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Drilling For Oil With Megawatt Lasers
Deglr6328 writes: "The U.S. Department of Energy's Fossil Energy site has a story about using lasers to drill through rock at 10 to 100 times as fast as conventional rock boring technologies. One of the lasers tested was the 2.2 megawatt M.I.R.A.C.L., which was originally designed in 1985 for the star wars program. A cool video clip of its test firing can be found at the GTI page here. It looks like we'll be stuck with fossil fuels like oil and natural gas for some time, so we might as well do it James Bond style!" Sounds more like Real Genius style to me. Who brought the popcorn?
When I worked in the offshore oilfields before I became a programmer (don't ask) they used "mud" to fill and seal the hole behind the bit. This prevented natural gas from flowing out of the hole if a pocket was encountered. The "mud" was circulated with pumps and constantly weighed to ensure that the proper density was maintained and the "mud" was not becoming saturated with gas. If a giant pocket of gas were to escape from the well (the dreaded blowout), the ensuing gas bubbles would leave the floating drilling ship and it's attendant work and crew boats in low-density, gas-permeated water (virtually hanging in the air). In conditions like this they would quickly sink a few hundred meters to sea floor. Not a pretty scenario. Have they since developed mud-free drilling techiniques?
Put simply, a laser works by evaporating rock, or Silicon. This forms SO2 and SO and SO3, the Silicon Oxides, as well as many other noxious gases. The simple fact is that the SOX's have been shown to be hundreds of times more potent than CO2 as a greenhouse gas, and they also destroy Ozone, O3, much more effectively than common or garden chlorofluerocarbons ever did. Vapourised rock is a dangerous thing indeed.
I am sure that this system could be effective though, and make things cheaper and faster for the multinationals, which is a good thing for all of us. I just hope that they take into account the potential pitfalls, perhaps by planting 100 trees every time they use the laser drill, a proven way of renewing the environment.
Corporations are usually quite amenable to this sort of idea.
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Oh my god, they shot the top-hat monopoly piece! Those bastards!
The fires at the end of the Gulf War were caused by explosives being sent off at the top of the well, then the pressurized oil and gas went through the explosion and that caused a self fueling fire. The oil deep underground wasn't on fire, nor was the gas. The well fires were all put out by those boys from Texas that have been doing that kind of thing since the 50s. So rent John Wayne in the Hellfighters and see how it's done, the Texas firm that does that...Halliburton I think it is, were technical advisors on the John Wayne film.
And it would solve a lot of problems if people really paid the price of their own actions. Instead we have a society bent on focusing the payment on to those least able to pay them.
Central American Fruit, South American Beef, Middle Eastern Oil, 3rd world labor exploitation aside the problem lies in mistaking freedom for free, and I don't mean as in software.
My uncle was a car salesman for a week. He went in to it thinking 'I'll just be honest, and actualy give them a good deal.' He left the job shaking his head because people didn't want an honest good deal they wanted an unbelievable deal. Free this, and free that, unbelievably high prices that are chopped in half but still retian a 100% profit margin (see: Robinsons-May Co.) Staple products that are very inexpensive no matter how much they really cost (see: Southern California Utilities, Bankrupting of.)
Taxation, in a truely ethical stance is merely the way to put the price back on to the people best able to pay them. I've thought that for a long time. As a side note, in a philanthropic sence taxation should be a contribution or vote in the belief of how well the government works for them.
no text. I mean it /.! Can't I post a comment with a minimum of bandwidth and DB waste without hitting lameness filters?
-- perl -e'print pack"H*","6e656d6f406d38792e6f7267"'
Is that something like your standard Classic Rock FM radio station? Or more like the Modern Rock alternative? For me FM radio in general is a rock boring technology but YMMV :-)
Hey the faster we pump oil out of the ground, the sooner we will have to use renewable resources! I cant wait untill there is no oil left, and I get to have that electric car that does 0-60 faster then an F550!
...this is where they got the idea for the Death Star?
"How many light bulbs does it take to change a person?" --BMcC-->
as drill bits are very expensive, and can wear out in as little as 100 feet of hard rock.
Now, if Thomas Gold's views about oil and petroleum are correct, wecan have as much oil as we coudl ever want!
Of course, we should still conserve and all that.
Some good, general information on [Lake Vostok].
Tidbits:
It's way the hell under the antarctic icecap.
It's been sealed off from the rest of earth for a helluva long time.
It's probably got uniquely-evolved microbes and stuff.
It's *really* *fucking* *cold* in that part of the Antarctic: record low of -88C (-127F).
The lake is about the size of Lake Ontario, or the island of Corsica.
Scientists are, for once, being a bit sensible: they could have tapped the lake by now, but they first want to make sure they don't contanimate it.
However, it seems they haven't thought about whether it might contanimate us...
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Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
"Me? Work with lasers? Sounds complicated...."
Much of the drilling occurs in remote Russia,
remote western US, offshore, where trucking in
high density energy sources is difficult.
Conventional gasoline and rotary drills are easier.
Almost no one drills straight down anyone.
Holes bend outward from a drilling platform, snake
along curved salt interfaces, go horizontal to
maximize the number porous cracks, and so on.
I wonder how easy it is to bend laser holes?
Wow, nobody did. Amazing. You've saved lives, my friend! It's a good thing you thought of this when none of those fancy researcher types who are actually doing this never did....
Mod down posts with a "Free Mac Mini/iPod" sig, they're spam!
Werner Herzog made an AMAZING film about the fires in the Gulf:
http://us.imdb.com/Title?0104706
Highly recommended.
(jfb)
To spur "enterprise Linux," Big Bang, the distributed two-phase commit.
I shall use a giant "L-a-s-e-r" to drill through the surface of the Earth, extract crude oil, distribute it to an unsuspecting population, and slowly destroy the environment!!
Uhm, that's already been done...
Throw me a fricken bone here, I've been frozen for 30 years...
Given the sheer amount of tax money spent on corporate welfare for the oil and related industries, it's a political choice. Gas, like meat, would not be affordable to the average consumer (at least not at the levels currently consumed) without government subsidies.
Hey, they spend our money on it, then tax us to the hilt when we buy it -- am I the only person feeling like they're getting us both coming and going?
First, remember that I live in CA, and therefore pay about $2/gallon (I also drive a vehical that gets 110mi/gal, but that's a different story)
If gas were $5/gal, all people would be forced to consider different transportation obtions, but at $2/gal it's only the working class that has trouble affording it. Big shocker.
I'm inclined to agree that taxing gas intelligently could help discourage the waste of resources -- the point I was trying to make is that petroleum products are well subsidized (not just directly to oil companies, but military expenses due to conflicts we woudln't be in if not for our dependance on foreign oil, allowing drilling on federally owned land, subsidies to companies that support the oil industries (from refineries on down). And as I pointed out, oil isn't the only thing that's treated this way. Most people coudn't afford to eat the amount of meat they do if they had to pay the real market price for it.
The laser wouldn't, of course, but how do you keep debris from falling down into the whole you just (somewhat violently) made?
It doesn't have to be that violent. Properly done, the laser could slowly burn its way through to the lake, evaporating stuff instead of pulverising it. And permafrost is less likely to collapse, so all would be well.
Of course, if it can be done on Lake Vostok, it can be done on Europa.
As for explosions, since there would be no oxygen component, there would not be an "explosion," but because it would be difficult to both fire the laser and secure the hole at the same time, there could be blowouts. I doubt that they plan on using this to actually get to the oil/gas they are looking for.
So a scenario would look like this. They start drilling, encounter a large rock layer or salt dome. After examing the geological information, decide that they have to drill through this layer or dome. They pull in the laser, fire it for a few minutes to bore most of the way through, then let the regular drilling systems take over to lay pipe and finish the job.
Just my $.02 worth.
Cause you can't get a tan from an amber monitor. If you do, there is something horribly wrong.
Don't believe any of this for a moment. What's really going on is a secret plan to shoot it out if the Commies get the upper hand in Russia or the Chinese decide to go after Taiwan. At the first sign of trouble, just point the lasers downward, fire away and destroy the offending nations missle's right in their bunkers!
At first glance it might seem like it will take a little time to get a kill (for now), but what the hell, these new military systems always have a few bugs to shake out.
Just my $0.02
Perhaps, but they would also be pretty much unfocused (though possibly directed) energy.
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Looks like you were thinking about Sulphur S, which can form those greenhouse gasses. Sulphur is NOT usually a large component in most rock.
Maybe the explosion of the vaporization will be strong enough to act like a blow gun and just shoot the sand and other debris out.
..........FULL STOP.
No, you need oxygen molecules (O2) which there wont be much of down in the hole..In an inert atmosphere you can boil gasoline safely
..........FULL STOP.
They're taking all the rock-hound burly-man drama right out of Armageddon!
That was quick. Only 16 comments and the site is down already. (http://www.gri.org/laser)
Anyone have a mirror site up?
Brian
http://www.assortedinternet.com
You make it sound as though it's a black and white issue -- either a free-for-all or absolute centralised control.
Don't be silly, there's plenty of room for greys, and it's in the grey where the ideal solutions often lie.
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You're a suburbanite.
No matter how insultingly patronizing you are in your (quite correct) explaination of the science behind it (and your subsequent replies I might add)...
It's still freaking hilarious to read about people shooting high powered lasers at volatile, combustable petro-chemicals!
You're right... cutting through rock with a big piece of hot metal that (probably) generates sparks is probably just as risky as a laser... but it's not NEARLY as funny!
- StaticLimit
They use them as lasers because they make very powerful lasers. Multi-Megawatt lasers are hard to make without going to using the chemical energy in atoms. Just pumping with electricity is very efficient but not that powerfull.
The reaction is combustion rather that detonation. The lasers are designed like small rocket engines. Deuterium is used because the wavelength produced is at a point where air is transparent to IR radiation. Hydrogen Fluride lasers run at a wavelength where air is rather opaque.
I actually run these things all the time for my graduate research. Much fun. The small 100 watt HF laser in our lab can burn bricks causing the formation of glass on the surface. Quite cool.
Robert Wright
What happens if the megawatt laser hits the oil? Or natural gas for that matter :)
-brain
The laser melts the rock, some of which then cools to form a ceramic pipe (RTFA). You make the the fiber optic cable with a sheath that you pump water through. This clears out extra debris and makes a lubricant to slide the cable through. With a flexible cable, turning a corner is just a matter of pumping more water to one side than the other. This will reduce resistance on the side with more water and make the cable bend in that direction. Talk to some of the guys who use newer equipment to lay fiber optics without digging a trench.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
Did anyone consider that these lasers run HOT, and that the resource they're drilling for is COMBUSTABLE?
D.
I keep trying to pick fights, but I can't shake this Excellent karma.
First one's a tea cup (i.e. flying saucer). Second one's a one "on star" (i.e. a Cadillac). Third's a missile. The rest look like sharks, maybe we should alert PETA.
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perl -e 'print(pack("H*","646176652e7761676e657240676d616
An good oxygenating source for combustion is free 02, not oxygen bonded strongly to other atoms such as silicon and hydrogen.
Only a comparativly few elements are reactive enough to remove oxygen from compounds such as water. You will never find these in a borehole. Only their stable oxides.
Arrrrggg!!! Fire needs oxygen.
Or an oxidising agent, usually elemental oxygen or an unstable oxygen containing compound (N.B. such compounds are not going to be present in rocks, being unstable they don't last that long) failing that a halogen will do.
If it's heated above ignition point, it'll start burning the instant it leaks to the surface.
You don't think they might do something like feed the fibre down some kind of gas tight wellhead?
Also, there's quite a bit of subterranean oxygen. Most of it is just temporarily combined with hydrogen. I'm sure the laser does its bit to break some of those bonds along the way.
Water is a rather stable compound, also even if your laser does turn water into free radicals how is this magically going to cause a huge amount of combustion. More likely you will start with methane & water and wind up with methane & water, contaminated with a small amount of hydrogen and carbon dioxide. The only element outside groups one and two which can use water as an oxidising agent is Al.
Either you have to put the laser down the hole, or you have to have a clear optical path between the laser and the cutting face.
Not a problem I have a laser sat on the wall here which has a clear optical path to somewhere several km away, certainly not a straight line path. It's simply an engineering problem of making a suitable fibre bundle.
Ok, I can see the potential for popcorn-making, but... while I like butter on my popcorn, petroleum somehow is just not the same thing.
ps: I loved the quote. :-)
(8-DCS)
I know this might be wrong, but when I see SO2 near a mention of a powerful laser and water I think of the possibility of creating H2SO4, Sulfuric acid. This doesn't make sense, seing that the SO2 is Silicon and the H2SO4 refers to Sulfur.
What am I getting mixed up?
We the Sheeple...
I want 5 Megawatts by mid May!
There is nothing so silly as other peoples traditions, and nothing so sacred as our own.
-Omar
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+1 Insightful, -1 Troll. What can I say, I'm an Insightful Troll.
Tee hee...
DO NOT LEAVE IT IS NOT REAL
Anyone notice the number of kills painted on the side of the laser in the pic off the page?
Looks like five planes, a missile and two other things I can't make out.
Feng.
--- if y cn rd ths y cn gt a gd jb n cmptr prgmmng!
I'm not so sure if you're theory is right; i seem to remeber oil wells being lit by Iraq in the Persian Gulf conflict.
I think it would depend on how much Oxygen was in the pocket. Not ever having dealt with mining and drilling before I don't know how pure those pockets would be.
I think the pressure the gas is under might have some bearing as well...
Never understimate the power of human stupidity -Lazarus Long
Blowing air to the clear the drill cuttings at the depths needed to hit oil in production areas around the world (1000 - 2000 m) doesn't work. There are always leaks in the formation that can't be sealed. People who have used mud for drilling can estimate the weight of mud nessary to close leaks and can move by the poor seal.
I didn't say laser drilling would be *BAD* technology; just an inappropriate application for oil drilling. And drilling in contaminated areas is a good idea for the reason I gave.
Innovative != cheap. Oil companies always go for cheap.
"Rocky Rococo, at your cervix!"
Another potential advantage that has been discussed in using laser drilling techniques is the "analysis on the run" that could be conducted while drilling. Because laser vaporizes the formation, and anything it contains (i.e., hazardous contaminants), this drill could be used in front of a gas chromatograph/mass spectroscopy apparatus to analyze the stream of drill waste as the laser advances.
This technique is probably only useful for shallow, high risk drilling operations. The cost of deploying this machine, not to mention maintaining it, are so far off the scale for oil drilling that it is rediculous. No oil company will spend the kind of money it would take to run this drill when conventional drilling techniques have become more cost-efficient, and more precise in directing the borehole.
"Rocky Rococo, at your cervix!"
I might just be being silly here, but what happens when this megawatt laser hits the oil? Does it involve flaming death?
--- Apparently I have an old
This reminded me of a previous slashdot article on mining robots. It won't be too long before these two technologies are combined. Fully autonomous laser wielding robots (and probably quite soon after - fully autonomous laser wielding robot tanks - I can't believe all this technology won't be fed back into weapon systems).
At some point, somewhere, the entire internet will be found to be illegal.
No, he just posed one other alternative. Try to come up with some other ones that are viable and whose economic policies didn't pan out.
"Lost In Space" did this already to drill for deutronium fuel. After all, the Jupiter 2 went up in 97'.
I do agree that the external costs of driving your cadillac should be open to taxation--but I don't agree that we have suitable alternative in wind power or anything else at this point (besides nuclear power, and you know how anything with nuclear in it scares people).
Pollution doesnt start or stop with the United States, this is a worldwide problem that is not going to be solved until we develop clean, cheap, and renewable energy that can replace the gasoline engine and coal power plants. You think the South American governments would spend a dime to see clean burning cars over cheaper gas?
I would like to see us focus all our research on fusion energy rather than 50/50 on making a cleaner burning coal power plant. Call me crazy but I like to think of myself as a practical environmentalist.
RevT
Now, before you spout off again about the government taxing you to the hilt, you might want to take a trip to Europe, where the price of a gallon of gas is close to 5$ (thanks to taxes). I would venture that we are not taxed nearly enough on gas. I would definately support a national gas sales tax of 1$, to help discourage the waste of our resources.
RevT
Our reliance on fossil fuels is not a political choice, it's an economic one. Your uncle mort doesn't drive that giant cadillac to bingo every night because the US Congress told him to waste our fossil fuels; he did it because it's to his economic advantage to get somewhere moderately cheap. Now maybe you might consider a free market economy the ultimate political choice, but then what alternative do we have to that, centrally controlled distrobution of resources i.e. Soviet Union?
Your environmentalist views are all fine and dandy, but I prefer substance not rhetoric. Wind power is _not_ a suitable alternative to coal/gas. Europeans have favorable wheather patterns for wind generators and they still can only make a small percentage change in their energy output.
I support Nuclear power, tidal/fusion power research, solar cell research, and taxing gasoline more heavily. These are some real energy alternatives with substance and promise for our future.
RevT
Firstly conventional drilling technology employs fixed drill bits, which use water and suction to remove rock debris. This system has no such facility for that.
Of course, if they vaporise the rock or turn it into dust, all they need to do is blow it out the top. Even if is still in a liquid state, they can pipe it out as slurry. They're also looking into if the addition of water for moving the debris out of the way would be a problem for the laser in that it would need to much energy to vaporise.Also it is very difficult to drill down and then sideways, as is common with current methods. Without this facility, the oil rig or platform is useless once the oil below has been used up
Which is probably why they're sending the photons down in a fiber optic conduit and focusing them as they leave the conduit through a lens array.Conventional drilling also places a pipe as the bit moves forward, cementing the drill hole. With this system the hole must be "burned" and then a pipe forced down. This process will negate any speed gains in the actual drilling
The article discusses research into the behavior of the rock on melting by the lasers. Apparently, a properly controlled laser can turn the surrounding rock into a high strength ceramic, thus completely eliminating the need to even add a pipe.This laser has only fired 150 times, for a grand total of 50 minutes over its lifespan, and has a "70 seconds maximum lase duration." I'm pretty sure drilling that far down for oil will take more than 70 seconds, and quite probably a single oil well will take longer to drill for than the entire previous experience of the example laser.
Does anyone get the feeling they're getting a little overexcited? Its one thing to create a megawatt class laser in a warehouse for short duration, mostly experimental use... Its entirely another to create one that can survive a hostile environment such as a desert or sea based drilling platform and operate continuously for days at a time. I'm gonna guess technology to make this successfull is still at least a decade out.
If it's heated above ignition point, it'll start burning the instant it leaks to the surface.
Also, there's quite a bit of subterranean oxygen. Most of it is just temporarily combined with hydrogen. I'm sure the laser does its bit to break some of those bonds along the way.
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NetInfo connection failed for server 127.0.0.1/local
Everyone knows that beam weapons cause matter to disintegrate and then just disappear. Don't you watch Star Trek?
Sure, the new drilling technology is cool, and its engineers are to be commended. But but the tree-hugging lefty in me feels obliged to point out that our reliance on fossil fuels isn't so much an inevitability as it is a political choice we have made.
Take, for example, the recent actions of the German government to encourage wind power. Due to a plan initiated ten years ago, the state of Schleswig-Holstein now generates about 19 percent of electricity from wind, and nationwide the wind industry employs about 15,000 people.
The first way to lose a political argument is to agree with those who say "this is the only way to do it." There's always another way to do it (see also: Perl); very often, there's a better way to do it, too.
Do domain names matter?
Which centralia, the one in Washington, Illinois, Penssylvania, Ontario, or Missouri?
I swear, I put my sig right here; I don't know what happened to it.
So I wasn't the only one to think of this as soon as I saw the story. Well, it would certainly make a far more interesting video.....
Syllable : It's an Operating System
Yes, that's always a problem in laser cavities too. I don't know if there's a simple way to overcome this problem in the hostile environment.
the other way around.
(Star Wars defense initiative got it's ideas from...uh...Star Wars the movie).
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
Tunnels, though, might be more promising. Using this as part of a hard-rock tunnel boring machine might work. Those things are big enough to incorporate a big laser, and they're operated close to the cutting face. Maybe the New York City Water Tunnel #3 project, underway since the 1970s and scheduled for completion in 2020, could be speeded up.
"We found oil!" Boooooooom!
This
"No, Mr. Tux... I expect you to die..."
With a bore speed of 10 to 100 times that of conventional methods, Bruce Willis could get that hole done and be back in time for breakfast instead of having to spout embarrassing speeches while dying heroically.
This could revolutionise the bad-movie industry!
"I Know You Are But What Am I?"
"damn you! i havnt seen that film yet and now you've ruined it. twats."
Damn, sorry about that. Normally I'm pretty careful on this stuff, but since that bit doesn't really affect the enjoyment of the film (its quality cheese you just hang on for the ride with), and it was such a huge thing at the time (I guess I better not make jokes about Empire Strikes Back either) I din't think someone might be spoiled.
Of course, if you're just being ironic then I guess I've fallen for it.
"I Know You Are But What Am I?"
Won't this add to global warming? At least as much as cow farts and sulphur dioxide?
(couldn't resist)
DanH
Cavalry Pilot's Reference Page
Cav Pilot's Reference Page
UNIX - Not just for Vestal Virgins anymore
Don't you remember? "All these worlds are yours--except EUROPA. Attempt no landings there."
Slashdot: come for the pedantry, stay for the condescension.
Production of hydrocarbons depends on either the porosity of the rock or fractures within it.
By 'drilling' with a laser (really burning), the high temps instantly seal the sides of the borehole, negating any porosity and sealing any fractures in the immediate vicinity. One could figure out how far out the sealing would go from the well knowing the heat dissapation of the laser at the bottom/sides of the well and the rock type.
You can 'frac' the rock subsequently, and still produce oil/gas, but almost certainly not at the efficiency of a well drilled conventionally.
Bottom line is, for a number of reasons, this isn't going to replace conventional drilling in the near or far future. It's basically an attempt to find *some* use for all of that money poured into laser physics by the Star Wars programs of the '80's. This one just doesn't happen to be very good.
The technique has some merit for other types of drilling. Tunneling, scientific exploration, and others come to mind immediately.
There seem to be a number of problems with using this to drill for oil and gas, but combustion probably isn't a problem, since there is no oxygen.
There are two other potential problems that I see. The first is the high pressure underground. Oil companies typically use drilling mud which, in addition to cooling the bit and removing the cuttings, is weighted with additives (barite??) to increase the density. The density is controlled so that the hydrostatic pressure is higher than the pressure in the gas/oil reservoirs. This prevents blowouts, where the oil gushes to the surface (the gushers in the old movies) Oil companies hate this, because in addition to the problem of fires, you are wasteing the gas pressure that could be used to help produce additional oil. The laser process will have to supply the high pressure in some manner.
A second problem is damaging the well. Oil and gas are typically contained in sedimentary rock (NOT a liquid reservoir). In terms of flow properties, think of a massive brick saturated with oil - this is roughly what you are trying to produce oil from. Since the flow is radial to the well, damage right around the hole is the worst in terms of damaging the well. While its true that you can fracture the well to improve the production, this adds significant expense. (need to inject large quantities of liquid at high pressure to fracture the rock, as well as proppant (sand) to keep the fractures from closing back down).
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
Dood, no oxygen. Think about it. When the rock is vaporized at the bottom, there will be oxygen, but not a significant amount, as most of it would be tied up in compounds. Would there be an explosion? Probally, will it be strong enough to do more than cough, no.
Spring is here. Don't believe me, look outside!
I don't know about you, but I see some danger of an explosion when you have a laser strong enough to melt rock opening up a pocket of natural gas.
Maybe I haven't had enough caffiene this morning, but it seems like a potential problem to me.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Anyway, I'm sure this isn't a problem for them, but it's still funny as hell. So lighten up.
--t
Correct me if i'm wrong, but what if the vaporized debris or some piece of rock or whatever stick to the mirror? that would render it non-reflective and then it would burn up very fast; Maybe there is a way to keep it clean, i don't know, someone enlighten me!
Main source: Lasers and Electro-Optics, Davis, Cambridge Editor.
Unless all of them have underground coal fires, he is talking about Centralia, PA.
Having read the article, I still feel it's a little foolish to fire a big fat laser near combustibles. Since they're drilling for oil, wouldn't it be a Bad Thing for the laser to actually heat up the underground oil and ignite it ? This seems so obvious that they must have considered it in the laser design, but the risk is still there and I wouldn't want to see the chaos effect caused by igniting an underground oil patch.. the gas pressure would probably fsck up the landscape pretty quickly and nastily. Of course my high school physics and chemistry classes aren't exactly fresh in my mind anymore.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
-JS
Vanity of vanities, all is vanity...
Using a laser to drill for flammable liquids and gases, seems a bit too much like using a match to find the gas leak.
For example, a full tank of jet-fuel in an aircraft is pretty much non-flammable. The tank contains liquid Jet-A and Jet-A vapour, but not a lot of oxygen. The mixture is far too rich to burn. A spark in that situation would just...spark.
However, a fuel tank containing very little fuel, but having plenty of oxygen (or other oxidiser) is basically a bomb. A spark in that situation (as is the probable cause with TWA-800) will cause a powerful explosion, even though there's only a tiny fraction of fuel compared to the tank when it's full.
A stochiometric mixture burns most vigorously. That's what you try and obtain in your car's combustion chambers. Stochiometric means the fuel/oxidiser ratio is just right such that the available fuel matches the amount of available oxygen.
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
If some company makes an engine powered by water, we will be saved. Otherwise, we're all screwd.
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
To create an equilibrium, I am sure Goldfinger will attacj James Bond with some old-fashioned mining equipment next.
Sig (appended to the end of comments I post, 54 chars)
Forget explosions, think about the massive changesof feet below the surface. Any downhole laser drilling system is going to have to be able to take some serious abuse. They don't call them "kicks" for nothing. The article doesn't even touch on this issue.
Why not? I see no reason that they can't run pipes down as they drill to evacuate gasses and dust as the rock is vaporized
Also it is very difficult to drill down and then sideways, as is common with current methods. Without this facility, the oil rig or platform is useless once the oil below has been used upMaybe, but I would think there would be a way to drill at an angle, maybe with some high grade reflective joints. I'm not an optical physicist though
Conventional drilling also places a pipe as the bit moves forward, cementing the drill hole. With this system the hole must be "burned" and then a pipe forced down. This process will negate any speed gains in the actual drillingOnce again there is no reason the pipes can't be pushed through the hole as you go, keeping the speed gains
As x approaches total apathy I couldn't care less.
Actually, following your idea, that would be a very clean way to drill the surface of planets in the quest for water. Think of Mars... Think of Europe, one of Jupiter's moons which is supposed to hide an ocean which could be warmed by the effects of Jupiter's gravity on the satellite and which could hide life. If they can make a powerful yet small source of energy to feed the laser though...
É que os desafinados também têm um coração
what if the laser touches the oil? will it explode? that would be fun :)
-- There are two kind of sysadmins: Paranoids and Losers. (adapted from D. Bach)
Anyone mirrored the www.gri.org/laser link? It's not that it crawls, just getting the HTML is near-impossible, all images are broken (it also complains about my browser)...no way I can get to the "cool video clip"....
Thanks (and think of all the karma you'll get posting a mirror! :)
Wouldn't this be the ideal drill to use for getting into Lake Vostok? Scientists have been looking for a way to get into the underground lake without polluting it for a few years now. Surely a laser wouldn't pollute the lake at all.
They could drill to within a few centimeters of the lake and then send down a probe. The probe could disinfect itself at the bottom of the hole before bashing through the rest of the rock to get into the lake, take samples and do tests.
You've got mail. Pattern baldness. - Crow
say a natural gas pocket? FIRE IN THE HOLE!!
actually, i do have a degree in chemistry. if you are a student of the sciences, you should realize that a -huge- portion of the earths oxygen is bound in minerals. what do you think will happen to that oxygen when the minerals are vaporized? as a student of natural sciences, you should also realize what happens when a gas under pressure suddenly finds itself vented. it's going to come out. after it rushes out, there will be a vacuum created, and guess what will rush in? and if we're talking lasers capable of vaporizing metals, you no longer are speaking of simple combustion, but you enter into plasma theory. who different ballgame than dropping a match down a water well, my friend.
and of course carbon can burn underground. i leave 100 miles from a town where there's been an underground coal fire for the last 50 years. we -can't- figure out a way to extinguish it. look up centralia.
interesting. almost everything is going to reflect light, to some degree. as far as i know, we've not discovered any black bodies in the mantle of the earth. a laser powerful enough to melt and vaporize rock certainly will have the effect of generating enough heat to surpass the flash point of a short chain carbon gas. vaporization of the rock will certainly liberate oxygen. lightening is in contact with a struck object for 1/10's of a second, which often results in a huge explosion. i've been nearby objects struck before, and they certainly do end up in a fireball. imagine what a 70 second, 2.2MW laser beam would do, compared to a 1/10 second touch.
Anyway, I'm sure that a better use of Megawatt lasers is in nuclear fusion which promises a much cleaner source of energy than oil.
Fools! The real point of this tecnhology is to bury nuclear devices deep beneath the earth's crust; the present nuclear payload of the US (which I'm sure all slashdotters agree we want to largely dispose of anyway, yes?) is _more_ than enough to dig a hole, half a mile across, all the way through the mantle, IF you can get the bombs anywhere you want. Which, thanks to this technology, you can.
Now, the process will release huge amounts of vaporised rock, I grant. Oxidised rock, by the way, SiO2, is a hugely potent greenhouse gas - at temperatures around the surface of the sun! SiO2 is _quartz_ people. It is NOT A GAS. The borehole will also release large quantities of greenhouse gases, but mostly it will release dust and ash; countering the greenhouse effect.
Anyway, you dig it in baha california, below sea level, and then you run a trench to it. You build turbines over the hole and collect the water (for use in agriculture.) The electricity from the borehole, about half of it, goes to maintaining a nearby smelting plant which has to recast the turbines continuously (as they're coated in heavy metal deposits) but you still make an electric profit. A HUGE one. AND you make a great deal of agricultural grade water (no, I'm not expecting people to drink it.)
Sam
I'm pretty sure the top item stands for a hat trick - a common Hockey term that stands for three goals.
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I have been wondering for a month what this command does, If you don't mind could you fill me in ?
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This souds very good for drilling at sea. They can just throw the laser overboard (with some cables for I/O and electricity). Now they have to use stiff metal bores. How do waves and storms affect the metal bores used today? I imagine a storm could move the rig dozens of meters to the side, bending the bore. The tubes used to get the oil/gas back up are propable more flexible. So, to me it seems that this allows oil drilling at deep sea. The source of energy for the laser might be a problem, but I'm not sure of this. I couldn't find anything about how much maintenance this laser bore needs, so that is another potential problem.
However, I would like to hear some opinions from engineers.
I wonder if there were ever any that had a negative pressure, such that when drilling went through, workers were immediately sucked down the tube.
Kind of like those ice waterfall climbers who break through to the water inside and get pulled into the waterfall inside the ice column.
I am for the complete Trantorization of Earth.
Has anyone told Dr. Evil yet?
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www.lucernesys.comHorizon: Calendar-based personal finance
Don't sweat it, at least you can spell your name properly ( as opposed to the unwashed masses who spell it 'Ian') :)
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www.lucernesys.comHorizon: Calendar-based personal finance
Enough already with the statements about Global Warming - the science is unproven and politically charged. Before we keep repeating it to ourselves over and over, lets be sure that the science is sound. The so called scientific reports from the IPCC are not peer reviewed and are unreliable. In the meantime - keep drilling for the black stuff!
Firstly conventional drilling technology employs fixed drill bits, which use water and suction to remove rock debris. This system has no such facility for that.
Also it is very difficult to drill down and then sideways, as is common with current methods. Without this facility, the oil rig or platform is useless once the oil below has been used up
Conventional drilling also places a pipe as the bit moves forward, cementing the drill hole. With this system the hole must be "burned" and then a pipe forced down. This process will negate any speed gains in the actual drilling
I don't understand how the intense heat created by the lasers wouldn't just ignite the oil as soon as the hole hit a deposit? Yes, get your popcorn but make sure you bring sunglasses
- Corners are no problem, because the system uses fiber optics.
- They are claiming no need for pipe to line the borehole:
I'm skeptical about #2, because a ceramic lining will be far more brittle, fragile and harder to make consistent than steel. On the other hand, I suppose that you could get clever with curled-up pieces of steel sheet, drop them down the hole, unwrap them so that they are set firmly against the borehole and then laser-weld them together to build a lining in place. You could use the same technique to place and weld patches to existing bore liners.--
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Scientists restrict study to entire physical universe; creationist
Flash point is meaningless in an atmosphere which will not support combustion.
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Scientists restrict study to entire physical universe; creationist
Gasoline does form a mixture in enclosed spaces which is too rich to ignite. Jet fuel (and diesel fuel) do not; especially when warm, they create vapors which are in the combustible range of concentration. Jet fuel tanks are usually vented to keep the vapor concentration below the combustible range, but this is not a sure thing. I'm betting that the next move is to purge them with either CO2 or nitrogen and make the vapor concentration irrelevant. (When the aircraft is at jet cruising altitudes, the skin is very cold and any fuel which can cool to near-skin temperatures will be too cold to create a combustible mixture.)
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If you want motive power for free-running vehicles, wind power is only good for charging batteries (and we all know how crappy batteries are compared to a tankful of gas). The lousy density of hydrogen makes it not a whole lot better. However, nothing says you can't have a hybrid car that tops off its batteries whenever you're at a plug and uses the batteries to boost its fuel-burning efficiency by 50% or more. We can do that today. Heck, we could have had that in full production five years ago. We could have had 90-MPG passenger cars here except that they all seem to use direct-injection diesels and you can't get one to pass the EPA emissions tests any more.
No kidding about popular paranoia about all things nuclear. Know why Magnetic Resonance Imaging is now the favored term? It's because Nuclear Magnetic Resonance makes the ignorant masses all uneasy.
Brazil spent a bunch of money converting cars to run on domestically-produced ethanol instead of imported oil. They'd probably be game for something like this. I think you just contradicted yourself there.There was an article on harnessing the energy of warm ocean-surface water in a magazine a few years ago, but I'm having no luck at all finding it in their issue index otherwise I'd point you at it. Would you believe 23 gigawatts per unit and hurricane-abatement benefits besides? The only problem is that you can't do anything like this in a small way, you have to make a few really big ones and the learning curve is a bitch even if the cost of money is no object (same problem fusion has, minus the fast neutrons).
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I tried to go and fetch the video and I was brushed off by an automated message...
"The page requested was not found or may be restricted to GTI's website subscribers."
Interesting - it is located in a
Then I wrote to the web administrator using the provided email address and got in return a mail loop problem user not found error return to sender type message.
For people who develop a star wars laser with billions of dollars in government cheese and end up with an invention for the rapist Alaska destroying Bush subsidized oil companies and they can't even manage giving out a file via the web or receiving mail properly.
Legalize the constitution. Think for yourself question authority.
Still, the movie was pretty cool!
Spiffy Tiffany!
A little while ago there was an article saying scientists have been sucessful at stopping light. Why not put this together with the MIRACL, freeze a bunch of laser pulses from a big laser that wouldn't otherwise fit down a tube, and ship them wherever you need to do the drilling.
In fact, why not just use them elsewhere too? As charges in a pistol - blasters here we come.