In Frank Herbert's Dune the spice that ran the Empire was produced by sandworms, something that the people who ran the Empire really did not want generally known.
In the reality-based world, the hydrocarbons that run the Empire may be produced by the intraterrestial bacteria. Something that the people who own the Empire definitely don't want generally known. Incidently, there's a trillion tons of methane ice on the floor of the Gulf of Mexico that is known to be made by bacteria:
Beyond the geological “cooking and squeezing” processes that produce petroleum and gas, large quantities of gas also are being produced biologically. Many gas hydrate accumulations and ocean-floor gas seeps consist of methane largely derived from microorganisms.
Bacteria living in oxygen-poor areas beneath deep-sea sediments on the seafloor produce methane as a major product of their metabolism. Some models suggest that bacteria in sediments may account for 10 percent of the living biomass on Earth. In addition, microbial communities beneath the seafloor, whose numbers are entirely unknown, may also be producing vast amounts of methane.
High octane, too? Well, show me one geochemist who would know how to look for a bacterium that explodes at the low pressures of the surface world. I do know nobody would have believed in the bacteria that makes Taq DNA polymerase 50 years ago.
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