Forgive me, couldn't help sharing this harvested from wikipedia:
Air is almost 1% argon. Argon is 38% more dense than air.
Argon is used in fluorescent glow starters.
Argon has approximately the same solubility in water as oxygen and is 2.5 times more soluble in water than nitrogen
Argon can form clathrates with water when atoms of argon are trapped in a lattice of water molecules
About 700,000 tonnes of argon are produced worldwide every year.
Argon is inexpensive, since it occurs naturally in air and is readily obtained as a byproduct of cryogenic air separation in the production of liquid oxygen and liquid nitrogen: the primary constituents of air are used on a large industrial scale.
All the dark-matter detectors are currently operating with liquid argon.
Argon is sometimes used as the propellant in aerosol cans.
Blue argon lasers are used in surgery to weld arteries, destroy tumors, and correct eye defects .
Argon has also been used experimentally to replace nitrogen in the breathing or decompression mix known as Argox, to speed the elimination of dissolved nitrogen from the blood (commercial diving) .
Argon is also used in technical scuba diving to inflate a dry suit because it is inert and has low thermal conductivity.
Argon is used for thermal insulation in energy-efficient windows.[47]
Argon is used as a propellant in the development of the Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket (VASIMR).
Compressed argon gas is allowed to expand, to cool the seeker heads of some versions of the AIM-9 Sidewinder missile and other missiles that use cooled thermal seeker heads. The gas is stored at high pressure
Argon has been used by athletes as a doping agent to simulate hypoxic conditions. In 2014, the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) added argon and xenon to the list of prohibited substances and methods, although at this time there is no reliable test for abuse.
"For the application in EGS drilling, this device uses a metallic waveguide to carry the
millimeter wave (MMW) beam to a standoff distance from the crystalline rock. Argon gas is
used as the waveguide fill medium due to its ability to stay transparent to MMW’s at such
deep depths and thus higher pressures [12]. Purge gas is also used to pump out the excess
material that has been transformed into smaller particles (Figure 2.4). "
As a former geologist involved in drilling, thats going to get real expensive, real fast, in terms relative to regular mechanical drilling thanks to the requirement for argon. Perhaps theres an economically efficient changeover point at depth as mechanical drilling becomes less capable due to increasingly plastic deformation.
anakaine
Impressive, but how long did it take to drill 100 meters? I didn't see a mention of that.
comments (8)
Air is almost 1% argon. Argon is 38% more dense than air.
Argon is used in fluorescent glow starters.
Argon has approximately the same solubility in water as oxygen and is 2.5 times more soluble in water than nitrogen
Argon can form clathrates with water when atoms of argon are trapped in a lattice of water molecules
About 700,000 tonnes of argon are produced worldwide every year.
Argon is inexpensive, since it occurs naturally in air and is readily obtained as a byproduct of cryogenic air separation in the production of liquid oxygen and liquid nitrogen: the primary constituents of air are used on a large industrial scale.
All the dark-matter detectors are currently operating with liquid argon.
Argon is sometimes used as the propellant in aerosol cans.
Blue argon lasers are used in surgery to weld arteries, destroy tumors, and correct eye defects .
Argon has also been used experimentally to replace nitrogen in the breathing or decompression mix known as Argox, to speed the elimination of dissolved nitrogen from the blood (commercial diving) . Argon is also used in technical scuba diving to inflate a dry suit because it is inert and has low thermal conductivity.
Argon is used for thermal insulation in energy-efficient windows.[47]
Argon is used as a propellant in the development of the Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket (VASIMR).
Compressed argon gas is allowed to expand, to cool the seeker heads of some versions of the AIM-9 Sidewinder missile and other missiles that use cooled thermal seeker heads. The gas is stored at high pressure
Argon has been used by athletes as a doping agent to simulate hypoxic conditions. In 2014, the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) added argon and xenon to the list of prohibited substances and methods, although at this time there is no reliable test for abuse.
DivingForGold
"For the application in EGS drilling, this device uses a metallic waveguide to carry the millimeter wave (MMW) beam to a standoff distance from the crystalline rock. Argon gas is used as the waveguide fill medium due to its ability to stay transparent to MMW’s at such deep depths and thus higher pressures [12]. Purge gas is also used to pump out the excess material that has been transformed into smaller particles (Figure 2.4). "
As a former geologist involved in drilling, thats going to get real expensive, real fast, in terms relative to regular mechanical drilling thanks to the requirement for argon. Perhaps theres an economically efficient changeover point at depth as mechanical drilling becomes less capable due to increasingly plastic deformation.
anakaine
mikelitoris
bilsbie
organman91
Nice article on an earlier demo: https://newatlas.com/energy/quaise-energy-millimeter-wave-dr... ; linked from this (nice but lots lots of ads): https://newatlas.com/energy/quaise-energy-millimeter-wave-dr... .
Company https://www.quaise.com/ on YT https://www.youtube.com/@quaise
MS thesis (2024; browsable) on the vitrified wall, for that and its intro: https://www.proquest.com/openview/624989df3cdd8055a6cee9affc...
Search for papers "Millimeter Wave Drilling for Deep Geothermal Energy Production" https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C33&q=Mil...
mncharity
Very interesting application of radio waves.
iberator
eternityforest