Fossil Fuels deep down below?

California scientists believe large sources of fossil fuels may exist much deeper than ever believed:

According to traditional theory, fossil fuels -- energy-rich, carbon-based molecules -- are formed over millions of years by biological processes, the disintegration of primeval plants and animals into smelly or gunky hydrocarbons like methane and petroleum. Such biogenic fossil fuels exist fairly close to Earth's surface, in reservoirs such as the oil fields of the Middle East.

One objection to the theory of abiogenic fuels is that they'd quickly disintegrate in the extreme heat and pressure hundreds of miles beneath the surface.

But now, experiments and computer modeling by scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and elsewhere appear to have removed this objection. The team was led by geophysicist Henry P. Scott of Indiana University in South Bend, Ind. Their experiments show that methane gas can remain chemically stable at pressures and temperatures similar to those some 120 to 180 miles beneath the surface, the scientists reported in Monday's issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

If true, there could be nearly-endless supplies of fossil fuels available for human consumption...if we could only access them.