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Drilling For Oil With Megawatt Lasers

Posted by michael on from the lasers-do-it-hotter dept.

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?

9 of 151 comments (clear)

  1. What about the mud? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3

    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?

  2. Alan Parson's Project by zCyl · · Score: 3

    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...

  3. Re:Lake Vostok by rde · · Score: 3

    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.

  4. Heh, it's a weapon alright... by Feng · · Score: 5

    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!
  5. Not A Particularly Useful Application by geomon · · Score: 3
    We've been discussing using laser ablation techniques for drilling at the USDOE Hanford Site since I arrived here in 1991. The advantages of using a laser over air or mud rotary drilling techniques in highly contaminated source areas makes a lot of sense. The downside is that you have difficulty in keeping the hole open while you advance the laser 'drill'. As has been pointed out, mud (or more precisely, bentonite) is used to carry rock fragments away from the bit face and maintain a constant flow of debris moving up the borehole. With laser ablation, the borehole would be kept open using tubular steel (carbon steel) casing; the casing moving just a couple of feet behind the lasar drill.

    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!"
  6. Fossil fuels aren't inevitable by fhwang · · Score: 5
    It looks like we'll be stuck with fossil fuels like oil and natural gas for some time ...

    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?

  7. I can see it now... by lowe0 · · Score: 5

    "No, Mr. Tux... I expect you to die..."

  8. More details on MIRACL by Vireo · · Score: 5
    MIRACL stands for Middle Infrared Advanced Chemical Laser. As its name implies, it is indeed a chemical laser, that is, one that gets the lasing medium excited with a chemical reaction instead of a more conventional current source or flash lamp. The structure of MIRACL is really one of a reactor, with the starting material being C2H4 (ethylene), NF3 and helium. This mixture is burnt to provide free fluorine atoms that reacts with injected deuterium molecules further down the stream. This reaction is really violent, so that the laser is in a perpetual explosion state. Vibrationnally excited deuterium-fluorine molecules in the produced supersonic flow thus constitutes the lasing medium. So you now have to put mirrors and windows inside this reactor to get your laser. One of my profs said once "I don't understand why they use chemical lasers as lasers; they would be much more efficient as bombs".

    Main source: Lasers and Electro-Optics, Davis, Cambridge Editor.

  9. Re:Potential Problem by bmongar · · Score: 4
    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

    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 up

    Maybe, 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 drilling

    Once 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.