Low-Level Groundwater Atrazine in High Atrazine Usage Nebraska Counties: Likely Effects of Excessive Groundwater Abstraction

Recent studies observed a correlation between estrogen-related cancers and groundwater atrazine in eastern Nebraska counties. However, the mechanisms of human exposure to atrazine are unclear because low groundwater atrazine concentration was observed in counties with high cancer incidence despite having the highest atrazine usage. We studied groundwater atrazine fate in high atrazine usage Nebraska counties. Data were collected from Quality Assessed Agrichemical Contaminant Nebraska Groundwater, Parameter–Elevation Regressions on Independent Slopes Model (PRISM), and water use databases. Descriptive statistics and cluster analysis were performed. Domestic wells (59%) were the predominant well type. Groundwater atrazine was affected by well depth. Clusters consisting of wells with low atrazine were characterized by excessive groundwater abstraction, reduced precipitation, high population, discharge areas, and metropolitan counties. Hence, low groundwater atrazine may be due to excessive groundwater abstraction accompanied by atrazine. Human exposure to atrazine in abstracted groundwater may be higher than the estimated amount in groundwater.

Repurposing End-of-Life Wells for Geothermal Energy Production: An Evaluation of Mississippi Wells

End-of-life production or injection wells may be converted into wellbore heat exchangers for geothermal energy extraction. Whether this conversion is technically and economically feasible depends on several factors such as geothermal potential of the formation, well depth, and working fluid circulation parameters. Here we present a case study where we analyze these parameters and determine their optimum operational brackets. We focus on repurposing active wells that are located in regions with high geothermal potential in the state of Mississippi. Geothermal gradient map of the state of Mississippi was used to select potential candidate wells. Well logs of these candidate wells were used to find formation temperature and other properties such as well diameter and depth. Next, we conducted heat transfer calculations to estimate the temperature rise of various working fluids as a result of circulating inside these wellbores. We ran sensitivity analyses to determine the effect of circulation rate, tubing insulation, and time. Finally, we estimated the power production potential of each well. Our results indicate that geothermal energy production through repurposed end-of-life wells may be viable depending on well depth and geothermal potential of the region. With insulated tubing, the thermal energy delivered by a number of candidate wells is sufficient for a small-scale binary power plant with organic Rankine cycle.

CONSERVATION, UTILIZATION OF LOCAL PLANT SPECIES, AND CULTIVATION AS THE EFFORTS OF CONTROLLING SALT AND SULFUR LEVELS AT THE BORDER OF BALURAN NATIONAL PARK, SITUBONDO REGENCY, EAST JAVA

The diversity of plant species functions as a shelterbelt, to prevent saltwater intrusion and avoid sulfur from the crater of Mount Ijen through the Banyuputih River in Situbondo Regency. The Situbondo-Banyuwangi area is strategic (Pantura), passing through the Baluran National Park, so it is essential to maintain biodiversity and water ecosystems. Mangroves, beach vegetation, cultivated plants, and forest vegetation are indicators of environmental protection and conservation. This study aims to reveal the diversity of flora species on the border of Baluran National Park, Banyuputih sub-district, Situbondo Regency, which is allegedly contaminated with salt material from the sea and sulfur from the crater of Mount Ijen. An interview was conducted to determine the function of flora, location elevation, water pH, and well depth. The results of the biodiversity survey were then collected and diagnosed, and the scientific name was then determined. Potential species diversity at the border from an altitude of 5 m above sea level (asl) – 62 m asl included 17 families and 29 species. The data on biodiversity, location elevation, water well depth, and pH indicate low sulfur and salt content; therefore, water resources can be used sustainably by the living things surround them.

Naturally Fractured Basement Reservoir Characterization in a Mature Field

Characterizing the naturally fractured reservoir in a mature field is always a challenging task due to minimal subsurface data availability and the technology was not as advanced as nowadays. Therefore, this paper is proposed to provide an alternative solution to identify the presence of the fractures, classify them into the fractured quality related flowability, and distribute them vertically within the well interval and propose a lateral distribution method for reservoir modeling. This research was conducted based on a case study of basement fractured carbonate reservoir in Hungary. I used more than twenty development wells which mainly drilled during 1980-2000's. The fractures presence is simply identified by using gamma-ray and density logs. The relative movement of density log to the defined fractured baselines was directed to classify the fracture quality within three groups of macro-fracture, micro-fracture, and host-rock. These groups were validated by core data and the acoustic image log from the newest drilled wells. Furthermore, I implemented the self-organizing map (SOM) for distributing the fracture group to other wells which having limited subsurface data. Since the fracture classes were distributed along the well depth interval, then the well test (DST) results and production flow test data validated the flowability of them. As a result, the main flow contribution intervals of the fracture can be well-recognized. The macro-fracture consistently indicates the fracture class showing the main contribution of the liquid flowrate more than 10 m3/d along the perforated intervals. The rock properties of this class have porosity range around 1-2% with permeability dominantly more than 100 mD. In contrast, the host-rock class is defined as a protolith/non-fractured rock. The porosity and permeability are extremely low (tight rock). This class does not give any flow contribution due to the high content of the marl or clay, the absence of the fracture, or the fractures had been re-cemented by calcite or quartz minerals. Meanwhile, the micro-fracture denotes the group of rock with porosity range around 2-10% and permeability average between 1-10 mD. In general, the flowrate coming from this fracture class was lower than 10 m3/d of liquid during the flow-test. As a novelty, this proposed approach with the machine learning of SOM-clustering effectively assists us to recognize the fracture presence and its quality along the well-depth interval from the absence of the advanced technologies of image logs and production logging (PLT) measurement. Also, the defined fracture class here can take a role as a fracture facies or rock typing in terms of 3D reservoir modeling and distributed laterally based on fault-likelihood attribute and fault zone defined by distance-to-fault.

Patent Law and the Materiality of Inventions in the California Oil Industry: The Story of Halliburton v. Walker, 1935–1946

This article examines a patenting conflict between the Halliburton Oil Well and Cementing Company and an independent inventor named Cranford Walker. It argues that Halliburton’s effort to lower the barriers to entry into the oil well depth measurement industry facilitated the re-emergence of materiality as a pre-condition for the patent eligibility of inventive processes. In 1941, Walker sued Halliburton for infringement of three of his patents, and Halliburton responded with an aggressive defense aimed at invalidating them. Over the next five years, the courts handling this conflict adopted very narrow legal theories developed during the Second Industrial Revolution to assess the patent eligibility of inventions that involved mental steps—processes such as mathematical computations, which people can perform in their minds. The resulting legal precedent cleared the path for Halliburton’s short-term industrial goals and continued to shape patent law for the rest of the century.

EVALUATION OF ESP PERFORMANCE DN1800 TO INCREASE WELL PRODUCTIVITY

The use of the Electrical Submersible Pump (ESP) in the oil lifting method is very popular because it is easy to install, less required installation of tools in the field and a high efficiency. To achieve the Q target, ESP parameters such as the number of stages and RPM need to be analyzed to align with the IPR (Inflow Performance Flow) curve. The use of nodal analysis is used to determine the relationship between Pwf and head pump. Iteration needs to be done to determine the range of the number of stages so that it aligns with characteristics of well. It is found that the recommended range stage is 580-600 at a well depth of 7684 ft. Moreover, it is found that with 3600 RPM and 600 stages is able to reach the Q target. The relationship between the number of stages and RPM value with Pwf is inversely proportional.

Inferring Single-Cell 3D Chromosomal Structures Based on the Lennard-Jones Potential

Reconstructing three-dimensional (3D) chromosomal structures based on single-cell Hi-C data is a challenging scientific problem due to the extreme sparseness of the single-cell Hi-C data. In this research, we used the Lennard-Jones potential to reconstruct both 500 kb and high-resolution 50 kb chromosomal structures based on single-cell Hi-C data. A chromosome was represented by a string of 500 kb or 50 kb DNA beads and put into a 3D cubic lattice for simulations. A 2D Gaussian function was used to impute the sparse single-cell Hi-C contact matrices. We designed a novel loss function based on the Lennard-Jones potential, in which the ε value, i.e., the well depth, was used to indicate how stable the binding of every pair of beads is. For the bead pairs that have single-cell Hi-C contacts and their neighboring bead pairs, the loss function assigns them stronger binding stability. The Metropolis–Hastings algorithm was used to try different locations for the DNA beads, and simulated annealing was used to optimize the loss function. We proved the correctness and validness of the reconstructed 3D structures by evaluating the models according to multiple criteria and comparing the models with 3D-FISH data.

Effect of Chemical Potential and Atomic-Scale Vibration of Nucleant Surface on Liquid Layering and Heterogeneous Nucleation

This study reveals the key role of chemical potential and atomic-scale vibration of the nucleant surface in dictating pre-nucleation liquid-layering and heterogenous nucleation. The effect of potential-well depth Dw and vibration strength $$\overline{\beta }_{{{\text{std}}}}$$ β ¯ std of the nucleant surface on the layering and nucleation was examined. We found that nucleants with larger Dw and smaller $$\overline{\beta }_{{{\text{std}}}}$$ β ¯ std induce more ordered pre-nucleation layers to enhance nucleation, and proposed that Dw and $$\overline{\beta }_{{{\text{std}}}}$$ β ¯ std shall be considered when searching for effective nucleants.

Estimation Pre-Equilibrium Particle and Angular Distribution Spectra for the Neutrons Induce Nuclear Reactions on 90Zr Nuclei by using (FKK) Model

Particles pre - equilibrium spectra and angular distribution are calculated by usingFeshbach-Kerman- Koonin (FKK) model with PRECO-2006 code. The angular distribution of the nuclei of nuclear reactions between the nucleus of a target (90Zr) and the tapline of light particles wascalculated by using reactions of the multistep compound (MSC) and of multistep direct (MSD).Isospin, the finite well depth, and shell effects are considered. Byusing [(_40^90)〖Zr〗_50 ] as target material the cross section of [90Zr(n,n)90Zr], [90Zr(n,p)90Y], [90Zr(n,D)89Y], [90Zr(n,T)88Y], [90Zr(n,3He)88Sr] and [90Zr(n,4He)87Sr] reactions were estimated. Values of cross sections estimated are 550, 371, 16.3, 4.55, 0.271 and 2.35 mb/MeV respectively. Also the angular distribution of same nuclear reactions were estimated, and the values of angular distribution are 850, 392, 4.55, 4.55,0.27 and 2.35mb/sr.MeV respectively.