Fractures Extend All Of 300' From The Well-Bore; ObamaCare: Government / AP Figures Very Similar To MDW Numbers; Global Warming Peer-Reviewed Studies Starting To Come In -- September 22, 2014

This is really, really cool. Regular readers know I posted from the very beginning that I thought fracking was only effective about 500' out from the well bore. I got a lot of pushback on that from "the other Bakken discussion board." I saw that with the Olson wells which were drilled so long ago it seems like ancient history.

So, it was gratifying to see this "single bullet" in the 114-slide CLR corporate presentation; from slide 29:

• Significant un-propped area exists between wellbores (1,320’ spacing / 330’ stage)

• Models suggest sand-propped fractures extend 280’-340’ in each direction from the wellbores based on integrating the microseismic data with stimulation modeling

On August 3, 2013, I posted this:

Fracking is only effective out to about 500 feet.

This was posted October 17, 2012:

NEXT Frac outperforms traditional hydraulic fracturing techniques as it can easily reach wellbore radial fracture propagation of 180m - 365m, as compared to typical hydraulic fracture propagation of 30m.  [30 meters is about 100 feet.]

Back on that same date, that same link, I wrote:

I have mentioned several times on the blog that is appears to me that the radial effectiveness of conventional fracturing is about 500 feet.

That was back in 2012.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to suggest what that might mean.

By the way, the BEXP Brad Olson wells were spud in late 2010 -- that's how long ago I thought about the effective radial distance of fracking. Whoohoo!

• 19085, Brad Olson 9-16 3H, 2,172; Painted Woods; t4/11; cum 93K 4/12; 
• 19086, Brad Olson 9-16 2H, 2,472, Painted Woods; spudded 7/10; cum 111K 4/12;

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Those ObamaCare Numbers: Fact Or Fiction

Regular readers know that I opined from the beginning that the number of folks who signed up for ObamaCare was in the four (4) million range, and that probably half the number of enrollees (whatever the number turned out to be) would actually pay a full year's worth of premiums and re-enroll.

It looks like I'm not too far off.

The AP is reporting:

Scrambled statistics are part of the growing pains for President Barack Obama's health care law.

The administration has had to revise and refine some initial enrollment numbers after they turned out to be too optimistic. At other times, less-favorable metrics leaked out after officials claimed not to have such data.

Call it health-law numerology [or just plain lying]. It's a new pursuit for administration officials from the president on down, lawmakers of both parties, and a gaggle of outside analysts [including the MDW, home of I-98].

The latest data tweak — an administration announcement that 7.3 million paying customers signed up for subsidized private insurance as of mid-August — set off more speculation. Some said it may prove overly rosy.

"They have been playing fast and loose with these numbers," said insurance industry consultant Robert Laszewski, a critic of Obama's law who has also skewered proposals from the president's Republican foes.

"Until we get an outside audit we are not going to know what the heck is going on."

Purists will say that "my" four (4) million figure is significantly different than the "7 million figure." 

Is it?

US population: 320 million.

US illegal population: 20 million (allowed to sign up).

4 / 340 =  1.1%

7 / 340 = 2.0%

From the article: "... some say 7.3 million may prove overly rosy." The definition of "overly" in this case is 3.35 million (citation needed). Thus we have: 3.95 million actually signed up based on AP numbers.

And thus my original figure of 4.0 million was likely more than the actual number that signed up.

I can't make this stuff up. Except the part about the definition of "overly" -- but for that I'm still looking for the citation. LOL.

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Global Warming: Fact Or Fiction

Now that the scientists have passed the baton to the celebrities (The Great Gatsby and the Titanic star takes the lead, and we know how those movies ended for the star), we'll start seeing more peer-reviewed studies on global warming, like this one. The AP is reporting:

A new study released Monday found that warming temperatures in Pacific Ocean waters off the coast of North America over the past century closely followed natural changes in the wind, not increases in greenhouse gases related to global warming.

The study compared ocean surface temperatures from 1900 to 2012 to surface air pressure, a stand-in for wind measurements, and found a close match. 

"What we found was the somewhat surprising degree to which the winds can explain all the wiggles in the temperature curve," said lead author Jim Johnstone, who did the work while a climatologist at the Joint Institute for the Study of the Atmosphere and Ocean at the University of Washington. 

"So clearly, there are other factors stronger than the greenhouse forcing that is affecting those temperatures," he added.

By the way, this is an old, old theory -- wind -- that has explained the decline (and in some cases, the return) of glaciers worldwide.  

UC Irvine? Really, Irvine?