Hi fellowes111. You seem to be well across the topic in the way...

Hi fellowes111. You seem to be well across the topic in the way you have explained all this. With all due respect it does leave me saying "Yeahh? That's all" in a couple of places.
Like, that's one hell of a lot of 'compressive stress' to keep bottled up. As NeillN has suggested the well head would be teetering several meters above ground zero by now OR the hot granites may have receded a bit.

Your explanation, welcome as it is to hear, of the steel casings expanding as they are progressively lowered into the well seems all too neat. That is to say, :wouldn't they still be everything from suggested 25C at the top up to whatever the ambient earth temp. is at 4,000 odd meters.

Then, all cased in and left to dry a while when one day the drill cracks through into the saturated granite and whoosh.
It's not long before the whole thing is 220C+ or so from top to bottom? That's when the stresses would really build.

As at the beginning I said "With all due respect" and I mean that.

It may be I am a bit unnerved by this 'blow-out' so all I am actually saying is "can you re-assure me a bit more on the explanations you have offered and for which I thank you".


cheers,

geojac