Peak Oil

Gold was a brilliant scientist who opposed conventional wisdom many times during his life, and was vindicated many times. He died still believing in the theory that not all oil is of "fossil" origins. The theory says that we have a very active inner core to the planet (there is no dispute about that) and that one of the byproducts of this inner earth activity is the production of oil (and that isn't serious disputed. The only dispute is HOW MUCH of this deep oil might end up near the surface.)

Gold theorized that it was possible that some of our largest known reservoirs could can actually be refilled from below. That has never been proven, but it is interesting to note that every few years geologists (100% of them brainwashed to evaluate everything through the lens of the fossil fuel theory -- and it is just a theory since nobody has actually seen a dinosaur turn into a bucket of oil) come back and say "Golly, I guess these wells have a lot more oil than we ever calculated before.

It is entirely possible that our knowledge of geology is so limited that we simply underestimate the oil fields by orders of magnitudes. In fact, a massive miscalculation is the only way to account for the expanding supply of oil and still remain consistent with the fossil fuel theory. Add to that the dilemma that some of the largest oil fields were never in a position to accumulate the largest deposits of organic vegetation and fossils.

So here we are again, with the geologists giving us another "Golly we miscalculated again" stories. But they get away with that because everybody hates Thomas Gold. The oil barons hate him because if he was correct, their oil is worth much less. The environmentalists hate him because if he was right, that means we could potentially smoke up the atmosphere with ten times more pollution than we think our worst case is today.

RIP Tomas Gold. We all hate you.