http://www.emotioneric.com/perpetual.gif
posted by Jerry at 1:45 PM
So anyway, I've decided to go ahead and file paperwork for retirement. As it stands now, it becomes effective on 2 April - though I'll admit that my chances of seeing that particular date as a retirement date I figure to be about one in ten. I believe that around the middle of January they're going to institute Stop-Loss again - though it could well be for specific specialties and I may not be affected. Guess we'll see, won't we?
Other stuff: Halloween was fun this year. We had a fog machine in a crate in the front yard - hissing and spitting out smoke every so often. And this year I tried the Mad Scientist role, instead of the military camo-facepaint stuff. But you need props, right? Old lab coat, misc. cables and such - and, of course, lights. There's something sold at QuikTrip called 'Lobe Strobes', basically little LED flasher earrings. They're bright, and made a fine light show - and we used them to very good effect at Halloween. .
posted by Jerry at 10:55 AM
http://www.ranchobernardobnb.com/
posted by Jerry at 1:28 PM
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/wnt/DailyNews/ross_bryant020606.html
posted by Jerry at 11:53 AM
Not much here yet - it'll be used for other stuff.
The odd thing about the theories of deep geological oil production is that the majority of the authors of them (if you'll look into the referenced article) seem to be Russian. I'm not at all sure why this is so - perhaps because the sciences in the USSR were safe for extreme ideas to flourish, while political ideas that deviated from the party line got forcibly squashed.
As such, the theory does explain a lot of things. For example, regarding helium (and the US is one of the lead producers of helium, from natural gas wells) the following portion of the theory applies:
The Helium Association with Petroleum
On the basis of hydrocarbon outgassing from great depth, we understand immediately why various trace elements, especially helium, should be so commonly associated with deposits of oil and gas. The long pathway through pressure created fracture porosity in the rocks will, of course, sweep up whatever helium was available in those pores. Helium is generated in the rocks by the radioactive decay of uranium and thorium, but at too low a concentration to create a fracture porosity or hold it open. Its transport is therefore dependent entirely on a carrier gas, such as the more abundant hydrocarbons may provide. Helium is not only strongly associated with hydrocarbon deposits, it has even been noted to be particularly enriched in gas-oil reservoirs, more so than in dry gas reservoirs (Nikonov, 1973).
It is also particularly enriched in reservoirs having a high nitrogen content. Any chemical or biological cause for the enrichment can be ruled out for the chemically inert helium. Only variations in the concentrations of the parent radioactive elements, and variations in the the length of pathway through the rocks from which the helium has been swept, can come under consideration for an explanation of the great regional differences of the observed helium concentration. Where large variations have to be explained, such as by a factor of 100 or more from one location to another, the lenth of pathway through which the carrier gas has swept is likely to have been the dominant effect. If carrier gases from a depth of 300 km are involved in one case, while only gases from the depth of sediment are involved in another, then this variant will outweigh any likely variation in the concentration of the radioactive elements. The helium concentration in a gas is then mainly an indication of the depth from which this gas has come. With this explanation one would conclude that nitrogen frequently derives from the deepest levels of any of the volatiles, and oil from the next deepest; dry methane sometimes from shallower levels still, but all from levels far deeper than the sediment. Helium enrichment is not found in sediment in the absence of larger amounts of hydrocarbons or nitrogen, and ten percent helium in methane-nitrogen gases is the highest concentration that has been found. Yet if helium could flow without a carrier gas, there should be many locations where amounts of helium had accumulated that were similar to the amounts of helium in some gas-fields, but now, in the absence of methane or nitrogen, they would be pure helium fields. Such fields would have been discovered, and would be very valuable. Their absence thus certifies the carrier gas concept for helium transport.
I'm not sure that it does, but it certainly makes more sense than anything else I've seen on where the helium comes from and how it could be generated underground. Helium's a small molecule - it migrates easily through anything porous - and salt domes (with concentrations of natural gas) aren't porous by definition. (If they were, all the natural gas would leak out.)
Well, I could go on here, but I think that's enough to have either whetted your appetite to wade through the whole thing, or given you more to think about than you ever wanted as far as where your gasoline comes from.
One thing for sure - it doesn't look like we'll be running out anytime soon.
J.
posted by Jerry at 11:48 AM
