Natura Resources and NGL Water Solutions Team Up to Utilize Small Modular Molten Salt Nuclear Reactors to Run Permian Basin Water Treatment Plants: Synergies Help

     Natura Resources, a company developing small modular reactors (SMRs) utilizing molten salt, is teaming up with NGL Water Solutions, a water treatment company, to develop nuclear-powered produced water treatment in the Permian Basin region of West Texas. Natura is currently developing a demonstration reactor at the Abilene Christian University campus. In addition to providing power for the water treatment plants, the reactors can also provide high-temperature process heat for industrial applications and isotopes for medical applications. The companies are working in collaboration with the Texas Produced Water Consortium.

     The Permian Basin produces more than 6 million barrels of oil a day. Along with each barrel comes about five barrels of produced water. That is 30 million barrels per day or 1.26 billion gallons per day of saltwater. However, the official number is somewhere above 20 million barrels per day.

“Chris Harich, senior director of technical operations at NGL Water Solutions, said his company has been cleaning produced water in Wyoming for 15 years. California, he said, is using treated water on crops. The difference is that Permian Basin produced water is far saltier than seawater, making removal of the solids a challenge.”

“Locating energy sources alongside treatment plants and using Natura’s waste heat could drive costs as low as 50 cents a barrel, and that’s key, Harich said.

     In January, Natura secured an enriched molten salt allocation from the DOE’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory. According to Natura:

“The coolant salt, known as FLiBE, contains 99.99% enriched lithium-7 (Li-7), and it is essential for Natura’s 1-MW reactor to achieve criticality next year, keeping the project on track to become one of the first Gen IV nuclear reactor deployed in the United States.”

“The efficiency and design of Natura’s 100-MW reactor will also make it an ideal solution for produced water desalination, a critical issue for the Permian Basin and other areas of the U.S. with significant oil and gas production.”

     Natura’s 100 MW reactors are set to provide power for the thermal desalination of Permian Basin produced water. NGL Water Solutions currently transports, treats, recycles, and disposes of more than 3 million barrels per day of produced and flowback water from the Permian Basin. The treated water from the project is expected to be used for data centers, agriculture, and as a new water source for other industries. Doug Robison, Founder and CEO of Natura Resources, noted:

"Our molten salt reactor combined with thermal desalination can provide a sustainable, competitive solution by generating clean, economic power; treating industrial water for beneficial use; and freeing up natural gas supplies for higher value applications. Collaborating with NGL allows us to advance the application of our breakthrough nuclear technology where it can make a measurable difference for industry, communities, and the environment."

     Molten Salt reactors are liquid-fueled, operate at atmospheric pressures, and are considered much safer than more common light water reactors. Even so, I was a bit surprised when it was noted that the demo reactor at Abilene Christian University would be guarded by campus police.

     Permian Basin water management is a huge issue that needs solutions. Large-scale treatment is one of the best options. Some issues with Permian water management include the huge problem of disposal wells pressuring up local groundwater to the point where blowouts and sinkholes are forming. Induced seismicity is another issue. I wrote about these in a March 2025 post on Wastewater Disposal Well Woes in the Permian Basin.

 

      

References:

 

Nuclear energy could be part of produced water treatment efforts. Mella McEwen. Midland Reporter-Telegram. April 10, 2026. Nuclear energy could be part of produced water treatment efforts

Natura Secures Enriched Molten Salt Allocation from Department of Energy. Natura Resources. January 5, 2026. Natura Secures Enriched Molten Salt Allocation from Department of Energy | Natura Resources

Natura Resources Partners with NGL Energy Partners to Enable Large-Scale Produced Water Treatment with Small Modular Nuclear Reactors in the Permian Basin. NGL energy Partners. Press Release. February 3, 2026. News Release

The Linear No-Threshold (LNT) Radiological Health Model: Is it Too Cautious? Yes, Probably

    

     According to Wikipedia, the Linear No-Threshold Model is as follows:

 “The linear no-threshold model (LNT) is a dose-response model used in radiation protection to estimate stochastic health effects such as radiation-induced cancer, genetic mutations and teratogenic effects on the human body due to exposure to ionizing radiation. The model assumes a linear relationship between dose and health effects, even for very low doses where biological effects are more difficult to observe. The LNT model implies that all exposure to ionizing radiation is harmful, regardless of how low the dose is, and that the effect is cumulative over a lifetime.” 

     This model is commonly used to set public policy regarding radiation exposure. However, the validity of the model is disputed, and detractors say it should not be used to set public policy. Other models suggest that low-dose radiation is not harmful and may actually be beneficial. It has also been argued that the LNT may have created an irrational fear of radiation. That fear has been termed radiophobia. No one disputes the harm of high levels of radiation. The issue of debate is basically lower levels. However, it has yet to be determined whether low levels of radiation are harmful, beneficial, or neutral.

“In 2005 the United States National Academies' National Research Council published its comprehensive meta-analysis of low-dose radiation research BEIR VII, Phase 2. In its press release the Academies stated:

“The scientific research base shows that there is no threshold of exposure below which low levels of ionizing radiation can be demonstrated to be harmless or beneficial.”

     A 2005 report by the French Academy of Sciences stated:

“The LNT concept can be a useful pragmatic tool for assessing rules in radioprotection for doses above 10 mSv; however since it is not based on biological concepts of our current knowledge, it should not be used without precaution for assessing by extrapolation the risks associated with low and even more so, with very low doses (< 10 mSv), especially for benefit-risk assessments imposed on radiologists by the European directive 97-43.”

     Ted Nordhaus, writing for The Ecomodernist, recently wrote about the LNT based partly on an article in Scientific American by Katy Huff, Assistant Secretary for Nuclear Energy at the Department of Energy during the Biden Administration, and professor of nuclear engineering at the University of Illinois. The article is paywalled so I can’t access it, but she argues against the Trump administration’s recent executive order to reconsider the use of the LNT. The EO announced on May 23, 2025, explains that the use of the LNT has been a strong factor in hampering the deployment of nuclear energy in the U.S. since 1978:

“Between 1954 and 1978, the United States authorized the construction of 133 since-completed civilian nuclear reactors at 81 power plants. Since 1978, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has authorized only a fraction of that number; of these, only two reactors have entered into commercial operation. The NRC charges applicants by the hour to process license applications, with prolonged timelines that maximize fees while throttling nuclear power development. The NRC has failed to license new reactors even as technological advances promise to make nuclear power safer, cheaper, more adaptable, and more abundant than ever.”

“This failure stems from a fundamental error: Instead of efficiently promoting safe, abundant nuclear energy, the NRC has instead tried to insulate Americans from the most remote risks without appropriate regard for the severe domestic and geopolitical costs of such risk aversion. The NRC utilizes safety models that posit there is no safe threshold of radiation exposure and that harm is directly proportional to the amount of exposure. Those models lack sound scientific basis and produce irrational results, such as requiring that nuclear plants protect against radiation below naturally occurring levels. A myopic policy of minimizing even trivial risks ignores the reality that substitute forms of energy production also carry risk, such as pollution with potentially deleterious health effects.”

     Nordhaus describes and critiques Huff’s position regarding the LNT and low-dose radiation:

“Huff has published a scathing critique of the reset, arguing that in the absence of new research proving that there are no negative health effects at low doses, and extensive public input into any proposed new standard, changing the NRC’s health standards “effectively demands that NRC’s decision-making be political rather than scientific” and is hence “unethical.”

“Huff insists that she is defending science over politics. But her position is, in fact, no less political than that of the Trump administration and far more extreme. She argues for a strict precautionary approach to radiological health risk while insisting that any change to this approach requires new research to falsify a hypothesis (LNT) that is both unproven and likely unfalsifiable. Meanwhile, she obfuscates the actual consequences of changes to public dose standards, which are minimal even accepting the LNT hypothesis, and claims, without evidence, that doing so will result in the loss of public confidence in nuclear energy.”

     Thus, he, correctly in my opinion, explains the issue as one where the Precautionary Principle has long prevailed over other ways of looking at low-level radiation. He says that changing the LNT and the unnecessary hampering of nuclear energy development are long overdue. He argues that humans are already exposed to low-dose radiation from the sun, radon, and anthropogenic sources such as X-rays and CT scans, and that cumulatively, these sources exceed levels that the public and workers at nuclear plants, even with occasional accidental exposure, are exposed to.

“Everybody is exposed to background radiation that is significantly higher than low dose exposures that they might be exposed to from nuclear reactors. And large numbers of people will die from cancers caused by other factors. As a result, even when tracking very large populations exposed to low doses of radiation over a very long time period, it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to identify a statistically significant increase in cancer incidence or mortality above the background rate experienced by populations that have not been exposed to excess low dose radiation.”

     Huff calls for more research, as those wedded to the Precautionary Principle often do, but Nordhaus argues that more research is not likely to solve the epidemiological issue.

“Science simply can’t resolve the uncertainty about radiological health effects at low dose exposures. The decision to regulate low dose effects that are unavoidably speculative is no less political than the decision not to do so. Huff prefers a more precautionary approach than the Trump administration. But that is a conflict over social and political values, not science.”

     He argues that the Chernobyl disaster was an extreme outlier due to a poor nuclear energy design by the Soviets and a very poor response by them as well – for instance, iodine tablets were not given to many workers exposed to keep the meltdown under wraps. Even in those lights, the deaths and later cancers have been lower than would be expected by the LNT model.

     Nordhaus thinks the U.S. will likely raise the maximum allowable dose from nuclear plant operations that the public could be exposed to from 1 mSv to 5 mSv, twenty times lower than the 100mSv threshold for observable radiological health effects.

“Given the low dose and extreme uncertainty that there is any effect at all, there is no appreciable difference between a 1 mSv maximum dose and a 5 mSv maximum dose. Both doses are far higher than anything that any nuclear reactor would likely expose the public to in anything other than a worst-case accident and yet are still de minimis in relation to a dose that one might reasonably expect to have significant public health consequences.”

     Nordhaus also argues, as other nuclear advocates such as climate scientist James Hansen have also argued, that the air pollution from fossil fuels definitely kills people, and replacing some of that fossil fuel generation with nuclear generation will eliminate some of those deaths. Thus, more nuclear energy would likely result in overall better health outcomes for people. That is a reasonable argument that is difficult to argue against ands yet another situation where precaution might cause more harm than good. Thus, it is reasonable to assume that raising thresholds for low-dose exposure could actually help to save lives. He notes that Huff and others argue that raising exposure limits will undermine public confidence is simply a self-fulfilling prophecy, not based in reality. One might argue why we should accept deaths from fossil fuel pollution and not accept possible but not likely very slight increases in future cancers due to ionizing radiation exposure.

“The public confidence game, in these ways, is circular and well past its sell date. We are over fifty years past the era when the radiological risk norms that both Democrats and much of the nuclear industry continue to adhere to were established. The anti-nuclear movement is dead. The soft energy path is a fantasy. Fear of the unknown when it comes to nuclear energy and radiation may still be around, but new research suggests that it has substantially attenuated.”

“Arguing about speculative cancer deaths from speculative future low dose radiation releases that may not even exist, when verifiable harm is still being caused by fossil fuels, does not serve the public good.”

“Bottom-line, there is simply no reasonable basis for the claim that the changes to radiological health standards currently being discussed by the Trump administration and the NRC will be material to the public’s health. Nor that updating those standards will spark a backlash from the general public. It’s time to get on with the business of reform at the NRC and building a globally competitive 21st-century nuclear industry.”

     I wholeheartedly agree with Nordhaus that our nuclear energy industry has been so hampered by regulations, slow approvals, and unsubstantiated safety and public health precautions that it has been rendered wounded and dysfunctional, raising costs to unnecessarily high levels and increasing timelines for deployment unnecessarily. The raising of the exposure limit is both reasonable and a step in the right direction, but there are many other hurdles to overcome before the U.S. might see a real renaissance in nuclear energy.

References:

 

The Public Confidence Game: How Extreme Radiological Precaution Undermines Both Public Health and Public Confidence in Nuclear Energy. Ted Nordhaus. The Ecomodernist. February 9, 2026. The Public Confidence Game - by Ted Nordhaus

Loosening radiation exposure rules won’t speed up nuclear energy production: Relaxing radiation safety standards could place women and children at higher risks of health issues. Katy Huff. Scientific American. January 23, 2026. Weaker radiation limits will not help nuclear energy | Scientific American

Linear no-threshold model. Wikipedia. Linear no-threshold model - Wikipedia

Ordering the Reform of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission: A Presidential Document by the Executive Office of the President on 05/29/2025. Federal Register. Federal Register :: Ordering the Reform of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission

Remaining Oil & Gas Potential of the Paradox Basin, Southeast Utah: Cane Creek Shale and Carbonate Algal Mound Reservoirs of the Pennsylvanian Paradox Formation, Salt Tectonics, Natural Fractures, Well Stimulation Methods, and Reserve Estimates

   .

     Unlike most Rocky Mountain sedimentary basins, the Paradox Basin is an evaporite basin that contains thick salt accumulations and features salt tectonics. Salts are ductile at low temperatures and pressures. The basin is located mostly in southeast Utah and southwest Colorado, but extends into northeast Arizona and northwest New Mexico. It is 33,000 square miles in extent with sediments as thick as 15,000 feet. The basin is a major source of potash, copper, and uranium. Most past oil production has been from the southern part of the basin from carbonates, including algal mounds, of Pennsylvanian age. More recent production in the northern part of the basin in Utah, in the Fold and Fault Belt, has been found in the Cane Creek Shale of the lower Pennsylvanian Paradox Formation.

     A 2019 AAPG analysis of newly extracted cores from the Cane Creek section described it as:

“…a heterolithic unit comprised of meter-scale cycles of anhydrite, anhydritic dolomitic mudstone, silty dolomite, very fine-grained sandstone to siltstone, and organic-rich calcareous mudstones. Thick beds of overlying and underlying halite provide regional seals and overpressure to the reservoir, and naturally occurring fractures are important for system permeability. Siliciclastic deposits are predominantly bioturbated and contain climbing current ripples, bidirectional cross-stratification, and mud drapes along ripple foresets, all suggestive of tidal depositional processes.”

“Source rock analyses indicate the northern CC is within the oil window (VRo ~0.80) with up to 20 wt% TOC in several thin shale beds.”

“Although total oil production from the CC is only about 8 MMBO, current estimates of the undiscovered resource is about 215 MMBO. With advancements in horizontal drilling, reservoir characterization, and reduction of structure related risks, the CC has the potential to become a significant resource play.”

     The figure below shows the Paradox Basin in 2003, before horizontal drilling in the Cane Creek commenced. It shows the location of some of the carbonate algal mound production.

     According to a 2021 report by the Utah Geological Survey’s Michael Vanden Berg, horizontal wells in the Cane Creek are capable of producing up to 1500 barrels per day. 

     Early drilling through the Cane Creek section encountered some strong hydrocarbon shows but was mostly disappointing. Early horizontal wells in the late 1990s had some success, but more successful horizontal wells were drilled in the Cane Creek in the mid-2010s. He notes that horizontal drilling success without hydraulic fracturing, as has been done in the area, remains challenging due to salt tectonics affecting natural fracture networks:

“However, the clastic (sandstone/shale/anhydrite) target zones are interbedded with several hundred feet of mechanically ductile salt layers. Over time, through the natural burial process, overburden pressure and regional stress regimes have caused the salt layers to flow like toothpaste, creating significant macro- and micro-structures within the reservoir zones. These heterogeneous structures make it difficult to predict natural fracture networks, fracture orientations, and subsequent horizontal well paths.”

     He notes that there are unique challenges to hydraulically fracturing horizontal wells in this interval, namely, avoiding salt interactions:

“The challenge in the Cane Creek is the limited thickness of the clastic zones, often only about 100 feet or less, and their bounding by salt. Typical hydraulic fracturing techniques would send fractures into the over-and underlying salt layers, which would mobilize the salt and clog any existing or created fractures, shutting down production.”

     The Utah Geological Survey began teaming up with Zephyr Energy in late 2020. Vanden Berg notes:

“The Cane Creek play has experienced some success over the years, with production totaling over 10 million barrels of oil since the first wells were drilled. However, there is an estimated 1.2 billion barrels of potential oil (barrels of oil equivalent, which includes natural gas) in the Cane Creek, meaning that 99.2 percent of the oil in the Cane Creek remains in-place. These numbers do not include all the other overlying clastic zones that also have petroleum production potential. So far, the challenges of this play have overshadowed the significant successes.”

     In September 2024, Zephyr Energy announced successful results of drilling, resulting in 2,100 barrels of oil equivalent per day with very little water production. This is after the well was acidized and with only 130 ft of reservoir completed. The well was not hydraulically fractured. In May 2025, further well results were announced.

“The well test results suggest that the chosen completion strategy (hydra-jet abrasive perforation and matrix acidization) was highly successful, and the test data results fit well with the Company’s P50 estimate of reservoir properties.  It should be noted that no fracture stimulation was performed to achieve this excellent well deliverability result. Fracture stimulation could offer further upside potential for both the well, and for the broader Paradox project development.”

“I could not be more pleased with the initial results from this latest production test,” said Colin Harrington, Zephyr's Chief Executive Officer. “Our team has worked exceptionally hard to crack the code to deliver highly economic production from this under-explored basin, and with today’s news I believe we have made huge strides forward.

“While the early results on this single well are fantastic and demonstrate commerciality, I am even more encouraged when considering the potential implications for the broader development of our Paradox project,” Harrington continued.

     The well results are summarized below and look quite favorable. If this play proves to be repeatable without hydraulic fracturing, it should be able to be produced at a favorable cost compared to other horizontal plays

 

References:

 

Paradox Basin. Wikipedia. Paradox Basin - Wikipedia

HETEROGENEOUS SHALLOW-SHELF CARBONATE BUILDUPS IN THE PARADOX BASIN, UTAH AND COLORADO: TARGETS FOR INCREASED OIL PRODUCTION AND RESERVES USING HORIZONTAL DRILLING TECHNIQUES (Contract No. DE-2600BC15128). DELIVERABLE 1.1.1 REGIONAL PARADOX FORMATION STRUCTURE AND ISOCHORE MAPS, BLANDING SUB-BASIN, UTAH. Submitted by Utah Geological Survey. December 2003. Microsoft Word - Deliverable1.1.1.doc

Utah’s Emerging Northern Paradox Basin Unconventional Oil Play. Michael Vanden Berg. Utah Geological Survey. January 4, 2021. Utah’s Emerging Northern Paradox Basin Unconventional Oil Play - Utah Geological Survey

Zephyr Energy conducts successful well production test in Paradox basin, Utah. World Oil. May 7, 2025. Zephyr Energy conducts successful well production test in Paradox basin, Utah

Zephyr Energy CEO on successful State 36-2R well production test results. Zephyr Energy. Zephyr Energy CEO on successful State 36-2R well production test results - Zephyr Energy

Geologic characterization of new Cane Creek cores from the northern part of the Paradox Basin, Utah. Elliot A. Jagniecki, Ryan D. Gall, and Michael D. Vanden Berg. Utah Geological Survey. September 15-18, 2019 – AAPG Rocky Mountain Section Meeting, Cheyenne, Wyoming. Posted: January 16, 2020. Geologic characterization of new Cane Creek cores from the northern part of the Paradox Basin, Utah

Assets: Paradox Basin. Zephyr Energy (website). Paradox Basin - Zephyr Energy

Assessing the Societal Benefits of Earth Science Information: New Paper Maps Methods to Do It

     A new paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) maps out methods of assessing the societal benefits of Earth science information. The study is mainly statistical. It involves information from sensors, satellites, radars, drones, and other remote sensing techniques, collecting data about climate, air, water, and the Earth.

     According to Phys.org

"We're trying to use the information we gather from all this instrumentation to answer questions, but we don't just want to know the scientific answers to these questions; we want to be able to take that science and use that to benefit society," said O'Hara, who is a project scientist at the campus's National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS).

"We use ESI to make real-world decisions that benefit people and society, such as managing climate impacts, improving agricultural yields, targeting policies to reduce air pollution and responding to natural disasters," O'Hara said.

"But we rarely measure the degree to which ESI improves decision outcomes. When we do, the valuation methods may only account for monetary benefits and fail to account for others—such as the benefits of social connection among people or with nature."    

     In the study, the researchers selected 171 studies that applied specific valuation methods to their data. They examined these methods and sorted them into three value types: instrumental (i.e., means to an end), where the benefit was measured in 1) monetary and 2) non-monetary (e.g., healthy crops or clean water) terms, and 3) relational, in which the benefit is less tangible, such as community-building or cultural significance.

     As an economic geologist, I know well the potential value of Earth science information, for example, in mapping the subsurface rocks in order to find oil & gas resources. It works. I mainly used well logs to map the subsurface, but also used another remote sensing technique: seismic reflection surveys, which have gotten very good over the years at accurately imaging the subsurface. Of course, those efforts were oriented toward the goal of economic success rather than direct societal benefit.

     The paper attempts to quantify the societal benefits of Earth science information obtained via remote sensing. This is no easy task and may be subject to various caveats. They note that many of the papers examined exhibited scientific benefits but not societal benefits. In time, some of those scientific benefits could be turned into societal benefits, I would assume.

     Again, societal value was assessed in terms of instrumental, intrinsic, and relational value types. The paper notes that Earth science information (ESI) can be turned into useful products “such as land cover maps, climate forecasts, and drought early warning systems that managers and policy makers can use to inform societally consequential decisions.”

     The authors note that assessing societal benefits is a common feature of conservation science and sustainable development:

“The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) Values Assessment, a multiyear effort by scores of experts in diverse forms of valuation, identified three categories of value that reflect the ways in which nature and ecosystems are important for people: instrumental value as a means to satisfying specific human needs or interests, e.g., more revenue, higher crop yield, better health outcomes.”

     Quantifying societal value is not easy since it involves human value judgements, which can be quite subjective. Thus, at best, these are estimates or approximations. The value of any kind of information may be variable and typically hard to quantify. Examples of the economic value of information can be things like improved profit (as in my oil & gas geology example) and improved crop yields. Those values are more quantifiable than intrinsic and relational values such as fair decision processes, sustainability, justice, and human well-being. Basically, this paper is an attempt to quantify the societal value of this type of information.

     The figure below from the paper shows the valuation methods used in the context of the three value types: 1) instrumental (monetary), instrumental (non-monetary), and relational. Examples of instrumental non-monetary value include things like pollution reduction and lives saved. Examples of relational value include connection with land, poverty alleviation, social justice, and knowledge transfer within the community. These are mostly qualitative benefits that, for such a study as this, need to be converted into a quantitative form.

     Figure 3 from the paper, below, shows the differing methods used to determine the societal value of ESI, such as value of information (VOI) analysis, cost-benefit analysis, surveys, and statistical analysis. VOI refers to methods that assign value based on the data's ability to reduce uncertainty in decision-making.

     Figure 4, below, shows the different subject areas, or as they call them, general decision context areas, where societal values were assessed. These were classified into eight groups: 1) agriculture, 2) climate and resilience, 3) water resources, 4) ecological conservation, 5) capacity building, 6) disasters, 7) health and air quality, and 8) wildland fires. Categorizing as “various” means that multiple decision context areas were present. 

     Below is a graph of the multiple contexts.

     The authors also note that there is not much previous research to determine the societal value of ESI. I think the reason for this is that such valuations are difficult and vulnerable to scrutiny and possible disagreement.  

“Despite a broad, inclusive search for research on diverse methods for valuing Earth observation information, we found very few examples of evaluations of the societal benefits of ESI. Such a low inclusion rate (1.2%) may reflect a lack of general research on ESI and values, even though our search string was intentionally designed to be inclusive to maximize opportunities to find edge cases in the literature. The paucity of research directly addressing the value of ESI suggests a strong need to better understand how such information is being used to generate societal value, and to identify methods that can effectively assess this value.”

     They also note that the availability of data can influence societal benefits, with increased availability being associated with increased societal benefits.  

“The scientific, political, and commercial structures governing ESI, including whether datasets are publicly accessible or proprietary, freely available or commercial, in part determine who is likely to access benefits from their application, but also whose values are represented in the data (and whose are not). Clearly, making ESI data freely available enhances the ability to generate societal benefits; for example, citations and downloads surged for Landsat data following the shift from a paid service to a free and open data policy in 2008, ultimately stimulating billions of dollars in scientific and societal benefits.”

     I know of many geoscientists who have utilized freely and publicly available datasets to assist them in deriving economic value. Governments and scientific institutions such as the U.S. Geological Survey and state geological surveys provide valuable information for earth scientists to derive economic and other forms of societal value, for example. The U.S. EPA and many other institutions provide similarly valuable information. Another example is the satellite data that is used to quantify things like methane emissions from oil & gas systems, landfills, or wetlands. That arms us with knowledge to then fix discovered leaks, providing societal benefits such as less greenhouse gas emissions.

     Overall, I think it will remain difficult to arrive at a satisfactory quantitative valuation of the societal benefits of ESI, but it is an effort that we must continue to pursue as we are able. Some societal benefits of ESI are evident, and others are likely more covert but could become more evident in the future. This is being realized, for instance, with AI analyzing large datasets and uncovering hidden relationships in data that may be transferable to societal benefits. Companies must evaluate the potential economic benefits of their own ESI acquisition and analysis. For instance, oil & gas companies have geology and geophysics (G&G) budgets, where they need to determine how much money they will spend to unlock economic value. Of course, assessing purely economic value is not always easy, but it is usually easier than assessing societal value, at least quantitatively. The research here is certainly not groundbreaking, but more an attempt at quantifying something difficult to quantify. One might ask what the societal benefit is of assessing the societal benefits of ESI.  In that respect, it is useful as a proposed way to improve such assessments in the future.

    

 

References:

 

Moving beyond money to measure the true value of Earth science information. Sonia Fernandez. Phys.org. February 10, 2026. Moving beyond money to measure the true value of Earth science information

A systematic map of methods for assessing societal benefits of Earth science information. Casey C. O’Hara, Mabel Baez-Schon, Rebecca Chaplin-Kramer, +14 , and Benjamin S. Halpern. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). Vol. 123 | No. 6. February 6, 2026. A systematic map of methods for assessing societal benefits of Earth science information | PNAS

Iranian Strikes on Qatari LNG Threaten Global Helium Supply Chains and Lead to Rationing Plans

 

     Recent missile and/or drone strikes in March by Iran on Qatari LNG infrastructure have taken about 17% of its LNG offline and it could take up to 3-5 years for repairs. The massive gas field, known as North Field, is basically the northern part of Iran’s South Pars gas field, or vice versa. It is one big field. The Qatari side also produces large amounts of helium from the field, and Qatar produces a third of the world’s helium. This means that global helium supplies are about to become constrained, perhaps very constrained. However, just minutes ago, as I type, a cease-fire has been announced, with one of the terms resuming shipping through the Strait of Hormuz. Hopefully, peace and commerce will prevail and chances for a better government in Iran. However, there is no guarantee.  

     A March 19 article in Reuters summarizes the issue:

     “The fallout extends well beyond LNG. Qatar's exports of condensate will drop by ​around 24%, while liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) will fall 13%. Helium output will fall 14%, and naphtha and ​sulphur will both drop ⁠by 6%.”

    The lost LNG production is expected to impact exports to Italy, Belgium, South Korea, and China. Annual revenue could drop by 20 billion.  I found the following quote concerning, as it underscores the damage done:

 “The scale of the damage from the attacks has set the region back 10 ​to 20 years, he said.”

     Helium is used in multiple stages of semiconductor production, cooling, many medical technologies, energy technologies, and much more. Since the bombing, countries have begun strategizing, managing stockpiles, and shifting shipping routes to keep supplies available. However, some shortages are expected. Helium prices have risen by 50 to 100%.

"Data from the U.S. Geological Survey shows the country produced about 63 million cubic meters of helium in 2025, out of roughly 190 million cubic meters globally, accounting for close to one-third of the world's supply."

"If ⁠those conditions (supply disruption) persist, the market is effectively missing about 5.2 million cubic meters of helium per month," said Aleksandr Romanenko, CEO of market research firm IndexBox.”

     It is likely that Qatari gas production, including helium production, will be suppressed for at least a few years. I wonder if U.S. helium drilling will pick up pace. Several new and existing fields are being tested and developed. That development could accelerate. Qatari helium is produced with natural gas. One might consider it a byproduct of more voluminous, thus more valuable, natural gas. In other fields, it is produced without or with much lower amounts of natural gas. In the case of Qatar, if natural gas production drops, so does helium production.

     An article in The Conversation describes the particular challenges of storing and transporting helium:

“Exporting helium is not simple. It requires highly specialised cryogenic containers to keep it extremely cold during transport. These shipments must pass through narrow trade routes such as the Strait of Hormuz, making the supply chain vulnerable to political conflict.”

“The specialised containers are insulated, but not refrigerated. This means that, due to the physical properties of helium, the element will escape from the containers over time.”

     Below, the article gives some strategies for managing helium supply.

References:

 

Iran war deflates critical helium production supplies. Avery Lotz. Axios AI+. April 7, 2026. Iran war deflates critical helium production supplies

Exclusive: Iran attacks wipe out 17% of Qatar’s LNG capacity for up to five years, QatarEnergy CEO says. Maha El Dahan, Andrew Mills, and Yousef Saba. Reuters. March 20, 2026. Exclusive: Iran attacks wipe out 17% of Qatar’s LNG capacity for up to five years, QatarEnergy CEO says | Reuters

The world’s supply of helium is being threatened by the Iran war. Gavin D. J. Harper. The Conversation. April 2, 2026. The world’s supply of helium is being threatened by the Iran war

Helium Production by Country 2026. World Population Review. Helium Production by Country 2026

Helium prices soar as Qatar LNG halt exposes fragile supply chain: Helium spot prices have doubled since ⁠the Middle East crisis began. Arunima Kumar. Reuters News. March 12, 2026. Helium prices soar as Qatar LNG halt exposes fragile supply chain

 

Eni Discovers 2TCF of Natural Gas and 130 Million Barrels of Condensate in the Mediterranean, Offshore Egypt: It Could Reduce Egypt’s Gas Import Bill

     In partnership with BP, Italian oil & gas giant Eni announced a recent discovery offshore Egypt in the Mediterranean Sea of 2TCF of natural gas and 130 million barrels of associated condensate. The large find is from the Denise W-1 offshore exploration well in the Temsah Concession in the Eastern Mediterranean, about 70 kilometers offshore in 95 meters of water depth and less than 10 kilometers from existing infrastructure. The nearness to existing infrastructure will allow it to be “tied back” and decrease the time to production. This will be good for Egypt since regional natural gas import prices have skyrocketed there since the advent of the Iran War. Egypt imports a significant amount of natural gas. Other recent oil & gas finds in onshore Egypt will also be helpful in this regard. Eni and BP have a long-established relationship with Egypt. The Temsah discovery dovetails with the massive Zohr gas field, discovered in 2015, with originally estimated reserves of 30TCF.

     Below is a map of geologic structures in the region, which appear to be dense. I am guessing the hydrocarbons are from a structural trap or at least a trap influenced by structure.

     Egypt imports natural gas from Qatar and Israel, from the North Field and Leviathan Fields, respectively, and those imports have been disrupted by the Iranian conflict.

“Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly said last month the conflict had nearly tripled Egypt's natural gas import bill, from $560 million (€515mn) to $1.65 billion (€1.52bn,) per month.”

     Other recent oil & gas finds onshore Egypt include Apache’s discovery well in the Western Desert, which is expected to yield 26 million cubic feet per day and 2700 barrels of condensate per day. Another recent oil discovery occurred in the Gulf of Suez.

    

References:

 

Gas discovery off Egypt's coast comes at a critical moment for Iran war. Una Hajdari. AfricaNews. April 7, 2026. Gas discovery off Egypt's coast comes at a critical moment for Iran war

Italy's Eni announces mega offshore gas discovery in Egypt: 2 Tcf offshore gas discovery with fast track development potential. Zawya Projects. April 7, 2026. Italy's Eni announces mega offshore gas discovery in Egypt

Truthfulness of the Existence of the Pelusium Megashear Fault System, East of Cairo, Egypt. Mohamed A. Gamal. International Journal of Geosciences, 2013, 4, 212-227. Truthfulness_of_the_Existence_of_the_Pelusium_Mega.pdf

 

Frequent Plowing and Heavy Tractor Traffic Disrupts Soil Structure and Makes it More Vulnerable to Flooding and Drought, According to Study, and Less Intensive Management for Agricultural Soil Works Best, According to Another Study

   

     Two separate studies indicate that leaving soil less disturbed retains important soil structures and makes the soil more resilient to flooding and droughts, and better for agriculture. In particular, less plowing means better soil health. Thus, conservation tillage, which can be reduced tillage or no-till methods, preserves soil health.

 

Paper 1: Agroseismology and the Impact of Farming Practices on Soil Hydrodynamics

     A study led by Dr. Shi Qibin from the Institute of Geology and Geophysics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, in collaboration with international partners and published in the journal Science, utilized fiber optic sensors to analyze soil structure before and after deep plowing.

     According to Phys.org:

“The researchers converted standard fiber-optic cables—similar to those used in high-speed internet networks—into a large-scale sensor array…”

     The array was used to detect tiny ground vibrations caused by water flow and also to monitor that water flow. They confirmed that rainfall in heavily cultivated soil tends to pool near the surface, where more of it evaporates. In contrast, undisturbed soil filters rainwater and tends to store it deeper, where it can be better accessed by plant roots. Undisturbed soil retains water through capillary forces, which help to hold the soil together.

"Rather than a simple collection of particles, soil is a porous medium in which the structure functions like capillary vessels within the water cycle," Dr. Shi explained.

     Plowing and compacting the soil with heavy machinery breaks up those capillary networks that stabilize the soil and manage water for plants.

     The study is unique in that it utilized distributed acoustic (fiber optic) sensing, or agroseismology, with physics-based hydromechanical modeling to essentially “listen” to the soil to analyze it.

     Interestingly, the paper detailed implications of the study’s conclusions on agricultural soil health, Earth system modeling, and geotechnical engineering. In terms of soil health, the paper noted that “tillage-related disturbance impairs moisture retention and thus drought resilience, an effect pertinent to agricultural sustainability.” For Earth system modeling, there are implications for how land–atmosphere exchanges are represented in climate models based on these soil-water interactions. Potential implications from the paper for geotechnical engineering are given below:

“…our results show that moisture-driven, capillary-induced changes challenge the assumption of a static geotechnical layer. This aligns with growing evidence that groundwater fluctuations and seasonal variability can modify site response and promote ground failure. Earthquake-triggered liquefaction, traditionally considered limited to fully saturated soil, may also occur in partially saturated soil once a percolation threshold is exceeded (~70% saturation), and water levels remain a key control on failure potential. As climate variability and urbanization alter near-surface hydrology, incorporating the effects of hydrological processes on soil stability becomes essential for assessing ground failure and designing resilient infrastructure. Our fiber-optic sensing approach could enable in-situ monitoring of geostructures and real-time feedback on evolving stiffness as part of long-term infrastructure surveillance.

 

Paper 2: Conventional and Organic Farms with More Intensive Management Have Lower Soil Functionality

     Another study, also published in the journal Science, by a research team led by the Netherlands Institute of Ecology (NIOO-KNAW) concluded that undisturbed soils with less intensive management are more functional for agriculture.

     According to Phys.org:

"A multifunctional soil is essential for sustainable food production, because plants get their food from it," state the researchers, from NIOO and Wageningen University & Research (the Netherlands), and the Universität Tübingen (Germany). "Soil also has indispensable roles in water storage, coping with climate change and disease suppression."

     The study concluded that the intensity of tillage was the main factor that differentiated the functionality of the soil, with less tilling corresponding with greater functionality, regardless of whether the plots were conventional or organic.

"On all farms, including organic ones, it is important at this point not to cultivate the soil too intensively. For example: plowing less. Inverting the soil during plowing is a very big disruption to soil life."

     In addition to less plowing, utilizing more mixtures of grasses and legumes, such as clovers, contributes to a high-functioning, healthy soil. Cover cropping was found to have a positive effect on soil functionality. Soil functionality was measured by crop yields and satellite-derived measures of “greenness.” As noted in the abstract below:

“Soil organic carbon content and bacterial biomass, respectively, were the strongest abiotic and biotic predictors of soil multifunctionality.”

     The study examined both sandy and clay soils and found similar results. The researchers noted that, based on the study’s conclusions, a new goal could be:

"Productive de-intensification. If it is successful, you will get more functions from a less intensively cultivated soil while retaining the crop yield as much as possible," they state.

 

 

References: 

 

Fiber-optic sensors reveal how farming destroys soil's natural structure. Science X staff. Phys.org. March 22, 2026. Fiber-optic sensors reveal how farming destroys soil's natural structure

Agroseismology and the impact of farming practices on soil hydrodynamics. Qibin Shi, David R. Montgomery, Abigail L.S. Swann, Nicoleta C. Cristea, Ethan F. Williams, Nan You, Simon Jeffery, Joe Collins, Ana Prada Barrio, [...] , and Marine A. Denolle. Science 10.1126/science.aec0970 (March 2026). Agroseismology and the impact of farming practices on soil hydrodynamics | Science

Less intensive management works best for agricultural soil, study finds. Science X staff. Phys.org. April 8, 2025. Less intensive management works best for agricultural soil, study finds

Conventional and organic farms with more intensive management have lower soil functionality. Sophie Q. van Rijssel, Guusje J. Koorneef, G. F. (Ciska) Veen, Mirjam M. Pulleman, Ron G. M. de Goede, Rob N. J. Comans, Wim H. van der Putten, and Kyle Mason-Jones. Science. 24 Apr 2025. Vol 388, Issue 6745. pp. 410-415. Conventional and organic farms with more intensive management have lower soil functionality | Science