RE: On the Technicals7 Feb 2024 22:20
"Bob, this may or may not be of interest to you β¦ bit too complicated for my little brain."
Way above my simple head as well. You can get what I think might be the full text here,
https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:3ae9ffba-9d91-4464-a889-3761983ff307/files/s5425kb64h
Going for a quick, know nothing, read of the first few pages there seems to be a difference expressed between crust and mantle derived sources. This will probably be wrong but crust is what we live on and mantle is the Semi liquid gloopy stuff that makes volcanoes.
Again on a know nothing basis if HE1 have hit a bunch of gloopy derived stuff then it might be a reservoir that will not be filled again and will run out.
However if they have hit a bunch of crustal stuff it might be from an in place deposit of Uranium/Thorium that is actively producing new decay products which, depending on its rate of production, might be initially harvested at a monster rate and subsequently still be viable at lower levels in the future.
Again this is all mad speculative nonsense but the RNS suggests they have Geothermal Energy at 80C and,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geothermal_gradient
"temperature rises in about 25β30 Β°C/km (72β87 Β°F/mi) of depth near the surface in most of the world"
So, ignoring Global Warming, they might expect 60C but they get 80C and,
"The major heat-producing nuclides in Earth are potassium-40, uranium-238, uranium-235, and thorium-232"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potassium-40
"Potassium-40 undergoes three types of radioactive decay. In about 89.28% of events, it decays to calcium-40 (40Ca) with emission of a beta particle (Ξ²β, an electron) with a maximum energy of 1.31 MeV and an antineutrino. In about 10.72% of events, it decays to argon-40"
Argon.
I know nothing, but it suggests that they have drilled into somewhere in the crust that is full of radioactive elements that have spent a long time producing this commercially viable Helium and the other stuff and, subject to things above my head, will remain productive for some time to come.
Oh. From the RNS,
"helium began to flow to surface following reverse circulation and yielded a compositional mix up to 4.7% helium, 1.5% argon, 8% oxygen and 86% nitrogen."
What did they reverse circulate it with? I am assuming they had to pump something down to get the stuff out and would take a guess at Nitrogen. Trust me when I suggest I am on for the monster ramp here but if I wanted to reverse circulate gases I would use Nitrogen,
https://techxplore.com/news/2022-12-simulations-nitrogen-flush-oil-underground.html
Did they subtract the Nitrogen from their assay?