mars. What happened is a large comet, what is now Venus had a close interaction with mars and because Venus has more mass it stole Mar's atmosphere before being captured by the sun.

But I think it will never happen @alexbeyman, on Mars it is impossible to have oil. If I think, if that happens maybe this world will be doomsday. But I can not respond that too correctly, because now the world is getting more sophisticated and more and more people are asking. It could be something impossible will happen. thank you... :)

Even if oil was found in Mars it cannot be used without processing. It will need to undergo various procedures to be able to be useful. Processing the fuel found there can be another big challenge. But it was nice reading your article and the possibilities.

If they discovered oil on Mars, the CIA would set up an ISIS faction there and the USAF would begin carpet bombing ... for FREEDOM!

your comments are so funny and its interesting to watch

ahaha if they had oil saudi arabia people will go there

We're never going to run out of oil, it's not the limited resource they told us it was in school. And it doesn't come from dead dinosaurs.

I am aware of young earth creationist claims that all oil is abiogenic. There are certainly abiogenic processes which can produce oil, but it has also been shown that the decay of organic matter can produce it as well. The artificial acceleration of this process is called thermal depolymerization and is a proposed method of converting organic waste into usable fuel. So necessarily, at least some of the oil in the ground came from the decomposition of dead organisms.

However, the deeper problem with their claims is that they are based on the assumption that Christianity is true, when it provably isn't. Likewise with their frequent claims to have found the remains of Noah's Ark, or human footprints inside of dinosaur footprints, to name a few of their documented hoaxes.

well, I'm not sure what the young earth creationist claim but I am sure what they taught us in school about oil being a fossil fuel was a big fat lie.

If there is oil on mars, no doubt will be in the wake of oil wells there, to suffice the oil on Earth, and I would want to work there

i mean it will be very difficult to bring it here lol

@alexbayman...if the oil available in mars ..and also oxygen and other thing like water and so..the man will be make a beautiful part in marsh to living the man ... in future definitely mans will be live in planets apart from earth..i hope our Scientists will make it earlier..

I have seen several other intelligent people predict huge prices in the future per steem. I, of course really hope those predictions are right!

But we must never forget the responsibility we have now as this community to make a steem a welcoming and positive place. I think we are important for the future success of the steem blockchain, so we need to keep making a steemit a great place for interactions.

What does this have to do with oil on Mars?

It will be good and bad for both the reasons as countries claiming that will be theirs!
lol

@alexbeyman,
Lol man def it's a war call :D

Cheers~

Thanks for sharing this post.. i like it thanks for you..

Every thing in nothing but nothing is every thing.
You posted about Mars what are joyfull. Maximum people listening Mars but they don't know story also me too. This the post given me a great idea where I accouired knowledge.
Thank you so much.
Great to share.
upvoted

I don't think there's oil in Mars even if they were they might be "contaminated" God knew why HE put us in earth and like you said "cost of transportation to earth " etc so it would be useless so unless you trying to build a new world in Mars ....imagine nothing.

I appreciate great post

Hate trump politics.

@alexbeyman I would die from fear if someone from my acquaintances shows me something like that. I'm sure my soul would cry shitless and flies away!)))

If there are oils on Mars, then I need to move there, Lol. The guy who joked about that was right as people would have filled there, but is it possible?

Thanks for sharing this post..I appreciate technology..