“In twenty years, [renewable] sources will have failed economically, leaving renewable energy to be remembered as the energy equivalent of sub-prime mortgages. “

“But humans are not rational. Why do people buy lottery tickets? They hope for a solution, effectively by magic, as lottery jackpot odds are one in millions. Much of the enthusiasm for renewables is belief in magic. People tire of hearing about problems related to fossil fuels or nuclear power, presented in great detail for 30 years. Anything different sounds better. Humans want to believe. In a profound short story called the Kugelmass Episode by the American humorist Woody Allen, the dissatisfied hero rejects the psychoanalyst who has been trying to adjust Kugelmass to reality and chooses to patronize a magician instead, who works the miracle of transporting Kugelmass into the novel Madame Bovary, with whom Kugelmass then has an affair. Kugelmass, biomass.”

We are happy to post Veselin Kostov’s translation of this chapter together with a list of references on the abiogenic theory of petroleum origin (wherever our limited knowledge of Russian interrupted the continuous flow of Mendeleev’s thoughts and ideas, we’ve put XXX or ??). We leave to the reader to decide which theory holds more merit.