There is simply too much going on in the Bakken to cover it all, at least to the extent the coverage is deserved. There are more and more areas with increased activity after relative dormancy compared to some of the sweet spots like the Banks, the Truax, the Sanish, and the Parshall. North Tioga is one of those areas. There must be seven or eight rigs in the area. This area has had a lot of drilling over the past 50 years but relatively quiet during the Bakken. It seems to be picking up: the players? Probably "everyone," but Petro-Hunt, CLR, and, surprisingly, a four-well XTO pad.
When I think of XTO, I think of wells a bit farther south, not this far north in the Bakken. But there is an exception for XTO, in the land of CLR, Hess, and Petro-Hunt. In the far northeast corner of Williams County in Lindahl oil field:
- 26869, conf, XTO, Cindy Blikre 41X-2D,
- 26870, conf, XTO, Cindy Blikre 41X-2H,
- 26871, conf, XTO, Cindy Blikre 41X-2C,
- 26872, conf, XTO, Cindy Blikre 41X-2G,
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Modern Math
The new math: in an NBA game last night, it was reported "everywhere" that Corey Brewer scored 51 points for the Minnesota Timberwolves: 19-of-30 field goals; 2-of-6 three pointers; and 11-of-15 free throws. Reported everywhere. It appears that some of the sites are now revising their initial reports. This story still mentions the two 3-pointers:
Brewer just played hard and ran fast Friday night. He hit a couple of 3-pointers on his way to 51 points, 25 more than his previous career high.[38 + 6 + 11 = 51 only in the NBA.]
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Quirky Links
One of the things I have enjoyed about the blog: capturing some quirky links. One of them was John Batchelor's "10,000 Years From Now," linked at the far bottom of the sidebar at the right. That was back on January 6, 2013. That one was fun. A more recent John Batchelor video was interesting from a different point of view: his comments regarding the new Fed chairman, Ms Yellen. The Fed says its two mandates: a) maximize employment; b) minimize inflation. One wonders, after hearing Yellen's remarks, and then Batchelor's analysis, albeit pretty short.
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Book Review -- WSJ
This is disappointing. This weekend's edition of "Review" is twenty pages, which seems "thicker" than usual. It feels thicker. I would have expected at least eight book reviews worth linking, to read later. There were none. Nada. Zilch. Nil. None. But I did have an "aha" moment. The half-page photo of Sarah Palin provided the "aha" moment: why TV journalists like Katie Couric and TV comedians Tina Fey were a) so afraid of her -- the former; and, b) so enamored with her -- the latter. I did not review the book review, but I spent a moment or two looking at the photo and the big buckle.
This is a stretch, but the only article that caught my interest was "When Physics Woke The Dragon," a review of The Age of Radiance by Craig Nelson. It begins with this:
Lise Meitner was disconsolate at the end of 1938. Less than six months earlier she had fled Nazi Germany in extremis, abandoning her laboratory and position of eminence as an experimental physicist in Berlin. Now, with severely limited resources, she was little more than another refugee in Sweden. But the arrival from Denmark on Christmas Eve of her physicist nephew had cheered her, and she was looking forward to a walk in the woods with him on Christmas morning.I think I was first introduced to Lise Meitner in a Robert Oppenheimer biography which I write about here. Or maybe I was first introduced to her in Louise Gilder's incredible book, The Age of Entanglement which I wrote about here.
I mentioned Louise Gilder several times over the few weeks that I was reading her book; she was 25 years old when she wrote that book. It was her first book. Incredible on all accounts. I need to read it again.
I am convinced that women were responsible for a lot more science than they were given credit for, and much of that credit was stolen by men who won the Nobel prizes. Lise Meitner was another such woman who are all but forgotten, despite:
Meitner, always the scientist, wanted to discuss a puzzling letter that she had just received from the chemist Otto Hahn, her Berlin associate for more than a quarter of a century. In reviewing the letter, aunt and nephew realized with a shock what the data from her former laboratory implied: A neutron striking the nucleus of a uranium atom could split that nucleus into two pieces. When this happened, an enormous amount of energy would be released, larger than anything detected in previous nuclear-physics studies. What they did not realize, though others soon did, was that this process might also offer the possibility of creating a frightening new weapon.I get such joy discussing these biographies with my older granddaughter.
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A Note To The Granddaughters
Yesterday at Jason's Deli after the soccer game, I was talking with my son-in-law about secondary containment on well pads in the Bakken. He is consulting with an oil company on this very issue: pad design. The younger granddaughter, age 7, who had just scored 7 of the 11 points in the 11-0 trouncing of their adversary, was bored with my monologue on secondary containment. After we got up to go -- they were driving, I was biking -- our 10-year-old came up to me and said she was not bored with the discussion. She had been very quiet, but it turns out she was listening and understanding. She told me that landfills are required to use liners to prevent waste from getting into ground water. She also knew about various layers of clay and gravel to protect landfill waste from getting into the ground water. I asked her how she knew this: she said she read a book on the environment in her school library.
I swear she reads one book a day.