[jpwright]

The author doesn't claim that; you ought to read more than the first few paragraphs. He is relating the discovery of methane hydrate beneath the seafloor in the 70s to newer unconventional oil extraction methods, namely tar sands and hydraulic fracking, in terms of their impact on energy markets... not saying that they are the same.

[comicjk]

I did read the article. Your gloss of it makes even less sense than the article itself, since tight oil and fracking have changed the energy market already and methane hydrates have had no effect after forty years. The actual thrust of the article is that fracking worked, so methane hydrates will work. And as I pointed out, this has nothing to do with oil. The author explicitly defines "petroleum" so as to include natural gas, which is simply an error. If this article had been posted to a forum of chemical engineers instead of one of software engineers, it would have gotten nowhere.

[jpwright]

True, the article is more about the potential of methane hydrate if it were used on a larger scale.

I assume you're referring to this line:

> Petroleum is a grab-bag term for all nonsolid hydrocarbon resources—oil of various types, natural gas, propane, oil precursors, and so on—that companies draw from beneath the Earth’s surface. The stuff that catches fire around stove burners is known by a more precise term, natural gas, referring to methane, a colorless, odorless gas that has the same chemical makeup no matter what the source—ordinary petroleum wells, shale beds, or methane hydrate.

This does rely on the common-use definition of petroleum = hydrocarbons (loosely incorporating refined outputs as well) and not the technical definition of petroleum = crude. But that usage can be found all over academic and industry writing as well; sometimes it is shorthand for something like "petroleum-based products". A few examples:

-- "Petroleum is a complex mixture of organic liquids called crude oil and natural gas, which occurs naturally in the ground and was formed millions of years ago." -- Australian Institute of Petroleum, http://www.aip.com.au/industry/fact_refine.htm

-- "Petroleum - A generic name for hydrocarbons, including crude oil, natural gas liquids, natural gas and their products." -- Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, http://oil-gas.state.co.us/cogis_help/glossary.htm

-- "petroleum n: a substance occurring naturally in the earth in solid, liquid, or gaseous state and composed mainly of mixtures of chemical compounds of carbon and hydrogen, with or without other nonmetallic elements such as sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. In some cases, especially in the measurement of oil and gas, petroleum refers only to oil—a liquid hydrocarbon—and does not include natural gas or gas liquids such as propane and butane." -- U.S. Occupational Health & Safety Administration, https://www.osha.gov/SLTC/etools/oilandgas/glossary_of_terms...

Either way, dismissing the entirety of a sophisticated, well-researched article in a respected publication because you disagree with the way one term is used is pretty glib.

[comicjk]

People who know what they're talking about can get away with using less precise language. They would never conflate "the potential of methane hydrate if it were used on a larger scale" with oil. But this author did. Therefore the fact that he used this loose definition is not irrelevant - it points to the central problem. This article is not sophisticated or well-researched, it's simply long. The fact that it was this high on Hacker News is sad.